Problems with Invoke-Command

Question

In my script I want to get Exchange Online distribution group members to my array $members_id.

I want to run the cmdlet Get-DistributionGroupMember on a remote server so it looks like this:

Invoke-Command -Session $Session -ScriptBlock {
    $members_id = Get-DistributionGroupMember -Identity "power_shell_test"
} -ArgumentList $members_id

After running this I get an error:

The syntax is not supported by this runspace. This can occur if the runspace is in no-language mode.

When I delete $members_id = it runs good.

Please tell me if you have an idea why it works like that.

Answer 1

I'm not quite sure why you're getting the error (it's probably because of how you opened $Session), but if you want the output of a remote command Get-DistributionGroupMember in a local variable $members_id you need to change your code to something like this:

$members_id = Invoke-Command -Session $Session -ScriptBlock {
    Get-DistributionGroupMember -Identity "power_shell_test"
}

Use -ArgumentList only if you want to pass the ID of the group whose members you want resolved into the scriptblock. You can either assign the parameters to variables inside the scriptblock with a Param() directive:

$members_id = Invoke-Command -Session $Session -ScriptBlock {
    Param($id)
    Get-DistributionGroupMember -Identity $id
} -ArgumentList $group_id

or use the automatic variable $args:

$members_id = Invoke-Command -Session $Session -ScriptBlock {
    Get-DistributionGroupMember -Identity $args[0]
} -ArgumentList $group_id

Alternatively you could access variables outside the scriptblock via the using: scope modifier:

$members_id = Invoke-Command -Session $Session -ScriptBlock {
    Get-DistributionGroupMember -Identity $using:group_id
}