start-transcript causes script to fail in a background job

Question

I am creating a powershell script as a background job using start-job which then logs it's output using start-transcript. Below is the code of both:

a

start-job  -filepath ./b.ps1 -ArgumentList 'test.txt'
wait-job *

b

param([parameter(Mandatory = $true)][string]$logfile)
Set-PSDebug -Strict
$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
start-transcript $logfile

output of ./a.ps1

Id              Name            State      HasMoreData     Location             Command                  
--              ----            -----      -----------     --------             -------                  
1               Job1            Running    True            localhost            param...                 
1               Job1            Failed     False           localhost            param...                 
2               Job2            Failed     False           localhost            param...   

Output of ./b.ps1 -log c:\test.txt

Transcript started, output file is test.txt
Transcript stopped, output file is C:\test.txt

I have also done some testing by setting "echo here" lines to confirm that is the line playing up.

Answer 1

Apparently Start-Transcript isn't supported in background jobs. If you do a Receive-Job to look at the script output you're likely to see an error like this:

This host does not support transcription.
    + CategoryInfo          : NotImplemented: (:) [Start-Transcript], PSNotSupportedException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : NotSupported,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.StartTranscriptCommand

BTW in PowerShell 2.0 I recommend you switch from Set-PSDebug -strict to Set-StrictMode -Version 2.0 - it will catch more potential errors.