How to avoid Remove-Item PowerShell errors "process cannot access the file"?

Question

We are using TfsDeployer and PowerShell script to remove the folders using Remove-Item before deployment of a new version. Sometimes the PS script fails with the error:

Remove-Item : Cannot remove item Services\bin: The process cannot access the file Services\bin' because it is being used by another proc Get-ChildItem -Path $Destination -Recurse | Remove-Item <<<< -force -recurse + CategoryInfo : WriteError: (C:\Program File..\Services\bin:DirectoryInfo) [Remove-Item], IOException FullyQualifiedErrorId : RemoveFileSystemItemIOError,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand

I’ve tried to follow the answer (from: Force-remove files and directories in PowerShell fails sometimes, but not always) to pipe Get-ChildItem -Recurse into Remove-Item.

Get-ChildItem * -Include *.csv -Recurse | Remove-Item

But the error still happens periodically. We are using unlocker to manually kill the locking application, (it’s usually w3wp), but I prefer to find automated solution.

Another (not ideal) option is to-suppress-powershell-errors

 Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue

Any suggestions are welcome.

does unlocker tell you what its doing as in is the problem the same everytime it executes? — tony roth, Feb 11 '12 at 01:35
Unlocked shows that the folder is locked by some application - usually w3wp and allow me to kill the app. — Michael Freidgeim, Feb 17 '12 at 22:50

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited Oct 22 '19 at 16:26

3

Late, but someone might find this useful.

In an automation script, I recurse through processes to find any that is using the path of the directory I want to delete, and kill them.

Sometimes other apps might be locking a file, so I used process explorer to find handle/dll. If is ok to kill the app, I add the kill to the script.

Then remove the dir.

        get-process | foreach{
          $pName = $_
          if ( $pName.Path -like ( $INSTALL_PATH + '*') ) {
            Stop-Process $pName.id -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
          }
        }
       Remove-Item  -Force -Recurse $INSTALL_PATH

edited Oct 22 '19 at 16:26

sysadmin1138

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answered Jun 18 '15 at 11:32

jessarah

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The approach you describe sounds very interesting to me, 'cause that's exactly the kind of functionality I've been dreaming to use for this problem. Still, are you sure there are no side effects? And again, after `Stop-Process`, aren't you worried that you should restart them? – Ifedi Okonkwo Jun 07 '16 at 14:08
@jessarah I want to `rm` a `file`, not a `dir`, so I set `$install_path = file1.xls`. It closed nearly all my apps in `windows 10` but the file was not removed. However, I could then remove it. – Timo Aug 25 '20 at 14:35

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 10 '22 at 23:09

1

You could inspect the errors given by the Remove-Item cmdlet. Use the ErrorVariable parameter on Remove-Item to store its errors in a variable, then loop through it, only displaying the errors you want, like this:

Get-ChildItem * -Include *.csv -recurse | ForEach-Object {
    $removeErrors = @()
    $_ | Remove-Item -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable removeErrors
    $removeErrors | where-object { $_.Exception.Message -notlike '*it is being used by another process*' }
}

edited Oct 10 '22 at 23:09

Michael Bray

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answered Aug 01 '13 at 20:28

splattered bits

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You should add `-force`. – Timo Jul 30 '20 at 08:37
This is simpler, no `foreach`: `Get-ChildItem $ziel -recurse | Remove-Item -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable removeErrors -Force;$removeErrors | where-object { $_.Exception.Message -notlike '*it is being used by another process*' }` – Timo Jul 30 '20 at 08:43

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 06 '12 at 15:20

0

Well as it's a web application that's locking the file, why don't you do an iisreset /stop before removing the item, and then iisreset /start afterwards?

answered Aug 06 '12 at 15:20

Dominic Cronin

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Unfortunately, we have many sites on the server, so stop IIS is not an option, but I will check, how to stop/start single pool. – Michael Freidgeim Dec 14 '12 at 11:32

How to avoid Remove-Item PowerShell errors "process cannot access the file"?

3 Answers3