Get-NetIPAddress does not respect $ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"

AndresGorzelany 

Based on their first paragraph, it seems they have indeed tried that.

noamlerner 

It appears to be a bug with the Get-NetIPAddress commandlet. Specifically, it's looking at the globally-scoped ErrorActionPreference variable rather than the locally-scoped version.

Here's a quick proof.

Script #1: Baseline.

Write-Output -InputObject "#1 ErrorActionPreference = $ErrorActionPreference";
Get-NetIPAddress -IPAddress 270.0.0.0;
Write-Output -InputObject "#2 ErrorActionPreference = $ErrorActionPreference";

Output #1.

Script #2: Setting ErrorActionPreference locally.

$ErrorActionPreference = "Stop";
Write-Output -InputObject "#1 ErrorActionPreference = $ErrorActionPreference";
Get-NetIPAddress -IPAddress 270.0.0.0;
Write-Output -InputObject "#2 ErrorActionPreference = $ErrorActionPreference";

Output #2.

Script #3: Setting ErrorActionPreference globally.

try
{
    $OldStopAction = $Global:ErrorActionPreference;
    $Global:ErrorActionPreference = "Stop";
    Write-Output -InputObject "#1 ErrorActionPreference = $Global:ErrorActionPreference";
    Get-NetIPAddress -IPAddress 270.0.0.0;
    Write-Output -InputObject "#2 ErrorActionPreference = $Global:ErrorActionPreference";
}
catch
{
    throw;
}
finally
{
    $Global:ErrorActionPreference = $OldStopAction;
}

Output #3.

Script #4: Using parameter defaults.

You can read more about these here:

• about_Parameters_Default_Values - PowerShell | Microsoft Learn

try
{
    $ParamSpecification = "Get-NetIPAddress:ErrorAction";

    if ($null -eq $PSDefaultParameterValues[$ParamSpecification])
    {
        $PSDefaultParameterValues.Add($ParamSpecification, "Stop");
        $RemoveParam = $true;
    }

    Write-Output -InputObject "#1 ErrorActionPreference = $ErrorActionPreference";
    Get-NetIPAddress -IPAddress 270.0.0.0;
    Write-Output -InputObject "#2 ErrorActionPreference = $ErrorActionPreference";
}
catch
{
    throw;
}
finally
{
    if ($RemoveParam)
    {
        $PSDefaultParameterValues.Remove($ParamSpecification);
    }
}

Output #4.

Conclusion

Microsoft has to fix this one. All you can control is working around it through either including -ErrorActionPreference in every single call or using one of the workarounds from scenarios three or four above.

Scenario 4 is the more graceful of the two options presented but both are just as cumbersome.

Cheers,

Lain