Test-ModuleManifest working sporadically on v6.1.0-preview.2

If it is a bug report:

make sure you are able to repro it on the latest released version. I'm able to reproduce it in the latest version.
You can install the latest version from https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases
Search the existing issues. Tried that. No open issues matched. Allthough this closed one is quite similar Test-ModuleManifest fails on manifest from New-ModuleManifest #6676
Refer to the FAQ. not related to this issue
Refer to the known issues. no known issues matches this one
Fill out the following repro template:

Steps to reproduce

PS > pwsh
PS > Test-ModuleManifest -Path /reposDir/MyModule/Builds/BuildOutput/Mymodule/MyModule.psd1 -Verbose

N.B. This is a sporadic issue.

As I have been troubleshooting this I worked on it in the morning. Then when I come home, my laptop hibernating, the exact same command might work again.
In VS Code I have setup a build task which basically copies the necessary module files, leaving .gitignore, logs and other files I don't want included when publishing the module. If I run the Test-ModuleManifest cmdlet against the files that was written via the "build" task. It might fail. However, if I run Test-ModuleManifest against the .psd1 file in the root of the repo it might work. And vice versa.
I have read > https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd878337(v=vs.85).aspx ...
I compared my manifest against the manifest of public and solid modules such as Pester and Plaster. I cannot see any issues with my manifest. And! As I've stated, sometimes Test-ModuleManifest works on the MyModule.psd1 manifest. Without me chaning anything in the MyModule.psd1 file.
I've tried to execute Import-Module on both the MyModule.psm1 and the MyModule.psd1 files and they successfully import.
For good meassure here is the manifest of my module. Which Test-ModuleManifest sometimes an test successfully and sometimes not.

@{

    # Script module or binary module file associated with this manifest.
    RootModule = 'MyModule.psm1'

    # ID used to uniquely identify this module
    GUID = 'c1e187cd-222f-4df6-8238-88f90f0284ff'

    # Version number of this module.
    ModuleVersion = '0.0.12'

    # Author of this module
    Author = 'https://github.com/larssb | https://bengtssondd.it'

    # Company or vendor of this module
    CompanyName = 'Bengtsson Driven Development'

    # Copyright statement for this module
    Copyright = '(C) https://github.com/larssb | https://bengtssondd.it. All rights reserved.'

    # Description of the functionality provided by this module
    Description = 'A project containing helper functions and other utilities to make your life programming PowerShell easier.'

    # Functions to export from this module, for best performance, do not use wildcards and do not delete the entry, use an empty array if there are no functions to export.
    FunctionsToExport = @(
        'Add-ScheduledTask'
        'get-environmentOS'
        'get-hostname'
        'Get-PSProgramFilesModulesPath'
        'Get-PublicFunctions'
        'Get-xScheduledTask'
        'initialize-log4net'
        'New-ScheduledJob'
        'out-functionHierarchy'
        'Set-xScheduledTask'
        'start-externalSoftware'
        'test-powershellRunMode'
        'import-jsonFile'
        )

    # Cmdlets to export from this module, for best performance, do not use wildcards and do not delete the entry, use an empty array if there are no cmdlets to export.
    CmdletsToExport = @()

    # Variables to export from this module
    #VariablesToExport = '*'

    # Aliases to export from this module, for best performance, do not use wildcards and do not delete the entry, use an empty array if there are no aliases to export.
    AliasesToExport = @()

    # Private data to pass to the module specified in RootModule/ModuleToProcess. This may also contain a PSData hashtable with additional module metadata used by PowerShell.
    PrivateData = @{

        PSData = @{

            # Tags applied to this module. These help with module discovery in online galleries.
            # Tags = @()

            # A URL to the license for this module.
            # LicenseUri = ''

            # A URL to the main website for this project.
            # ProjectUri = ''

            # A URL to an icon representing this module.
            # IconUri = ''

            # ReleaseNotes of this module
            # ReleaseNotes = ''

            # Flag to indicate whether the module requires explicit user acceptance for install/update/save
            # RequireLicenseAcceptance = False

            # External dependent modules of this module
            # ExternalModuleDependencies = ''

        }
    }
}

Expected behavior

That Test-ModuleManifest does not throw (as long as you really have a valid manifest file)

Actual behavior

Throws: Test-ModuleManifest : The module manifest 'MyModule' could not be processed because it is not a valid PowerShell module manifest file. Remove the elements that are not permitted: /reposDir/MyModule/Builds/BuildOutput/Mymodule/MyModule.psd1
At line:1 char:1
+ Test-ModuleManifest -Path /MyModule/Builds/BuildOutput/Mymod ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (/MyModule/MyM...d.psd1:String) [Test-ModuleManifest], ArgumentException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Modules_InvalidRootModuleInModuleManifest,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.TestModuleManifestCommand

Environment data

OS: MacOS
OS v.: 10.13.5 Beta

PS > pwsh
PS > $PSVersionTable
Name                           Value
----                           -----
PSVersion                      6.1.0-preview.2
PSEdition                      Core
GitCommitId                    v6.1.0-preview.2
OS                             Darwin 17.6.0 Darwin Kernel Version 17.6.0: Fri Apr 13 19:57:44 PDT 2018; root:xnu-4570.60.17.0.1~3/RELEASE_X86_64
Platform                       Unix
PSCompatibleVersions           {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}
PSRemotingProtocolVersion      2.3
SerializationVersion           1.1.0.1
WSManStackVersion              3.0

Any help is appreciated. Thank you very much.

Dongbo Wang (@daxian-dbw)

/cc Dongbo Wang (@daxian-dbw)

This is not a recent regression. It repros in PS Core 6.0.1.

Lars Bing Bong. (@larssb)

Test-ModuleManifest : The module manifest 'MyModule.psm1' could not be processed because it is not a valid PowerShell module manifest file.

Lars Bing Bong. (@larssb) I tried your .psd1 on my machine, and it failed because it Test-ModuleManifest cannot find the root module file MyModule.psm1. The fact that you observe this failure inconsistently might suggest that the MyModule.psm1 file is not deployed by the "build" task when Test-ModuleManifest runs.

But I do think the behavior of Test-ModuleManifest is not right in this case, see it's result:

PS:13> Test-ModuleManifest .\test.psd1
Test-ModuleManifest : The module manifest 'MyModule.psm1' could not be processed because it is not a valid PowerShell module manifest file. Remove the elements that are not permitted: F:\tmp\test.psd1
At line:1 char:1
+ Test-ModuleManifest .\test.psd1
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (.\test.psd1:String) [Test-ModuleManifest], ArgumentException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : Modules_InvalidRootModuleInModuleManifest,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.TestModuleManifestCommand


ModuleType Version    Name                                ExportedCommands
---------- -------    ----                                ----------------
Binary     0.0.12     test                                {Add-ScheduledTask, get-environmentOS, get-hostname, Get-P...

The error message should be improved to mention it could be the file is not found. And, should that be an terminating error? The returned result incorectly indicates the module is a binary module ...

Dongbo Wang (@daxian-dbw)

Hi Dongbo Wang (@daxian-dbw),

Thank you for troubleshooting and sorry for the late reply.

Hmm...:

The *.psm1 file is included in the build output.

In order to correctly test it don't you have to:

Have a folder named as the module. So have the "MyModule.psm1" file in a folder named MyModule. And also have the .psd1 file named MyModule.psd1 as well.

And agree any error message improvements, and those can be had, would be great.

Thank you.

Any news on this?

Dongbo Wang (@daxian-dbw)

Dongbo Wang (@daxian-dbw), I'm experiencing similar behavior, if not the same as Lars Bing Bong. (@larssb) has mentioned. Currently I'm working on PowerShellGet #294 issue for Update-ModuleManifest which uses Test-ModuleManifest internally.

When I'm stepping thru Update-ModuleManifest, I'll introspect the data going into Test-ModuleManifest and it looks good. But the data that it returns is missing or strangely in some cases, reverted to previous values.

After glancing into Test-ModuleManifest source code several times I have a couple of questions.

What's the need for checking multiple files in the directory of this cmdlet's Path parameter, while it seems to test just one? These comments and if statements.
Also, Update-ModuleManifest performs several IO operations and in doing so creates a temp file (with .psd1 extension) in the same directory as the file to be updated. Is this something that should be considered risky when using Test-ModuleManifest? Because it seems that Test-ModuleManifest is retrieving data perhaps somewhere else in some cases as Lars Bing Bong. (@larssb) and I have noticed. And risky considering my 1st question.
And finally, what's the intention of Import-PowerShellDataFile command? Should that be used instead of Test-ModuleManifest for accessing data? I see in PowerShellGet source code that Test-ModuleManifest is used to access data for its output. Which seems weird considering its verb name, 'Test'.

Hopefully that is explained clearly, if not please let me know.

I believe I have run into this issue on PowerShell v5 and I don't think it's a recent regression. I think it's been buggy since PowerShell v2.

The crux of the problem is the C# code inherits from ModuleCmdletsBase class, which is apparently stateful.

See my bug report in Powershellget here https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShellGet/issues/321#issuecomment-419614919

Suffice to say, this could be a major security vulnerability.

How do I test against older versions of PowerShell? I believe I can 100% reproduce this issue, and that it is not at all "sporadic" in nature. The issue is that ModuleCmdletBase caches stuff stupidly, and is poorly written and/or doesn't make sense when you're doing local development on a new module.

John Zabroski (@jzabroski)

John Zabroski (@jzabroski) Could you please add simple repo steps?

Dongbo Wang (@daxian-dbw)

Dongbo Wang (@daxian-dbw), Lars Bing Bong. (@larssb): Re improving the error message: please see #6683

Dongbo Wang (@daxian-dbw)

In addition to the debatable behavior mentioned by Dongbo Wang (@daxian-dbw) - that a module-info object is still output even if the specified manifest is invalid - here's a simple reproduction that shows the unexpected statefulness of Test-ModuleManifest mentioned by John Zabroski (@jzabroski):

Setup:

# Create folder 'tmpModule' with a manifest and module of the same name.
New-ModuleManifest (Join-Path (New-Item -Force -Type Directory tmpMod) tmpMod.psd1) -RootModule tmpMod.psm1 -function foo
'function foo { "foo" }' > tmpMod/tmpMod.psm1

At this point, Test-ModuleManifest succeeds.

Test-ModuleManifest tmpMod/tmpMod.psd1  # OK

Now, make the RootModule entry invalid and change the version number, and then run Test-ModuleManifest again:

# Note that a RootModule entry without .psm1 extension is *currently* invalid,
# even though it shouldn't be - see https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/issues/8388
# Using the same *base name*, however, is a prerequisite for 
# making the caching problem show.
((Get-Content ./tmpMod/tmpMod.psd1) -replace '^RootModule = .*', 'RootModule = "tmpMod"' -replace '^ModuleVersion = .*', 'ModuleVersion = "0.0.9"') | Out-File  ./tmpMod/tmpMod.psd1

Now run Test-ModuleManifest again, which should now fail:

 # !! In the same session: succeeds unexpectedly, due to caching.
Test-ModuleManifest tmpMod/tmpMod.psd1

While the output reflects the changed version number, the fact that the RootModule entry is now "invalid" was missed - see #8388

To verify that the manifest is now indeed invalid, open a new PowerShell session and run the last command again.

Ilya (@iSazonov)

Ilya (@iSazonov) I don't need to outline repro steps. Just look at how BAD this code is:

PowerShell/src/System.Management.Automation/engine/Modules/ModuleCmdletBase.cs

Lines 345 to 352 in 79f21b4

    
           if (found) 
        
           { 
        
               // Cache the module's exported commands after importing it, or if the -Refresh flag is used on "Get-Module -List" 
        
               if ((module != null) && !module.HadErrorsLoading) 
        
               { 
        
                   AnalysisCache.CacheModuleExports(module, Context); 
        
               } 
        
           }

The ONLY way to clear your AnalysisCache is to restart PowerShell.exe - good luck getting rid of bug reports that PowerShell sucks if people cannot reliably build modules in it. I realize this was done to speed up powershell, but I keep pointing out to Microsoft engineers they are going about improving performance the wrong way.

Michael Klement (@mklement0)

Michael Klement (@mklement0) Thank you. I humbly suggest I owe you a beer, for simply doing your job correctly.

@TheIncorrigible1 DId you read me notes on this issue?

Basically, the issue is that the Module Analysis cache cannot be fully disabled. The only solution is to continuously close and re-open your terminal by creating new sessions / runspaces.

John Zabroski (@jzabroski)

John Zabroski (@jzabroski)
DId you read me notes on this issue?

Yes, I read your responses, but the only thing that worked for me was using Get-Module -Refresh.

The only way to clear your module analysis cache is to close your pwsh.exe process. This will terminate the cache, since the cache is in-process and not global to the OS. I'm not sure why Get-Module -Refresh worked for you - are you able to consistently reproduce that behavior?

John Zabroski (@jzabroski)

John Zabroski (@jzabroski) Again, didn't work. None of the remediation worked except what I noted. It wasn't consistent that it resolved the issue; I ended up manually changing the call to the cmdlet to use Import-PowerShellDataFile instead.

@TheIncorrigible1 I think I see the nuance - in your case, you've installed a module locally, and you are using Import-Module YourModule -Force to clear the old module from the local disk cache (as opposed to memory cache)? Do I have it right? I think the painful part for me is that -Verbose on these commands is not helpful

John Zabroski (@jzabroski)

John Zabroski (@jzabroski) Please follow Code of Conduct Be respectful.

This issue has not had any activity in 6 months, if this is a bug please try to reproduce on the latest version of PowerShell and reopen a new issue and reference this issue if this is still a blocker for you.

This issue has been marked as "No Activity" as there has been no activity for 6 months. It has been closed for housekeeping purposes.

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Test-ModuleManifest working sporadically on v6.1.0-preview.2 #6818

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	if (found)
	{
	// Cache the module's exported commands after importing it, or if the -Refresh flag is used on "Get-Module -List"
	if ((module != null) && !module.HadErrorsLoading)
	{
	AnalysisCache.CacheModuleExports(module, Context);
	}
	}

Test-ModuleManifest working sporadically on v6.1.0-preview.2 #6818

Description

Steps to reproduce

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Actual behavior

Environment data

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iSazonov commented on May 4, 2018

daxian-dbw commented on May 8, 2018

daxian-dbw commented on May 11, 2018

larssb commented on May 17, 2018

larssb commented on Jun 13, 2018

marckassay commented on Jul 11, 2018

jzabroski commented on Sep 9, 2018

jzabroski commented on Sep 12, 2018

iSazonov commented on Sep 13, 2018

mklement0 commented on Dec 3, 2018

mklement0 commented on Dec 3, 2018

jzabroski commented on Dec 3, 2018

jzabroski commented on Dec 3, 2018

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jzabroski commented on Apr 2, 2019

morsley commented on Apr 2, 2019

jzabroski commented on Apr 2, 2019

morsley commented on Apr 3, 2019

jzabroski commented on Apr 3, 2019

iSazonov commented on Apr 4, 2019

microsoft-github-policy-service commented on Nov 16, 2023

microsoft-github-policy-service commented on Nov 16, 2023

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microsoft-github-policy-service commented on Nov 23, 2023

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