Robocopy is not working in PowerShell

Question

I am trying to run a robocopy script in PowerShell so I can insert it into my other PowerShell script:

$SERVERPATH = "E:\Cisco Config Backups"
$NETWORKPATH = "\\SERVER\Cisco Config Backups"
robocopy $SERVERPATH $NETWORKPATH /E /XC /XN /XO /R:0 /W:0 /COPY:T /LOG:C:\logs\robocopy_logs\config_copy.log /TEE /NP

However when I run this code I see robocopy working where it gives me the following output: ROBOCOPY :: Robust File Copy for Windows

  Started : Thursday, June 30, 2016 1:52:56 PM
  Source : E:\Cisco Config Backups
  Dest : \\SERVER\Cisco Config Backups

  Files : *.*

  Options : *.* /TEE /S /E /DCOPY:D /COPY:T /NP /XO /XN /XC /R:0 /W:0

But nothing gets copied over, I want to use robocopy for the logging and so I can have it skip files that already exist.

Please let me know if I am doing anything wrong.

Tony Hinkle Tony Hinkle · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-30T19:01:15

The /COPY:T criteria is specifying to only copy file timestamps, so it is not copying the actual data of the file. However, since there are no files on the destination to copy the timestamps to, nothing happens.

You need to specify at least /COPY:DT so that the file data will be copied, but you can probably just remove the /COPY switch completely as you likely want the file attributes as well, which will get copied by default along with the file data and timestamps.

From robocopy /?:

/COPY:copyflag[s] :: what to COPY for files (default is /COPY:DAT).  
                    (copyflags : D=Data, A=Attributes, T=Timestamps).  
                    (S=Security=NTFS ACLs, O=Owner info, U=aUditing info)

You also need to review all of the switches you are using as some are conflicting--not sure what robocopy does in those cases. As Matt points out in the comment below, you have /E and /S. Do you want to copy empty subdirectories or not? /E specifies to copy empty directories, but /S specifies to NOT copy empty directories.

Robocopy is not working in PowerShell

1 Answers