'��' is not recognized as an internal or external command

[tivanov-qb]

Issue: '��' is not recognized as an internal or external command

This is happening in "type": "windows-shell" and it's inconsistent.. it may occur once on 10 times. This time it happened while trying to install nssm package.. and this looks like winrm communication problem.. I'm almost sure that nobody in this team gives a fuck about the issues (given the response time and how issues are automatically closed due to inactivity), but I will still try..

13:44:19 1691405058,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: C:\Users\vagrant>choco install octopusdeploy.tentacle -y
13:44:19 1691405059,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: Chocolatey v2.2.0
13:44:19 1691405059,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: Installing the following packages:
13:44:19 1691405059,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: octopusdeploy.tentacle
13:44:19 1691405059,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: By installing%!(PACKER_COMMA) you accept licenses for the packages.
13:44:21 1691405061,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: Progress: Downloading OctopusDeploy.Tentacle 7.0.68... 100%
13:44:21 1691405061,,ui,message, amazon-ebs:
13:44:21 1691405061,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: OctopusDeploy.Tentacle v7.0.68 [Approved]
13:44:21 1691405061,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: OctopusDeploy.Tentacle package files install completed. Performing other installation steps.
13:44:22 1691405062,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: Downloading OctopusDeploy.Tentacle 64 bit
13:44:22 1691405062,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: from 'https://download.octopusdeploy.com/octopus/Octopus.Tentacle.7.0.68-x64.msi'
13:44:22 1691405062,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: Progress: 100% - Completed download of C:\Users\vagrant\AppData\Local\Temp\chocolatey\OctopusDeploy.Tentacle\7.0.68\Octopus.Tentacle.7.0.68-x64.msi (7.19 MB).
13:44:22 1691405062,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: Download of Octopus.Tentacle.7.0.68-x64.msi (7.19 MB) completed.
13:44:26 1691405065,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: Hashes match.
13:44:26 1691405065,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: Installing OctopusDeploy.Tentacle...
13:44:30 1691405069,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: OctopusDeploy.Tentacle has been installed.
13:44:30 1691405069,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: OctopusDeploy.Tentacle may be able to be automatically uninstalled.
13:44:30 1691405069,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: The install of OctopusDeploy.Tentacle was successful.
13:44:30 1691405069,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: Software installed as 'msi'%!(PACKER_COMMA) install location is likely default.
13:44:30 1691405069,,ui,message, amazon-ebs:
13:44:30 1691405069,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: Chocolatey installed 1/1 packages.
13:44:30 1691405069,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: See the log for details (C:\ProgramData\chocolatey\logs\chocolatey.log).
13:44:30 1691405069,,ui,say,==> amazon-ebs: Provisioning with windows-shell...
13:44:30 1691405069,,ui,say,==> amazon-ebs: Provisioning with shell script: /var/tmp/windows-shell-provisioner1701371036
13:44:30 1691405070,,ui,message, amazon-ebs:
13:44:30 1691405070,,ui,error,==> amazon-ebs: '��' is not recognized as an internal or external command%!(PACKER_COMMA)
13:44:30 1691405070,,ui,message, amazon-ebs: C:\Users\vagrant>��
13:44:30 1691405070,,ui,error,==> amazon-ebs: operable program or batch file.
13:44:30 1691405070,,ui,say,==> amazon-ebs: Provisioning step had errors: Running the cleanup provisioner%!(PACKER_COMMA) if present...
13:44:30 1691405070,,ui,say,==> amazon-ebs: Terminating the source AWS instance...

{
  "type": "windows-shell",
  "inline": ["choco install octopusdeploy.tentacle -y"]
},
{
  "type": "windows-shell",
  "inline": ["choco install nssm -y"]
},

Using latest docker packer version - hashicorp/packer

[tonysathre]

Having the same issue with version 1.8.6 on Windows using an inline windows-shell provisioner:

provisioner "windows-shell" {
  inline = [
    "echo Updating group policy",
    "gpupdate /force",
    "echo Requesting certificates",
    "certutil -pulse"
  ]
}

[Moazzam300]

Having same issue while running windows shell provisioner and it happens intermittently just like users are experiencing above. Really annoying and leaves a bad experience.
Running packer version 1.9.4

[nywilken]

Thanks for bubbling up this issue. It looks like it could be some sort of encoding issue at first glance. Maybe even a hidden character from a copy/paste. To help us better understand what might be happening here could you share details about the Windows version you are using and a sample template for reproducing the issue.

@tonysathre do you have a log of the issue occurring?

It would be good to see which line in the windows-shell commands is throwing the error.

[nywilken]

It looks like this exact issue was reported before #5651 with no resolution other than using an older version of Packer which could imply an older version of winrm external package as mentioned by @tivanov-qb.

As a workaround have you tried uploading a batch file or maybe using Powershell?

[tivanov-qb]

the workaround so far is to add additional lines in the template

{
  "inline": [
    "Get-Host"
  ],
  "type": "powershell"
},    

this prevents packer from returning the above error, so my conclusion on it is it's winrm timeout issue..