Refactor the module path construction code to make it more robust and easier to maintain by daxian-dbw · Pull Request #26565 · PowerShell/PowerShell · GitHub

PR Summary

There are 2 issues surfaced from #26536 that we need to address:

The error reporting in the method ReportExceptionFallback(Exception e, string header) does not write out stack trace of the exception, which makes it hard to diagnose failures like ShellCannotBeStarted.
The UpdatePath method used in module path construction doesn't handle the case where personalModulePathToUse may contain multiple paths separated by the PathSperator (user can define PSModulePath in powershell.config.json with such a value).

The fixes are:

Write out stack trace of the exception in ReportExceptionFallback(Exception e, string header), at the end.
Refactored the module path construction code to make it more robust and easier to maintain
- Removed the old existing UpdatePath method.
- Removed the old PathContainsSubstring method. Change to a difference approach that is much more efficient.
- Refactored the AddPath method and rename it to be UpdatePath
- Updated SetModulePath() to not blindly add a path separator when the environment variable PSModulePath is initially not set in all scopes.
- Call SetModulePath() in the static constructor of ModuleIntrinsics instead of the instance constructor. So, we only need to construct the module path once per process (instead of once per a new Runspace).

With the changes, PowerShell won't crash even if the personal module path is like C:\Users\marcv\OneDrive - company & name namepart2\Dokumente\PowerShell\Modules as reported in the issue.

PR Checklist

PR has a meaningful title
- Use the present tense and imperative mood when describing your changes
Summarized changes
Make sure all .h, .cpp, .cs, .ps1 and .psm1 files have the correct copyright header
This PR is ready to merge. If this PR is a work in progress, please open this as a Draft Pull Request and mark it as Ready to Review when it is ready to merge.
Breaking changes
- None
- OR
- Experimental feature(s) needed
  - Experimental feature name(s):
User-facing changes
- Not Applicable
- OR
- Documentation needed
  - Issue filed:
Testing - New and feature
- N/A or can only be tested interactively
- OR
- Make sure you've added a new test if existing tests do not effectively test the code changed

… easier to maintain

Pull request overview

This PR refactors the module path construction code in PowerShell to fix issue #26536, which involves two main problems: insufficient error diagnostics in exception fallback handling and incorrect handling of multi-path PSModulePath values from configuration files. The refactoring moves module path initialization to a static constructor, consolidates path manipulation methods, and improves error reporting by including stack traces.

Key Changes

Moved module path initialization from instance constructor to static constructor for earlier, one-time initialization
Refactored UpdatePath method (previously split between AddToPath and a wrapper UpdatePath) to handle multiple semicolon/colon-separated paths in a single call
Enhanced ReportExceptionFallback to output complete stack traces including inner exceptions
Added test coverage for PSModulePath configuration with multiple paths

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated 10 comments.

File	Description
test/powershell/Host/ConsoleHost.Tests.ps1	Added test for PSModulePath with multiple paths from config file; contains platform-specific path separator issues
src/System.Management.Automation/engine/Modules/ModuleIntrinsics.cs	Refactored module path construction: moved initialization to static constructor, consolidated UpdatePath logic, improved PathContainsSubstring with better return semantics
src/Microsoft.PowerShell.ConsoleHost/host/msh/ConsoleHost.cs	Enhanced exception reporting to include stack traces for debugging ShellCannotBeStarted errors; contains potential null reference issues

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Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated 4 comments.

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On top of ModuleIntrinsics.cs I see we define Tracer. It would be nice to add to the trace source and result path strings for more easy diagnostics.

Why not use NormalizePath method from FileSystemProvider? Then we will follow the basic PowerShell behavior regarding directory separators.
Otherwise, we could use Path.TrimEndingDirectorySeparator()

Path.TrimEndingDirectorySeparator doesn't remove duplicate trailing directory separators. It only removes the ending one. But I think it should be practically fine, and also, I favor over simplicity. We can get back to it if it turns out to be an issue.

Pull request overview

Copilot reviewed 3 out of 3 changed files in this pull request and generated no new comments.

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Ready to merge.

Ilya (@iSazonov) Thanks for the review!

… easier to maintain (PowerShell#26565)

- Note that PowerShell/PowerShell#26565 fixed the crash in 7.7 and that the patch can be dropped with 7.7 Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Print the stack trace of the ShellCannotBeStarted error

114803b

Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) mentioned this pull request Dec 3, 2025

Error when starting powershell 7.4, 7.5 or 7.6; "Index was out of range. Must be non-negative and less than or equal to the size of the collection. (Parameter “startIndex”)" #26536

Closed

5 tasks done

Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) added 2 commits December 3, 2025 15:57

Add more debug messages

ad1aa09

Guard the debug message with env var

64acf5c

microsoft-github-policy-service Bot added the Waiting on Author The PR was reviewed and requires changes or comments from the author before being accept label Dec 7, 2025

Refactor the module path construction code to make it more robust and…

866ee21

… easier to maintain

Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) changed the title [debug] Print the stack trace of the ShellCannotBeStarted error Refactor the module path construction code to make it more robust and easier to maintain Dec 9, 2025

Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) added the CL-Engine Indicates that a PR should be marked as an engine change in the Change Log label Dec 9, 2025

microsoft-github-policy-service Bot removed the Waiting on Author The PR was reviewed and requires changes or comments from the author before being accept label Dec 9, 2025

Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) marked this pull request as ready for review December 10, 2025 00:07

Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) requested review from Patrick Meinecke (SeeminglyScience), Aditya Patwardhan (adityapatwardhan) and Copilot December 10, 2025 00:07

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) December 10, 2025 00:07

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Ilya (iSazonov) reviewed Dec 10, 2025

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Address comments and check if a path already exists more efficiently

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Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) requested a review from Copilot December 10, 2025 19:48

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) December 10, 2025 19:49

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Update the XML doc for a parameter based on Copilot's feedback

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Ilya (iSazonov) reviewed Dec 11, 2025

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Address Ilya's comments

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Ilya (iSazonov) requested a review from Copilot December 11, 2025 19:18

Copilot started reviewing on behalf of Ilya (iSazonov) December 11, 2025 19:19

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Ilya (iSazonov) reviewed Dec 11, 2025

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Comment thread test/powershell/Host/ConsoleHost.Tests.ps1 Resolved

Address a comment

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Ilya (iSazonov) approved these changes Dec 12, 2025

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Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) merged commit 592668b into PowerShell:master Dec 12, 2025
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Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) deleted the debug branch December 12, 2025 17:43

Ryan Yates (kilasuit) pushed a commit to kilasuit/PowerShell that referenced this pull request Jan 2, 2026

Refactor the module path construction code to make it more robust and…

54483ac

… easier to maintain (PowerShell#26565)

Justin Grote (JustinGrote) pushed a commit to JustinGrote/PowerShell that referenced this pull request Jun 2, 2026

Refactor the module path construction code to make it more robust and…

c1fe0c0

… easier to maintain (PowerShell#26565)

Thatgfsj (Thatgfsj) pushed a commit to Thatgfsj-contribs/PowerShell that referenced this pull request Aug 6, 2026

Refactor the module path construction code to make it more robust and…

9105255

… easier to maintain (PowerShell#26565)

Christian Pfeiffer (ChrisTX) mentioned this pull request Oct 28, 2026

Error starting PowerShell 7.4.0+ #20706

Closed

5 tasks done

Christian Pfeiffer (ChrisTX) mentioned this pull request Nov 3, 2026

7.6: startup crash with a multi-path PSModulePath in powershell.config.json (fixed in 7.7 by #26565) #28306

Open

+                          // Local function to normalize a path by removing trailing directory separators.
+                          static string NormalizePath(string path)
+                          {
+                              string normalizedPath = path.TrimEnd(Path.DirectorySeparatorChar);

Refactor the module path construction code to make it more robust and easier to maintain by daxian-dbw · Pull Request #26565 · PowerShell/PowerShell · GitHub

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Refactor the module path construction code to make it more robust and easier to maintain - #26565

Refactor the module path construction code to make it more robust and easier to maintain#26565Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) merged 9 commits intoPowerShell:masterPowerShell/PowerShell:masterfrom daxian-dbw:debugdaxian-dbw/PowerShell:debugCopy head branch name to clipboard

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Refactor the module path construction code to make it more robust and easier to maintain#26565
Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) merged 9 commits into
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daxian-dbw:debug

Dongbo Wang (daxian-dbw) commented Dec 3, 2025 •
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