Update to Lync call handling script

Articles in the "Lync call handling script" series

Trigger something whenever you’re on a Lync call
Update to Lync call handling script [This article]
Lync call handling script updated

Yesterday I discovered that my Lync call handling script breaks when the Lync client is closed. I thought I had tested it and found that the client didn’t actually need to be running for the Lync client class object to be created and used. Not only was I wrong about that, but the existing client class object becomes invalid when Lync is closed. I suppose it isn’t that big of a deal to say that you need to rerun the script if you close Lync (and not run it until after Lync has been started), but I took it as a challenge to overcome that need.

I need to know both when Lync has started and when it has been closed. I started with the ClientState enumeration used in the LyncClient class. Since I already have an event for the client state, I figured I could act when the ShuttingDown state occurs. Uh, no, since that state never happens when Lync is running as an interactive process, but only when you are programmatically running Lync without a UI. The client state becomes Invalid when Lync is closed, so then I thought I could act when that state occurs. Also no, since an event doesn’t fire when the state becomes Invalid. I am now forced to look outside of the Microsoft.Lync.Model namespace.

What I decided to do is monitor the Lync process itself. I moved the creation of the client object into a function that can be called as needed, instead of just the one time when the script is run.

function Connect-LyncClient
	{
	$i = 1
	do
		{
		#Attach to Lync process, if running
		$lyncProcess = [System.Diagnostics.Process]::GetProcessesByName('communicator')
		if ($lyncProcess.Length -eq 0) #Process is not running
			{
			if ($i -eq 1) #Report status only on first attempt
				{
				Write-Host "$((Get-Date).ToLongTimeString()) - Waiting for Lync process to start (15-second intervals)..." -ForegroundColor Yellow
				}
			$i++
			Start-Sleep 15
			}
		}
	until ($lyncProcess.Length -eq 1)

	#Register for when Lync process exits
	Register-ObjectEvent -InputObject $lyncProcess[0] -EventName "Exited" -SourceIdentifier "LyncProcessHandler" -Action {LyncProcess-Handler} | Out-Null

	#Wait for client object initialization to complete
	do
		{
		$global:client = [Microsoft.Lync.Model.LyncClient]::GetClient()
		}
	while ($client.State -eq [Microsoft.Lync.Model.ClientState]::Invalid)
	}

function Connect-LyncClient

{

$i = 1

{

#Attach to Lync process, if running

$lyncProcess = [System.Diagnostics.Process]::GetProcessesByName('communicator')

if ($lyncProcess.Length -eq 0) #Process is not running

{

if ($i -eq 1) #Report status only on first attempt

{

Write-Host "$((Get-Date).ToLongTimeString()) - Waiting for Lync process to start (15-second intervals)..." -ForegroundColor Yellow

}

$i++

Start-Sleep 15

}

until ($lyncProcess.Length -eq 1)

#Register for when Lync process exits

Register-ObjectEvent -InputObject $lyncProcess[0] -EventName "Exited" -SourceIdentifier "LyncProcessHandler" -Action {LyncProcess-Handler} | Out-Null

#Wait for client object initialization to complete

{

$global:client = [Microsoft.Lync.Model.LyncClient]::GetClient()

}

while ($client.State -eq [Microsoft.Lync.Model.ClientState]::Invalid)

}

The function checks to see if the communicator.exe process is running. If not, it will check every 15 seconds to see if it is. When the process has started, an event is registered that will fire when the process has exited. Now that the process has started, the client can be created. The LyncProcess-Handler function that is called by the event action unregisters the script events and then calls the above function to start the monitoring of the Lync process again. This way the script only has to be run once and it will accommodate whether Lync isn’t running in the first place and if it closes later.

The original code that creates the initial event registrations for contact activity and client state have also been moved into a function so it can be called again whenever the Lync process is started.

The script has been updated (available below), as well as the full version that is included in the body of the first post.

Monitor-LyncSelfActivityChange.zip (640.5 KiB)