Troubleshooting Fun with the Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity cmdlet

The Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity cmdlet is a great command for testing Active Sync connectivity with a device.  This can be used to test Active Sync connectivity with any user in your domain.  You may have issues using this command however and the example commands provided in the Get-Help in powershell are wrong.  For example the powershell help instructs administrators to enter the users UPN or DomainNetBIOS\Username format for the MailboxCredential parameter.

Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity -UseAutodiscoverForClientAccessServer $true -URL "http://contoso.com/mail" -MailboxCredential pauls@contoso.com

However the MailboxCredential parameter requires the full credentials including username and password of the user account in which your attempting to test.  Not doing so will result in the following error.

Cannot process argument transformation on parameter 'MailboxCredential'. Cannot convert the "jag" value of type "System.String" to type "System.Management.Automation.PSCredential".
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidData: (:) [Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity], ParameterBindin...mationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentTransformationError,Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity

To specify both the username and password along with the Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity cmdlet you can use the Get-Credential cmdlet, for example:

Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity -MailboxCredential (Get-Credential domain\username) -UseAutodiscoverForClientAccessServer

This command above will work.  What I also noticed is in the powershell help it mentions to use the $true switch for the UseAutodiscoverForClientAccessServer parameter.  You must not use the $true switch when running the command, if you do the command does not process correctly and you will receive this error:

Cannot bind positional parameters because no names were given.
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity], ParameterBindingException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : AmbiguousPositionalParameterNoName,Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity

So in summary, whenever you need to test Active Sync for an individual user within your domain, this is the command you need.

Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity -MailboxCredential (Get-Credential domain\username) -UseAutodiscoverForClientAccessServer