How do you get the response from a 404 page requested from powershell

Change your catch clause to catch the more specific WebException, then you can use the Response property on it to get the status code:

{  #...} catch [System.Net.WebException] {    $statusCode = [int]$_.Exception.Response.StatusCode    $html = $_.Exception.Response.StatusDescription}

BrokenGlass gave the answer, but this might help:

try{  $URI='http://8bit-museum.de/notfound.htm'  $HTTP_Request = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($URI)  "check: $URI"  $HTTP_Response = $HTTP_Request.GetResponse()  # We then get the HTTP code as an integer.  $HTTP_Status = [int]$HTTP_Response.StatusCode} catch [System.Net.WebException] {    $statusCode = [int]$_.Exception.Response.StatusCode    $statusCode    $html = $_.Exception.Response.StatusDescription    $html}$HTTP_Response.Close()

Response:check: http://8bit-museum.de/notfound.htm404Not Found

another approach:

$URI='http://8bit-museum.de/notfound.htm'try {  $HttpWebResponse = $null;  $HttpWebRequest = [System.Net.HttpWebRequest]::Create("$URI");  $HttpWebResponse = $HttpWebRequest.GetResponse();  if ($HttpWebResponse) {    Write-Host -Object $HttpWebResponse.StatusCode.value__;    Write-Host -Object $HttpWebResponse.GetResponseHeader("X-Detailed-Error");  }}catch {  $ErrorMessage = $Error[0].Exception.ErrorRecord.Exception.Message;  $Matched = ($ErrorMessage -match '[0-9]{3}')  if ($Matched) {    Write-Host -Object ('HTTP status code was {0} ({1})' -f $HttpStatusCode, $matches.0);  }  else {    Write-Host -Object $ErrorMessage;  }  $HttpWebResponse = $Error[0].Exception.InnerException.Response;  $HttpWebResponse.GetResponseHeader("X-Detailed-Error");}

if i understand the question then $ErrorMessage = $Error[0].Exception.ErrorRecord.Exception.Message contains the errormessage you are looking for. (source: Error Handling in System.Net.HttpWebRequest::GetResponse() )

Another simple example, hope this helps:

BEGIN{    # set an object to store results    $queries = New-Object System.Collections.ArrayList    Function Test-Website($Site)    {        try        {            # check the Site param passed in            $request = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $Site        }        catch [System.Net.WebException] # web exception        {            # if a 404            if([int]$_.Exception.Response.StatusCode -eq 404)            {                $request = [PSCustomObject]@{Site=$site;ReturnCode=[int]$_.Exception.Response.StatusCode}            }            else            {                # set a variable to set a value available to automate with later                $request = [PSCustomObject]@{Site=$site;ReturnCode='another_thing'}            }        }        catch        {            # available to automate with later            $request = [PSCustomObject]@{Site=$site;ReturnCode='request_failure'}        }        # if successful as an invocation and has        # a StatusCode property        if($request.StatusCode)        {            $siteURI = $Site            $response = $request.StatusCode        }        else        {            $response = $request.ReturnCode        }        # return the data           return [PSCustomObject]@{Site=$Site;Response=$response}    }}PROCESS{    # test all the things    $nullTest = Test-Website -Site 'http://www.Idontexist.meh'    $nonNullTest = Test-Website -Site 'https://www.stackoverflow.com'    $404Test = Test-Website -Site 'https://www.stackoverflow.com/thispagedoesnotexist'    # add all the things to results    $queries.Add($nullTest) | Out-Null    $queries.Add($nonNullTest) | Out-Null    $queries.Add($404Test) | Out-Null    # show the info    $queries | Format-Table}END{}

Output:

Site                                               Response     ----                                               --------     http://www.Idontexist.meh                          another_thinghttps://www.stackoverflow.com                      200          https://www.stackoverflow.com/thispagedoesnotexist 404