The WSMan provider host process did not return a proper response

This post describes one way to fix the error: The WSMan provider host process did not return a proper response.

Issue

When retrieving data from a remote machine using PowerShell, you see errors such as:

'The paging file is too small for this operation to complete.'

'Not enough storage is available to complete this operation.'

'The WSMan provider host process did not return a proper response.  A provider in the host process may have behaved improperly.'

Screenshot from XIA Configuration

Cause

This error can occur when the MaxMemoryPerShellMB value on the remote machine is not high enough to allow a proper response to be returned.

Resolution

To check the MaxMemoryPerShellMB setting, run the following on the remote machine you are trying to retrieve data from using PowerShell:

Get-Item WSMan:\localhost\Shell\MaxMemoryPerShellMB

On my Windows Server 2016 virtual machine, this error occurred when the value was set to 25.  To set a new value, run the following:

Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Shell\MaxMemoryPerShellMB %VALUE% -Force

The default value on my Windows Server 2016 virtual machine is 2147483647.