VSTS Test Integration Known Issues

1. The Unit Test check-in policy cannot be used on team projects with multiple solutions.
Details: When multiple Visual Studio solutions are associated with the same team project, setting a Unit Test check-in policy for that team project will cause check-ins to fail.
Workaround: Do not set a Unit Test check-in policy for a team project that has more than one Visual Studio solutions associated with it.

2. Editing the link to an unpublished test causes the bug form to throw an exception.
Details: When you change the link to test results from the bug form, the bug form throws an exception if the test results have not been published.
Workaround: If you receive this exception, remove the invalid link from the bug form. To avoid this exception, publish the results before creating the bug or do not change the link.

3. Coverage Analysis Service is writing an event log warning when a build is deleted.
Details: Deleting a build that has tests published against it will cause the Coverage Analysis Service to write an event log warning.
Workaround: Ignore the event log warning.

4. Unable to publish test results when the client is logged in as a local user not recognized by Team Foundation Server.
Details: Trying to publish test results when the Visual Studio user is not recognized by Team Foundation Server will fail, even though Team Foundation Server does not ask you for valid credentials when it tries to publish test results.
Workaround: Run Visual Studio as a user recognized by Team Foundation Server.

VSTS Team Project Portal Site Known Issues

1. Team project portal site links to Exit Criteria and Issues List reports point to incorrect reports.
Details: In both MSF for CMMI Process Improvement and MSF for Agile Development projects, the links to the Exit Criteria and Issues List reports on the team project portal site point to incorrect reports. If a user runs these reports, they will see the Work items report instead.
Workaround: Open these reports from the Reports folder on the Windows SharePoint Services portal instead of using these links.

VSTS TF Work Item Tracking Known Issues

1. Unable to query fields that start with a number.
Details: Field names that start with a number (for example, "2005Field") are truncated to include the number only (for example, "2005").
Workaround: Enclose fields that start with a number in square brackets (for example, "[2005Field]").

2. Query for long-text fields that contains SQL noise words will return empty result without any error.
Details: When you use the Contains operator to query a long-text field, work item tracking performs a SQL Server full-text query on the work item database. The full-text query excludes SQL noise words such as “a”, “of” and non-alphanumeric characters. An empty result list is returned when you use this kind of query that contains SQL noise words.
Workaround: Remove SQL noise words from the query.

VSTS TF Version Control Known Issues

1. Cannot perform case-only rename on a folder if any child is locked.
Details: Users cannot perform a case-only rename on a folder if they have any items locked under the folder.
Workaround: Rename the folder to something different, perform a check-in, and then rename the folder to the original name with the desired case.

2. Difference command: IgnoreCase parameter does not work in some codepages.
Details: If Team Foundation source control stored encoding for a file is a DBCS codepage (such as Shift-JIS), the command-line difference command (tf difference /noprompt) will not ignore case correctly when specified by using /ignorecase.
Workaround: If the file contains no double-byte characters, use the /type parameter to specify an SBCS codepage (for example, /type:ASCII). If the file does contain double-byte characters, either avoid using the /ignoreCase parameter, or configure a third-party diff tool (using "tf difference /configure") which correctly supports case-insensitive comparisons in DBCS codepages.

3. No commands are available in Source Control Explorer.
Details: If the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server plug-in is not associated with the Visual Studio IDE, some source control features will not be available. For example, when you right-click inside the working area of Source Control Explorer, “No Commands Available” is displayed.
Workaround: Associate the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server plug-in with the Visual Studio IDE by following these steps:

1. Start Visual Studio. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. Expand Source Control and click Plug-in Selection.
3. In the Current source control plug-in box, click Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.
4. Click OK.

4. Renaming a project folder in Solution Explorer causes files to be marked read/write without checkout.
Details: When you rename a project folder in Visual Studio using Solution Explorer, files in that folder, such as datasets or resources, may be marked read/write and have changes written to them without performing a checkout. This issue affects any files that have a custom tool assigned to them and do not have a custom tool namespace.
Workaround: When renaming a project folder, you are prompted with the name of each file that is being modified. After the project folder is renamed, manually check out those same files.

5. Cannot get files, shelvesets, or changesets from Version Control by date.
Details: If you install the application tier on a machine or account with Regional Settings that have a "." as the time separator (for example, Italian), you will experience the following error when trying to get a file by date: "Database error (SQL Error 241) ---> conversion of type string to datetime failed".
Workaround: Change the regional settings of the account under which the worker process is running (this is on the application tier machine).To do this you have to determine under which user account the worker process is running, by following the steps below:

1. Click Start.
2. Right-click on My Computer, then select Manage.
3. Expand the Services and Applications node.
4. Expand the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager node.
5. Expand the Application Pools node.
6. Right-click on the TFS AppPool node and select Properties.
7. The desired user account name can be found in the Identity tab.

You then need to change the Regional Settings of the above user account to any date/time format that does not use the "." as the time separator. For example, change the Regional Settings to English (United States) and restart IIS.

6. Version Control does not support alternate data streams.
Details: You create a file with an alternate data stream. However, when you add it to Version Control and checked it in, the alternative data stream was lost.
Workaround: None.

VSTS TF Server Known Issues

1. Team Foundation Server is unavailable over the Internet through HTTP, when you use Basic or Digest authentication.
Details: Team Foundation client applications, such as Team Explorer, access Team Foundation Server functionality through a collection of Web services hosted on Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0. The initial RTM release of Team Foundation Server only supports Integrated Windows Authentication. This allows for clients to use their Windows credentials to access this functionality. Basic and Digest authentication are not supported currently.
Workaround: You can use a virtual private network (VPN) if your scenario requires accessing Team Foundation Server from outside the local intranet. Alternatively, and subject to your own risk analysis, you may opt to expose your Team Foundation Server to the Internet and require encrypted connections (for example, HTTPS using SSL/TLS); however, you may be held back by proxies on the client side of the equation, such as those provided by Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

2. Team Foundation Japanese Edition - Links within text e-mail Team Foundation alerts received for check-ins can display error messages.
Details: You can subscribe to text or HTML e-mail check-in alerts. The check-in e-mail you receive has links to different files in the solution you are checking in. If you subscribed to text e-mail alerts, clicking a link to various file types (for example, .aspx, .cs, or .sln) might display a "Page not Found," "Index was out of Bounds," or "Path Longer than 260 Characters" error message.
Workaround: Use HTML e-mail check-in alerts instead of text e-mail check-in alerts.

3. Slow Network Performance.
Details: Creating team projects, running CQConverter.exe or VSSConverter.exe, checking in files, and other Team Foundation Server network related activities are running unnecessarily slow.
Workaround: The client network card configuration may be causing slow network performance. For more information, see the knowledge base article "The effects of using auto detect settings on cluster network interface card" (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/174812).

4. Encoding for XML, .XSL, .WIQ, and .RDL files.
Details: If you edit XML, .XSL, .WIQ, or .RDL files using Notepad and save using CRTL+S, the default encoding used is ANSI. This will cause problems if the files contain non-ASCII characters.
Workaround: When editing any .XML, .XSL, .WIQ or .RDL files in a Process Template, make sure to save them with the "UTF-8 with signature" encoding (if editing with Visual Studio) or "UTF-8" (when using Notepad). Other editors might vary in behavior and you should make sure the files are saved with a UTF-8 encoding and a Byte Order Mark (BOM or signature) at the beginning of the files. The presence of the BOM can be detected by checking the first three bytes of a file. They should be EF BB BF (hex).

5. You receive the following error in the event log: "Unrecognized default notification from address."
Details: This message should read as follows: The configured "from address: $1" for project alerts is not a valid or recognized e-mail address. Users will not receive project notification e-mail messages until the "emailNotificationFromAddress" property in the application-tier services web.config file is changed to a valid e-mail address.
Workaround: Reconfigure the e-mail services notification so that it contains a valid e-mail address.

6. SMTP Server Invalid default 'From' address error in event log.
Details: During installation, if the SMTP server is not specified, the installation will default to the application-tier server. If the “emailNotificationFromAddress” is not set then the application event log will list the error, “Invalid default ‘From’ address.”
Workaround: To correct this problem, edit the Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server\Web Services\Services\web.config file to either specify a valid "emailNotificationFromAddress" value, or if project alerts are not being used, specify an empty “smtpServer” value. In the web.config file, change the following line:
" />
to:

7. Resetting Microsoft Excel's List toolbar item causes exception.
Details: After you insert an ID bound listobject, if you reset the List toolbar, and then click anywhere outside the listobject, a COM exception is thrown. The error message "TF80069: Team Foundation experienced an error when updating the data in the application" displays every time that you click outside the listobject.
Workaround: Save your changes to the Excel worksheet on the local computer, close, and then reopen Excel. You can publish your changes and continue to use the Excel worksheet without the error displaying again.

8. Team Foundation command line tools do not prompt for alternate user credentials.
Details: Team Foundation command-line tools run in the context of the current user. If you are not authorized to access the Team Foundation Server, you will get a message saying that you are not authorized to access the server. In most cases you will not be prompted to supply alternate credentials.
Workaround: Use the "runas" functionality to provide alternative credentials that are authorized to access the Team Foundation Server. Note that this is only available on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. One of the tools that prompts for alternate credentials (if you are not authorized to access the Team Foundation Server) is tf.exe. However, you must first use Team Explorer to prompt for alternate credentials by trying to connect to Team Foundation Server before tf.exe will connect properly.

9. TfsAdminUtil SID command does not allow the domain\account format to list account information.
Details: Running the TfsAdminUtil SID command to display information about a specified account using the domain\account format will always return zero matches even if the specified domain\account exists in the system. This is contrary to the help information provided by TfsAdminUtil, which specifies incorrectly that the domain\account format must be used.
Workaround: Specify the account name without the domain qualifier, and TfsAdminUtil SID will return all users in the system with that account name.

VSTS TF Converters Known Issuess

1. VSS Converter cannot migrate subfolders in a Visual SourceSafe database that contain files older than their parent folders.
Details: VSSConverter cannot migrate subfolders in a Visual SourceSafe database that contains older files that were restored from an archive creating files that predate their parent folders. VSSConverter works in chronological order and cannot migrate files in this condition because the parent folders are not created before the files they contain. Move or rename operations can make the problem worse.
Workaround: None.

2. VSS Converter cannot migrate files and folders that have name collisions caused by imprecise time stamping.
Details: In Visual SourceSafe, time stamps are recorded to the nearest second. Sometimes, a file or folder operation may have occurred within milliseconds that resulted in what appears to be a name collision based on the recorded time stamp when in fact the events occurred sequentially. When VSSConverter tries to re-create the sequence of events, it encounters the naming collision that did not actually occur in Visual SourceSafe because it tries to perform the operation at the same time.
Workaround: None.

3. Visual SourceSafe folders that have been moved and renamed many times may not migrate correctly.
Details: When a Visual SourceSafe folder has been moved or renamed many times, VSSConverter may not be able to determine the current name of the folder. Such folders, and their contents, are not migrated correctly. In the migration report, you will see the following errors: "The item already exists." and "The item could not be found in workspace."
Workaround: None.

4. VSS Converter does not migrate source control bindings.
Details: Visual Source Safe Converter does not migrate source control bindings for Visual Studio solutions. You may receive error messages related to source control bindings when you open a Visual Studio solution after migration.
Workaround: After migrating a Visual SourceSafe database, you must manually change the source control bindings for each Visual Studio solution that was migrated. For more information about manually migrating source control bindings, see the latest version of the Team Foundation Administrator’s Guide that is available on the Web at the MSDN Online site (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=52459).

5. VSS Converter appends incorrect time stamp to the comment of a migrated changeset.
Details: VSS Converter combines multiple actions into a single changeset to improve the migration performance. The time stamp for the changeset is incorrect.
Workaround: None.

6. In some scenarios, VSS Converter cannot migrate the version history of file and folders correctly.
Details: In some scenarios, VSS Converter cannot migrate the version history of files and folders correctly. When migration is complete, VSS Converter performs an additional step to affix the latest version, PINNED, and Pinned_Latest label on Team Foundation. When mismatch fixing, you may not see any output (feedback) in the console and the VSS Converter may appear to have stopped working. This is not an indication that anything is wrong and is expected behavior. After migration, the history of files that are fixed may be incorrect. Also, you may see empty folders in Source Control Explorer caused by the mismatch fix process. The summary of the mismatch fix process can be found in summary section of migration report.
Workaround: None.

VSTS TF Build Known Issues

1. Running remote tests from Team Foundation Build fail with the following error: "A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host failed to respond."
Details: When you run remote tests from Team Foundation Build, the user account used to run the build must be a member of the TeamTestControllerUser or TeamTestControllerAdmins local security accounts on the Team Test Load Agent controller computer. Also, if you use Windows Firewall (or another third-party firewall solution), MSBuild must be able to access remote computers.
Workaround: Add the user account used to run the build to the TeamTestControllerUser or TeamTestControllerAdmins local security account on the Team Test Load Agent controller computer. Also, add MSBuild to the Windows Firewall exception list on the Team Foundation Build computer.

2. Some features related to Team Foundation Build stop working after changing the Team Build Service account.
Details: If you change the account used to run the Team Build Service, you must grant the new user account some additional permissions.
Workaround: The Team Build Service account needs write permissions to the ASP.NET temp folder on the build computer.

3. Team Foundation Build operations fail when a team project is deleted and created again with the same name.
Details: If you delete an existing team project on Team Foundation Server, and then create a new team project with the same name, you will be unable to create new build types. This problem occurs because data in the local cache is not updated when the team project is deleted.
Workaround: Restart Visual Studio on the computer where you experience this issue. Or reset IIS on the application-tier computer by running iisreset at the Command Prompt window.

VSTS Team Explorer Known Issues

1. You receive error TF86001 or TF80042 when you open work items from Team Explorer in Microsoft Office Excel 2003.
Details: When You Open work items from Team Explorer in Microsoft Office Excel 2003, you may receive the error TF86001: Team Foundation was unable to load the Office AddIn. You may also receive the error TF80042: The document cannot be opened because you do not have Microsoft Excel 2003 or one of its components installed. These errors are caused when you install Team Explorer before you install Microsoft Office Excel 2003. The Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Run Time will not be configured to work correctly with Team Explorer and must be repaired.
Workaround: You must repair the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Run Time to correct this issue.

1. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Add or Remove Programs.
2. Select Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Run Time.
3. Click Change/Remove.
4. In the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Tools for Office Run Time Setup wizard, click Repair, and then click Next.

2. Changes to My Favorites are lost when you click Refresh in Team Explorer.
Details: After changes are made to My Favorites, such as adding, removing, or renaming documents, if you click Refresh in Team Explorer, the changes are lost. Changes to My Favorites are not saved to disk, even when Visual Studio is closed. Restarting Visual Studio will use the My Favorites layout that you originally created.
Workaround: None.

3. Error connecting to Team Foundation Server after it has been reconfigured or restored.
Details: After reconfiguring or restoring Team Foundation Server, Team Explorer may have difficulty connecting to the server. The error "TF31005: Team Foundation cannot retrieve the list of team projects because it cannot connect to Team Foundation Server " displays. This issue occurs because of locally cached data that is no longer synchronized with Team Foundation Server.
Workaround: Either wait for Team Explorer to automatically update (within two hours), or manually clear the local cache.
To manually clear the local cache:

1. Close Visual Studio.
2. Delete the contents of the folder:
   %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Team Foundation\1.0\Cache\
3. Start Visual Studio.
4. Add Team Foundation Server by using the updated settings.

4. Microsoft Project does not publish the time correctly for date and time fields.
Details: If the date format in Microsoft Project does not include time data, there could be a mismatch between the time displayed in a Microsoft Project task, and the time displayed in the same work item in Visual Studio.
Workaround: Use a date format in Microsoft Project that shows both the date and time.
To change the date format in Microsoft Project.

1. Start Microsoft Project.
2. On the Tools menu, click Options.
3. On the View tab, change the Date format box to a format that includes both date and time data.

5. You receive error TF30326 when you use ‘[‘ or ‘]’ in a name in the New Team Project wizard.
Details: Although they are not listed in the error message, ‘[‘ and ‘]’ are not valid symbols for names in the New Team Project wizard.
Workaround: Do not use ‘[‘ or ‘]’ when naming your team project.

6. Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Extension A and B characters are not allowed in team project names.
Details: Because of a known limitation in Windows SharePoint Services, team project portals that contain Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Extension A and B characters are not supported. Therefore, the same characters are not permitted in team project names.
Workaround: None.

7. Documentation is outdated or displays pre-release content.
Details: If you previously installed MSDN Library for Visual Studio 2005 or if you use locally installed help for Team Foundation or Team Explorer as the primary source of documentation, you might have outdated or missing Help documentation.
Workaround: Download and install the most recent edition of MSDN Library to make sure that you have the latest product documentation for Team Foundation and Team Explorer. For more information, visit the Team System Documentation Directory (http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=62213).

VSTS Reporting Known Issues

1. Credentials are not persisted when a user wants to access reports and use Team Foundation Server in a single-server, workgroup deployment.
Details: When you visit the reporting Web site in a single-server, workgroup deployment of Team Foundation Server, you are prompted for credentials on the first visit. On subsequent visits, you receive no prompt for credentials and you cannot view reports.
Workaround: Configure Internet Explorer to always prompt for user name and password in the Local Intranet Zone.

1. In Control Panel, open Internet Options.
2. On the Security tab, click Local Intranet, and then click Custom Level. The Security Settings dialog box appears.
3. In the User Authentication section, under Logon, select Prompt for user name and password, and then click OK.
4. In the Internet Options dialog box, click OK, and then restart Internet Explorer.

2. New fields in custom work items marked as reportable do not appear in the Team System cube.
Details: Sometimes, the OLAP database becomes out of sync with the relational warehouse database. When this occurs, fields added to custom work item types do not appear in the Team System cube, even though they are configured as reportable in the work item type definition.
Workaround: On the application tier, invoke the Run method of the Warehouse Web services on: http://localhost:8080/Warehouse/v1.0/warehousecontroller.asmx?op=Run

3. After you customize a work item type, false errors from the Work Item Tracking adapter appear in the event log: "Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTrackingAdapter: Unrecognized field type 160 in the Work Item Tracking database."
Details: If you customize the definition of a work item type, you may find errors in the event log that indicates that the Work Item Tracking adapter in the data warehouse found an unrecognized field type. These errors are being generated incorrectly.
Workaround: You can safely ignore these errors.

4. SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services fails when you try to slice the Work Item History Count measure by the Area classification while manually selecting members.
Details: If you use Microsoft Excel and the Office Web Components (OWC) to analyze the data cube, you may experience the following error when you add a Work Item History Count and then select or clear one or more Areas: "Internal error: An unexpected error occurred (file 'mdsubcube.cpp', line 2632, function 'MDBaseSubcube::NormalizePCKeys')".
Workaround: None.

5. Reports are not updating despite sufficient elapsed time.
Details: If an English edition of SQL Server 2005 is installed on an operating system that is using non-English regional settings, reports are not automatically updated because of a known issue. In the Application event log on the Team Foundation Server application-tier computer, you may find a cube process run-time error that indicates the conversion of a char data type to a datetime data type resulted in an out-of-range datetime value.
Workaround: Change The warehouse web.config file on the Team Foundation Server application-tier computer that is located at %ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server\Web Services\Warehouse\web.config, and add the following key in the section:

6. The Quality Indicators and the Reactivations report process guidance does not match the report.
Details: The Quality Indicators and the Reactivations reports were updated after the final release updates for the process guidance. Therefore, the images in the process guidance do not match the reports.
Workaround: Ignore the images in the process guidance. Look at the actual report to see how it looks.

7. There are no dates on the X-axis when I examine the following reports: Bug rates, Reactivations, Remaining Work, Unplanned Work.
Details: When the Internet Explorer language settings differ from the Team Foundation Server product language, there is bug that hides the dates on the X-axis.
Workaround: Switch the language settings of Internet Explorer to match the language of Team Foundation Server.
The steps:

1. In Internet Explorer, select the Tools menu and click Internet Options.
2. Click Languages.
3. Click Add and choose the Team Foundation Server product language.

VSTS Administration Known Issues

1. Granting only the Administer Shelveset permission does not add a user or group to the Team Foundation Valid User group.
Details: If you add a Windows user or group and only set to Allow any Version Control permissions at the server or project level, such as the "Administer Shelved Changes" permission, they will not be added to the Team Foundation Valid Users group. If they are not a member of the Team Foundation Valid Users group, they cannot connect to Team Foundation Server.
Workaround: Because the Team Foundation Valid Users group cannot be manually changed, you must either add the user or group to an existing group (to inherit permissions of the existing group) or explicitly grant the user or group another server-level or project-level permission (for example, View Server-level Information) in addition to the Administer Shelveset permission. This extra permission will add them to the Team Foundation Valid Users group.

2. You receive the following message when you run TfsAdminUtil ChangeAccount for the TFSReports service account: "Remember to add new account: domain\TFSReports to Team Foundation Service Accounts group by using TFSSecurity - Team Foundation Server Security Tool."
Details: When You Use TfsAdminUtil to change the TFSReports service account, the final message generated by TFSAdminUtil ChangeAccount is incorrect. However, this message is relevant when you change the TFSService account.
Workaround: None. Ignore the message. Do not add the TFSReports service account to the Team Foundation Service Accounts group.

3. You can no longer build projects in Visual Studio after uninstalling Team Foundation Server.
Details: If the Visual Studio IDE and Team Foundation Server are installed on the same computer, and you uninstall Team Foundation Server, the Visual Studio IDE may be broken. You may see various errors when you try to build a project in the Visual Studio IDE.
Workaround: Repair or reinstall Visual Studio from Control Panel.

4. Workgroup Edition: Users cannot connect to Team Foundation Server.
Details: Users attempting to connect to Team Foundation Server Workgroup Edition receive the following error: TF31001: Team Foundation cannot retrieve the list of team projects from Team Foundation Server. The Team Foundation Server returned the following error: The request failed with HTTP status 403: Domain\User is not a licensed user...
Workaround: Workgroup Edition limits access to Team Foundation Server by checking that the user is a member of the "Team Foundation Licensed Users" application group. This is a special server-level application group with no permissions, and is used only by the Workgroup Edition. A Team Foundation Server administrator must add the user to this group in order for them to have access to Team Foundation Server. Note that the user still needs to be added to another Team Foundation Server application group to be granted permission to access the server and have various levels of functionality.

5. Workgroup Edition: Upgrade to Full Edition does not remove the "Team Foundation Licensed Users" group.
Details: After upgrading from Workgroup Edition to the Full Edition, when opening the server-level groups dialog (Server->Team Foundation Server Settings->Group Membership), the "Team Foundation Licensed Users" group is still present on the server.
Workaround: The full edition of the server ignores the "Team Foundation Licensed Users" group. Note that this group cannot be removed because it is a special application group.

6. Re-installing Team Foundation Server must be done with the same service account as the original installation.
Details: Re-install fails if you are user a different service account than when you installed Team Foundation Server.
Workaround: If you need to change the service account, re-install with the original service account and then run TfsAdminUtil ChangeAccount to change the service account.

7. After renaming a single server machine, the TFS Web services no longer appear to work.
Details: After renaming a single server machine Team Foundation Server no longer works, even after running TfsAdminUtil ActivateAT and TfsAdminUtil RenameDT. The NT event log will contain numerous errors that suggest that the remote server name could not be resolved. The issue is that the Web service to Web service calls will still be using the old single server name.
Workaround: When renaming the single server machine that contains the application tier and data tier, you need to update the values for TfsNameUrl and TfsName on the top level web.config under (%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server\Web Services\). You also need to update the BisDomainUrl and change its name to TfsNameUrl in TfsServerScheduler.exe.config file.