How can I diagnose and resolve connectivity issues with a Team Build Server 2008?

Question

I'm trying to set up a new Team Build Server for doing continuous integration, but when trying to run a build, the build fails with:

TFS215085: An error occurred while connecting to the agent [\MyTeamProject\BuildServer]: TFS30291: There was a problem on the server of an unknown cause. See the Team Foundation Server event log for details.

Then, if I go into Manage Build Agents, the status shows Unreachable with message:

The agent status has been automatically changed by the Team Build Server.

New status: 'Unreachable'

Reason: TF30291: There was a problem on the server of unknown cause. See the Team Foundation Server event log for details.

I've checked the event log on both the build server, and the TFS server, but nothing jumps out as being useful as to why there may be connection issues.

Possibly connected, but not sure; when connecting to the console of the TFS server (not the new build server); it does keep having w3wp.exe die horribly, and be prompted for debugging.

What can I do to diagnose and resolve the issue?

UPDATE:

I've tried transitioning the build service to run as a new domain account, however, I cannot even add the new user to the Build Services group for any project, with the ever helpful:

TF30291: There was a problem on the server of unknown cause. See the Team Foundation Server event log for details. Time: 2012-03-08T12:05:47:415

The application log on the server is just as helpful with:

TF53014: A crash report for this problem was recently created; a new crash report for this occurrence of the problem is not being created. This problem has occurred 4 times.

In addition, there are still messages from Team Build:

TF50309: The following account does not have sufficient permissions to complete the operation: \. Check the permissions for the account and grant the appropriate permissions to perform this operation.

The user in question has local admin rights on both TFS server, and build server.

Whilst it appears I'm not the only person that has had this issue, I'm no closer to being able to add the domain user to the Build Services groups, nor get a build server going. Any suggestions on things to check or prerequisites that may have been missed would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I think I've found the cause of the issue (at least in my case, and for Manuel Babuglia):

According to Jiange Sun:

"This is due to a design change in Windows 2008. This wasn’t an issue in Win2k3, because the OS would let us hold onto HKCU after the user logged out."

To solve the problem:

Set “Load User Profile” to True for the IIS Application Pool “Microsoft Team Foundation Server Application Pool”