[Solved] TF271001: Connection Timed Out Type SmtpException

Error

TF271001: The server response was: 4.4.1 Connection timed out type SmtpException. 
TFS Email Notifications Delayed or Not Sent

Root Cause

Following are the reasons why this error can occur

• SMTP server is down or not responding
• Email notification time/delay has been wrongly set
• Team Foundation Background Agent has stopped
• There is a huge backlog of emails pending to be sent out

Solution

The default delay in notifications is 2 minutes.  If you are experiencing more than 2 minutes of delay, you can check for following solutions –

First you should check for availability of SMTP server or if there is a backlog on SMTP server.  Clear the backlog, if exists, and then wait for the backlog in the database to clear. 

You may have to check for availability of a Team Foundation Background Agent service.  You can click on Start menu (or keyboard button) and type services.msc If the Team Foundation Background Agent has stopped, you can restart it.  Alternatively, you can use following command on Command Prompt to check the status

sc query "TFSJobAgent" | find "RUNNING"

If the issue still does not resolve, you may want to change the email notification time using one of the two methods.  After implementing any of these 2 methods, please restart the TFS IIS AppPool and Background Agent service

• PowerShell script to reduce email notification time – please read through entire article to understand how notifications work
• Using tfsreg tool (TFS MVP – Neno Loje) [prerequisite: a version of Team Explorer should be installed on your machine]

You can manually clear the backlog in the TFS database by firing delete commands ontbl_EventNotification and tbl_ClientEvent tables.