Explanation:

You can build the Visual Studio 2012 later versions in TFS 2012 build environment by configurating the 'ToolPath' property in the TFS 2012 build xaml file.

Solution:

Open the TFS 2012 build xaml file with the same Visual Studio version (i.e VS 2012) to edit the 'ToolPath' property as below and save the xaml to build.

Visual Studio 2012 ToolPath

On 32-bit machines : C:\Program Files\MSBuild\12.0\bin
On 64-bit machines : C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\12.0\bin

Visual Studio 2015 ToolPath
On 32-bit machines : C:\Program Files\MSBuild\14.0\bin
On 64-bit machines : C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\14.0\bin

Exception:

TF400167 : Installation failed for the package (tfs_sharePointExtensionsCoreRes_X64)
with thw follwoing status 0x80070652, restart state 00x0. Error : Installation failed.
Check individual package installation errors for more information. 

Explanation:

The above exception occurred while installing or upgrading the build environment to TFS 2013 update 4. 

Workaround:

Delete the folders and files under "C:\program Data\Package cache" directory and start the install again.

Error Message:

"Connection to the Team Foundation server http://servername:8080/tfs/defaultcollection has been restored." 

Solution:

• Open build notifications options window
• Deselect the build definitions that have been deleted
• Close the options window
• Open build notifications options window again
• Make sure that the deselected build definitions are disappeared from the list of build definition in build notification tool.

Build notification tool does not remove the deleted build definition automatically.

Exception:

Unable to read data from the transport connection: A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond

Explanation:

The above exception pops up when doing a Get operation on a specific file in the build environment.

WorkAround:

Perform the following steps on your build agent by opening the Team Explorer\Visual Studio IDE.

Exception:

Exception Message: TF400324: Team Foundation services are not available from the server.

Technical information (for administrator):

  Unable to connect to the remote server (type TeamFoundationServiceUnavailableException)

Exception Data Dictionary: 

AgentExecution = False

Work Around:

Perform the following steps on Build controller & agent

1. Clean user cache

• To clear the TFS client cache, delete all the contents under “C:\Users\[User]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Team Foundation\”

2. Reboot