Submitting large Perforce change lists fails: Failed to post changes to TeamCity server

Symptoms

Triggering a personal build on a large Perforce change list using the TeamCity Visual Studio Add-in fails with the following error:

Failed to post changes to TeamCity server. No builds were queued.

The issue is reproduced only for large change lists. Smaller change lists trigger personal builds successfully.

Cause

The issue is likely caused by the size of the POST request generated for large change lists, which exceeds the configured limit for either the TeamCity server's Tomcat instance or the reverse proxy (if configured).

Resolution

1. Examine Server Logs:

   • Check the logs of the proxy and TeamCity to confirm whether the issue is related to exceeding the maximum allowable POST request size. The goal is to understand whether the request reaches the TeamCity server at all.
   • Relevant TeamCity logs:
     • teamcity-rest.log
     • teamcity-server.log
     • catalina.out / catalina.log

2. Modify server.xml for the bundled Tomcat:

   • Locate the server.xml file in the conf directory of the TeamCity installation.

   • Update the maxPostSize attribute of the connector to a higher value (default is 2MB). See also this Tomcat documentation article for reference.

     <Connector port="..." ... maxPostSize="5242880" /> <!-- Example: 5MB -->
     

   • Restart the TeamCity server after saving changes.

• If a reverse proxy is used in front of the TeamCity server, adjust the corresponding settings of the proxy server accordingly.