The test controller may be unavailable, or it may

Question

Today we try to deploy one tfs lab environment from template. But failed with following error:

Error in deploying the environment. Could not connect to the following test controller [Test Controller server]. The test controller may be unavailable, or it may be the incorrect version. Check the status and version of your test controller and then try again

tfs 2012

Answer 1

Root case is: that we have installed VSTS 2013. And use MTM 2013 to do Lab Environment deploy. TFS test controller is 2012. So if we use MTM 2012 instead, the issue is gone.

Answer 2

Microsoft Test Manager will display this error if the test controller is for a different version of Visual Studio. You can either upgrade the test controller to match the version of MTM or downgrade MTM to match your test controller.

According to the MSDN topic TFS Compatibility and Dependencies you can mix and match 2012 and 2013 versions of TFS, MTM and the Test Controllers/Agents -- the combinations are still supported but you may get the error stated in the question. (I would quote it here but it is just a couple of tables which aren't easily supported here on SO.)