Timeouts in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 control the length of time a certain command can run on the server or the max size of requests to your server. You may need to increase (or decrease) these timeout limits from time to time in your CRM deployment to facilitate solution import, allow large reports to be run, or allow a large request to be sent into CRM.

The default timeout lengths were created by Microsoft to ensure that malicious and/or poorly written statements do not cripple the server, ensuring all users can access and use CRM. If a statement is taking too long to run or a request is too large, CRM will 'timeout' the operation, effectively 'cancelling' it.

Microsoft has made it possible for administrators to change the default lengths of these timeouts. The below table identifies the various timeouts that CRM uses, the default timeout length and where the timeout setting is stored.

The above timeout values can be changed by simply editing the appropriate values in the CRM Application Server registry or editing the Application Server's web.config file. As always with editing registry files or a web.config, be sure to create a backup of the file before you make modifications to it 🙂

If you need some additional assistance relating to timeouts/limits in CRM 2011 please contact the CRM experts at PowerObjects and we will be glad to assist you!

Thanks and happy CRM'ing!