Areas and Iterations Not Updating in TFS 2008

So I was setting up a new TFS 2008 install for a hosted scenario and then just when I thought I was done, and the client setup the first TFS Project, we realized a major problem, the Areas and Iterations would not update. 

Now when you see this issue, there is one of two things that will generally cause it:

1. The update subscripitions are not running (consistantly or at all)
2. The update subscriptions are going to the wrong place
3. The update subscriptions are not working (failing)

In the first case, this is easy to fix by looking into the Jobs in SQL Server in the case it is not working at all.  If they are not running all the time, try an "iisreset" on the AT and see if it goes away, otherwise, look at this post towards the end and you will find some ideas.

In the second case, there is an easy SQL Server query that can do it, "SELECT * FROM TfsIntegration.dbo.tbl_subscription WHERE delivery_type = 2".  If the result is now what you would expect, then do a "TfsAdminUtil ActivateAT" command on the AT (in the Tools folder) and your issue should be fixed.

In the final case, look at the event log and try google for the TFxxxxxx errors, there are ALOT of reasons this can happen.  In my case, I was having an issue with IWA working with the webservice.  My AT's "name" was an external FQDN (http://tfs.test.com:8080) but the routing on my internal network was messing it up.  I am sure not using SSL did not help much.