Dig a little digging on this....looks like the problem is that our developer used "------------" within his changeset comment. This causes the code at line 247 of DetailedHistoryCommand (in the ChangeSetStringReader.readChangeSet method) to think that a new changeset is starting. We can fix the comment for now to avoid the problem. Is there any way to make the ChangeSetStringReader parser smarter somehow?

Here is a test that demonstrates the problem. Add this to DetailedHistoryCommandTest:

    @Bug(16208)
    @Test
    public void assertChangesetSeparatorAllowedWithinComment() throws Exception {
        StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder("-------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n" +
                "Changeset: 123456\n" +
                "User: domain\\somebody\n" +
                "Date: Dec 26, 2012 3:00:15 PM\n" +
                "\n" +
                "Comment:\n" +
                "  Some comment goes here\n" +
                "------------------------------------------------------------------\n" +
                "  more of my comment\n" +
                "\n" +
                "\n" +
                "Items:\n" +
                "  edit $/somepath/to/file\n" +
                "\n" +
                "Check-in Notes:\n" +
                "  Dependencies: none\n" +
                "  Developer Notes: none \n"
        );

        StringReader stringReader = new StringReader(builder.toString());
        DetailedHistoryCommand command = new DetailedHistoryCommand(mock(ServerConfigurationProvider.class), "$/tfsandbox", Util.getCalendar(2008, 01, 15), Calendar.getInstance());
        List<ChangeSet> list = command.parse(stringReader);
        assertEquals("Number of change sets was incorrect", 1, list.size());
    }

I am having the same issue, however the commit message is not the problem.
Also: The TFS server poller fails forever after a tfs checkin. However, if I manually run the build it will fail once, then work on the next try.

Here is the log:

Started on May 3, 2013 5:38:07 PM
[workspace] $ /Applications/TEE-CLC-10.0.0/tf history "$/Hotel Search iPhone" -noprompt -version:D2013-05-03T07:32:40Z~D2013-05-03T07:38:08Z -recursive -format:detailed -server:http://tfs2012:8080/tfs ********
Changeset: 40495
User: AAA\DavidC
Date: May 3, 2013 5:37:50 PM

Comment:
  Commit 853906c (Fri May 03 17:37:43 2013 +1000)
Author: David Clark <david.clark@hotelscombined.com>
Committer: David Clark <david.clark@hotelscombined.com>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
    version bump to test CI



Items:
  edit $/Hotel Search iPhone/HCWeb/HCWeb-Info.plist

FATAL: Parse error. Unable to find an item within a changeset.  Please report this as a bug.  Changesetdata = "
Changeset: 40495
User: AAA\DavidC
Date: May 3, 2013 5:37:50 PM
Comment:
  Commit 853906c (Fri May 03 17:37:43 2013 +1000)
Author: David Clark <david.clark@hotelscombined.com>
Committer: David Clark <david.clark@hotelscombined.com>

".
null
FATAL: Aborted
Done. Took 4.1 sec
No changes

On further investigation, the commit message is the issue:

I am using git-tf to send from my git repo to tfs. I had --metadata set to true. This converts your git commit messages like "blah" to something like:

"Commit abcdef (Tue May 21 14:19:15 2013 +1000)
Author: David Clark <david.clark@[redacted].com>
Committer: David Clark <david.clark@[redacted].com>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
blah
"

Which is causing the parse error in the polling. (Due to "---" it seems).

BTW: for anyone with a repo in this state you can fix it by:

1. git tf configure --no-metadata
2. push a change OR using team explorer, edit the last change set comment to not contain "---"

Fixed by switching to TFS SDK for Java and no longer parsing the output of the CLC.

Thank you! I no longer work on a project that uses TFS, but I will pass this on to some of my colleagues on my old team.