ArcObjects CreateFeatureClass throws exception 2147216889

ArcObjects always throw cryptic errors that don't provide enough information. When I received this error it turned out I wasn't assigning a SpatialReference. This article helped me figure out this was the problem.

ArcGIS Server Context Usage Timeout Interval error

An application that uses ArcObjects was throwing an exception and after some digging, everything was pointing to a problem on ArcGIS Server 9.3.1. The logs showed the error:

"The context has been automatically released because the context usage timeout interval has elapsed"

This KB article indicated that I had to modify the EngineContextTimeout setting in the server.dat file. For some reason, the value in the file was 5, instead of the default 600. It would certainly be nice if the exceptions thrown by ArcGIS Server contained useful information.