diff --git a/conduwuit-example.toml b/conduwuit-example.toml
index 3b7bbbb8..2fab9cdf 100644
--- a/conduwuit-example.toml
+++ b/conduwuit-example.toml
@@ -329,7 +329,8 @@
 # to high values, as dead homeservers can significantly slow down
 # federation, specifically key retrieval, which will take roughly the
 # amount of time you configure here given that a homeserver doesn't
-# respond.
+# respond. This will cause most clients to time out /keys/query, causing
+# E2EE and device verification to fail.
 #
 #federation_conn_timeout = 10
 
diff --git a/src/core/config/mod.rs b/src/core/config/mod.rs
index 515409be..909462db 100644
--- a/src/core/config/mod.rs
+++ b/src/core/config/mod.rs
@@ -416,7 +416,8 @@ pub struct Config {
 	/// to high values, as dead homeservers can significantly slow down
 	/// federation, specifically key retrieval, which will take roughly the
 	/// amount of time you configure here given that a homeserver doesn't
-	/// respond.
+	/// respond. This will cause most clients to time out /keys/query, causing
+	/// E2EE and device verification to fail.
 	///
 	/// default: 10
 	#[serde(default = "default_federation_conn_timeout")]