diff --git a/conduwuit-example.toml b/conduwuit-example.toml
index 255de196..5b8975a9 100644
--- a/conduwuit-example.toml
+++ b/conduwuit-example.toml
@@ -328,7 +328,9 @@
 # Federation client connection timeout (seconds). You should not set this
 # 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.
+# you configure here given that a homeserver doesn't 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 7ae2dc6e..2e323ee5 100644
--- a/src/core/config/mod.rs
+++ b/src/core/config/mod.rs
@@ -415,7 +415,9 @@ pub struct Config {
 	/// Federation client connection timeout (seconds). You should not set this
 	/// 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.
+	/// you configure here given that a homeserver doesn't 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")]