Trans fail safe & maf

[btmed]

2001 x5 3.0 121000 miles. Long story on this one but going to keep short. I have read on posts if car is running rough and thinking it may be maf, you could unplug it and see if there is a change in performance. I unplugged it this morning and before i got out of driveway the trans fail safe mode came on. Turned it off plugged back in and light went off. Now it is running rough at idle. After reading many posts i realize trans fail safe could be many things. Question is for those that have tried the experiment with unplugging maf, did you experience the tfs mode? Im thinking that may not be the way to check the maf...