M.C - Comments

I have attempted to replicate this fault and I am unable to. I have set up a new game using only the SortItOutSI Data Update files and no others. Specifically, enabling the 54 files that are part of the Classic FM download, that are not optional, by default.

As a first step, I would recommend that you try to replicate the issue with, specifically, only the SortItOutSI Data Update files enabled. I appreciate the files you are using alongside it are unlikely candidates for causing this error, but the only real way to test is to start with a completely clean Data Update.

In parallel, I am going to do some tests with different combinations of files to see if I can isolate the potential cause/replicate.

All contracts (and player ages) are offset by two years. All players are two years older and their contracts expire two years earlier than the real-life date. This is not a mistake and is deliberate.

This is to simulate the passing of two years in real-life since the game was released. Effectively, in-game in June 2023, the footballing world is represented as it was in real-life in June 2025. Conceptually, what this does is means that Kounde has 5 years left on his contract with Barcelona in-game. In the same way that from this real-life season, Kounde has five years left on his contract with Barcelona.

I cannot replicate this issue. I am using the latest Data Update. Antonio Conte is the Manager of Napoli. Igor Tudor is the Manager of Juventus.

This also matches what the website shows their roles as - and neither of them have ever had any submissions that would put them in different roles.

How certain are you that these changes are not being introduced by other files, from other creators? Can you share a screenshot that shows all of the enabled Editor Data files that result in you seeing these incorrect positions in-game?

Just to add to that - the Non Dynamic Data (which includes the CA/PA changes) is only available via the Enhanced Data Update. I don't believe this is part of the free version of the Data Update. It is one of the things that separates those two versions.

It provides updated player history entries to many players. So if you look on a player's career history tab, you will see their appearances/goals reflected from the real life seasons that took place between 2023-2025.

I've not been able to replicate this/seen this happen. For context, because of the issues with the player contracts today, I have probably - using today's update - started about 20-25 different test games throughout the course of the day.

Are you able to share screenshots of your ‘editor data’ folder and/or the in-game ‘enabled files’ view? What I am looking for is definitive confirmation that you are only using content from the Data Update.

This specific error suggests there is an issue with a file that includes ‘Advanced Rules’ for a nation (i.e. league rules/structure etc). In the Data Update, there haven't been any such files introduced since 27th August, so I am struggling to align an obvious reason for the sudden appearance of this kind of error for you.

This is not the correct thread to report this - however, for your convenience: this is a fault the staff team know about. You can find a detailed explanation of the cause, the timeline to resolve it and what your options are in the meantime at the following post: https://sortitoutsi.net/comments/get/839510 

Apologies for the inconvenience to yourself and others affected by this during the course of today.

You can wait until tomorrow's Data Update is released, which will resolve the error with contracts. If you really don't want to wait, you can take a look at this post, which explains the situation/cause and provides a method to get today's update working (it involves swapping out a file with one attached): https://sortitoutsi.net/comments/get/839510 

In terms of the payments/products - there are effectively two different products available.

One of those is the enhanced Data Update, which costs £10 for a period of 12 months (i.e. you get access to the enhanced Data Update for a one year period, including all versions released during that time).

The second product is a Premium Membership to the website itself, which provides access to faster, direct downloads of some of the megapacks (e.g. faces and logos). You can get the faces/logos for free, but from third-party hosting site downloads and they are split into parts. The Premium Membership payment is to directly offset the costs associated with hosting those files and providing the bandwidth for them to be downloaded. Again, the Premium Membership provides 12 months' access for that one-time fee.

For those having challenges with the Player History file - just a couple of things to note:

1. This file is actually part of the main Data Update download. You'll find it in a sub-folder, by default, named ‘Optional’. If you move that file into the main ‘editor data’ folder (i.e. take it out of the sub-folder) and enable it in-game, it'll work.

2. The fundamental thing to note is that it will significantly slow down the process of setting up a new game. Specifically, it will take a lot longer on the ‘Loading game database’ step. What you will find is that the progress bar sits very near the start on this step for a long time, before eventually completing. Please be assured that on completion, the game itself runs as it normally would and loading saved games doesn't take any longer.

To put it into perspective - the file contains over 3,000,000 database changes. This takes a while to process. Exact times will vary by computer specification. But the amount of time it will stay on that initial ‘Loading game database’ step (with minimal progress on the progress bar) will be very noticeable. It is a one-time wait time and the positive trade-off is being able to have the updated player history entries. As a simple example, for me, it takes approximately 25 minutes to go past the ‘Loading game database’ step, with the remainder of the setup taking a further 6-7 minutes. That's on an AMD Ryzen 9 12-core processor with 32Gb RAM. How it stacks up on other systems, I have no idea.

Please take a look a little further up this thread. Someone flagged the same issue - my reply points to another thread where I explain the issue in detail and provide some workarounds. It is a known issue and will be resolved from tomorrow’s daily update onwards. Apologies for the inconvenience.

Please take a look at this post: https://sortitoutsi.net/comments/get/839522 

I suspect it accounts for the experience you are having. If you do not feel that it does, please do post in that thread with as much detail about what is happening at your end and we can help troubleshoot.

The change to the UIDs of the newly-created players that are part of the ‘Changes.fmf’ file is due to the load order of the files being adjusted. In fact, putting the ‘Changes.fmf’ to the front of the load order is with the specific intention of ensuring the UIDs of those players stay the same between saves, in preparation for being able to support an official facepack for these players.

With the previous load order, there was no way to guarantee the load order and, with that, made it highly likely that other files (perhaps from other updates) that were introduced messed with the UIDs of the newly-created players.

As a simple example, if someone uses the main Data Update and the ‘Real Name Fix’, previously, the UIDs of the newly-created players would be different from someone who doesn't use the Real Name Fix. The change we have made is done so that in both scenarios, the newly-created players have the same UIDs. Again, this is the foundation of being able to offer and support a facepack - in the future - for the 20,000 or so new players that the Data Update introduces. Obviously with the scale of the content, this is something that we are hoping the community will do collectively - which makes it even more important that it can be enabled to work reliably.

I do appreciate that in the situation you are in - which was that you had some faces aligned to UIDs which have now changed - that is disruptive. I have, myself, had hours of work lost because of the dynamic nature of UIDs from custom editor data being combined (in my case, it was the creation of logos for lower league English teams - but the same principle). It is certainly frustrating. But from the perspective of the SortItOutSI Data Update, this change is needed so we can prepare a facepack for the newly-created players the file adds. There is no other method to ensure that facepack would work, predictably, otherwise - because then any scenario where anyone uses a file that introduces at least one Person record, which loads first, would break the entire thing.

This challenge of UIDs being different depending on the different combination of editor data being used is a challenge that has always existed. The way we are doing is to try and ensure consistency, moving forward, even in scenarios where people pair the Data Update with other popular, compatible downloads.

For the wonderkids for whom you did have faces - are these from another data update/pack that you were using alongside the SortItOutSI Data Update? Or is it a facepack you have created yourself?

As a gesture of my willingness to help, if you wanted to reach out to me and share your facepack so far, I would be happy to recreate you a config.xml file that has the right assignments on the basis of what I (now) expect those new wonderkids' UIDs to be consistently. This is about the only thing I can think to offer to help you in your specific situation and, perhaps, ease the frustration. Believe me when I say that in the long-term, this change is the only way to reliably prevent the situation you have found yourself in for the masses.

The content of what this file adds is summarised here: https://sortitoutsi.net/content/74126/2526-player-history-update-for-fm24 

In basic terms, though, it's primarily aesthetic - in the sense that it is about populating the player's ‘Career History’ tab with information to reflect where they've been in their career.

I think there is a level of indirect impact on gameplay, in the sense that the players would be recognised as having been at the relevant clubs for a certain amount of time, which may have an influence on how those clubs treat those players. But I must admit that is a speculative perspective - I can't say with any confidence that AI managers/clubs, or indeed the player, would or wouldn't behave differently. In my limited experience, how a club sees any given player registered to them is more down to their reputation, ability and relative standing in the squad - I actually think clubs care little for whether a player's history indicates they are established, or brand new, or similar.

Can you please have a look in your ‘editor data’ folder and see if you have two files for Turkey? It is likely that you have one where the spelling is ‘Turkey’ and the other is ‘Türkiye’. If this is the case, please remove the one with the spelling of ‘Turkey’ (you should see it has an older modified date, too). Then try to start a new game again.

There was a point, in the past, that the filename was altered for this file.

This is an issue introduced as a result of the load order being changed (by design, but with an unintended consequence). I've provided a more detailed explanation and methods to workaround it here: https://sortitoutsi.net/comments/get/839510 

Please rest assured: staff are aware and it will be fixed from tomorrow's update.

I definitely concur that your Hall of Fame records appear to be corrupted. I haven't been able to replicate this at my end. I cannot think of which file would specifically target these entries to amend them.

Are you able to confirm your Editor Data file setup? When I consult my Hall of Fame data, upon starting a new game (using the Data Update and no other files), I see the values I would expect.

Sir Alex Ferguson shows without a name, all other entries appear correct:

Inside that folder there should be one file named ‘sortitoutsi.net FM24 Data Update - Player History.fmf’. This file provides updated player history entries to many players. It contains over 3,000,000 database edits.

Using this file significantly increases load times on the ‘Loading game database’ step. What you will find is that the progress bar sits very near the start on this step for a long time, before eventually completing. Please be assured that on completion, the game itself runs as it normally would and loading saved games doesn't take any longer.

Recognising that this is a significant change to the game loading times, however, since the last day or two, the structure of the download has been changed so that this file is (by default) in an ‘Optional’ sub-folder. If you keep it in that ‘Optional’ sub-folder it will not be used. In order to use it, you need to put the .fmf file itself into the main ‘editor data’ folder.

The CA/PA submissions, at present, continue to require manual processing in order to be part of the overall Data Update. With that in mind, at the moment, the aim is to update the file that contains them on approximately a monthly basis. In terms of the next planned update, it is going to be ‘any day now’ - to coincide with the closure of the European transfer window(s). Naturally, we expected a lot of submissions associated with players moving clubs - which has been the case.

I do believe the plan remains to automate this so it is integrated/iterated on a daily basis, but that piece of development work hasn't happened yet. As I am not the site owner, I genuinely can't share any more detail/info than that, at this time, as I don't know any more.

If you feel you would like a refund on the basis of being misled about what was included and/or the rate of updates, please make a post in the following thread and the site owner will review that accordingly: https://sortitoutsi.net/content/57415/all-issues-with-premium-membership-post-here?page=21#comment_839129.

The experience you are having is highly likely to be as a result of the introduction of the ‘Player History’ file. This file adds 3,000,000+ database changes to provide updated player histories.

As well as increasing the time it takes to the initial database load (the bit before you choose which leagues to have active), it significantly increases load times on the ‘Loading game database’ step. What you will find is that the progress bar sits very near the start on this step for a long time, before eventually completing. Please be assured that on completion, the game itself runs as it normally would and loading saved games doesn't take any longer.

It is a one-time wait time and the trade-off is being able to have the updated player history entries.

Recognising that this is a significant change to the game loading times, however, since the last day or two, the structure of the download has been changed so that this file is (by default) in an ‘Optional’ sub-folder.

For you - or anyone else - the options are either to (a) disable this file or (b) enable it, but expect a longer initial game setup. Unfortunately, given the amount of data it contains, there is no method to have it be read faster when it is used.

For absolute clarity, the exact name of the file that contains these 3,000,000 database changes is ‘sortitoutsi.net FM24 Data Update - Player History.fmf’ (free version) or ‘Classic FM - Player History.fmf’ (paid version). For anyone choosing not to use this file, you can still use all of the other files that are part of the Data Update and you will get the benefit of those other files' content.

For those who have downloaded the latest Data Update (built/released on 3rd September 2025, i.e. today), please be aware that it has introduced an error that results in many, many players' contracts having the wrong end dates. Staff team are aware of the fault and aware of the cause and this will be resolved in time for tomorrow's update onwards. Thankfully, it is an issue with a new load order of the files and is easily resolved.

For a detailed explanation, which also includes advice on how to work around it, please see here: https://sortitoutsi.net/comments/get/839510.

My apologies for the inconvenience - just a genuine mistake/oversight on our behalf.

Please see here for an explanation and workaround options for the contractual information being incorrect in the Data Update for 3rd September 2025:

https://sortitoutsi.net/comments/get/839510

I can confirm - today's Data Update has introduced an error related to file load order. We will get it fixed in time for tomorrow's update onwards. Detailed explanation here: https://sortitoutsi.net/content/74234/player-contracts-are-wrong#comment_839510.

OK. I think I know what has happened.

Firstly, just to confirm: I am able to replicate the issue you've all reported…and there is a logical reason for it. In simple terms, it's an error on the Data Update's side - no-one is doing anything wrong. Apologies for the inconvenience - we'll get it fixed in time for tomorrow's update, I am sure.

As of this morning, we changed the load order of some files. There are two files that can alter the contract details of any given player - which are the main ‘Changes.fmf’ file and the ‘+2 Ages and Contracts.fmf' file.

Historically, the ‘+2 Ages and Contracts.fmf’ file has always been before the ‘Changes.fmf’ file in the load order. This works neatly as the ‘+2’ file essentially offsets the default database's contract of every player by two years. Which is what we want it to do - but only for players who have not been transferred/signed a new contract at any point.

The ‘Changes.fmf’ file then includes the updated contract information for any player who has been transferred and/or signed a new contract. Built into the file is the equivalent two-year offset.

With these files now being read the other way around, the ‘+2’ file is overwriting the contractual position of all the players, resulting in what everyone is seeing.

The solution is to revert the load order, which is something we will do in time for tomorrow's update. There is good reason for putting the ‘Changes.fmf’ file early in the load order - this is just an unintended consequence and we should have also brought the ‘+2’ file up (and before) the ‘Changes.fmf’ file.

For right now, I would recommend using yesterday's Data Update, which can be retrieved via https://sortitoutsi.net/football-manager-data-update/releases.

For those who really can't wait, if you use the attached file instead of the ‘+2 Ages and Contracts’ file, this will put it to the front of the load order and solve the problem. I have tested this and it works as expected.

Just so the instructions are as explicit as possible, you will want to:

1. Go into your ‘Editor Data’ folder that contains the Data Update from 3rd September 2025 and look for the file named either ‘sortitoutsi.net FM24 Data Update - +2 Age and Contract Years.fmf’ or ‘Classic FM - +2 Age and Contract Years.fmf’ and delete only that file.

2. Download the attached file and save it into the ‘Editor Data’ folder that contains the Data Update.

3. Start a new game as you normally would. On the screen where you would select your database version (and where you can choose which Editor Data to enable), you should see that the top two listed files are the ‘+2’ file immediately followed by the ‘Changes’ file. I'm including a screenshot below to illustrate how it should look if you have followed the above steps.

Thank you for those examples. I will look those up, investigate and see if I can identify what is causing it. Will come back as soon as I am able.

The SortItOutSI Data Update contains files that do this same contract and ages ‘offset’. Since June 2025, we have rolled that up to a 2-year offset. In the Data Update, you'll find a file named ‘sortitoutsi.net FM24 Data Update - +2 Age and Contract Years.fmf’ and enabling that will result in that offset.

If the files you mention that you were previously using are part of a different update, I would recommend not also using them. In general, if you are returning to the update after a while away, I'd recommend clearing your ‘Editor Data’ folder (maybe move the files you have in there out, rather than delete) and start with a clean installation of the Data Update.

Can you please provide a few examples, of specific players, where you believe something is incorrect? The Data Update is based on changes made to individual players and those changes are done through community submissions on the website.

Therefore, if contractual detail is legitimately wrong, this will likely be caused by an ‘incorrect’ submission (which has been approved).

Can someone please provide a little more detail about what, in fact, is ‘wrong’ or ‘off’?

Are we referring to the contract length? The wages the players are earning? Something else entirely?

Depending on the nature of what is wrong, there may be an explanation, or there may be a bug that we need to take care of. Or it may even be as a result of something the Data Update doesn't actually change.

Yes, although in reality only the +2 file has any effect. The +1 file is an ‘empty’ file that is just there to ensure that anyone overwriting a version of the Data Update from May 2025 or earlier doesn't end up with both the +1 and +2 file each competing with each other.

So in May 2025, the Data Update had a +1 file. That become obsolete from the start of June 2025. At that point, the +2 file took over that functionality. Keeping the empty +1 file in the download was just to help people who copy over the top of their existing installation not running into issues.

…and whilst this is true, just to confirm: they do this deliberately and as part of how the Data Update handles the forward progress of time (in real-life).

Essentially, we are two years ahead of the (typical) game start date of Summer 2023. Transfers, contracts, the players that exist, promotions, relegations and league structures reflect the beginning of the 2025/26 season when using the Data Update. Given the general purpose of the update is to present the real footballing world as it is for 2025/26, we think it makes sense to also shift player ages and their contract lengths accordingly.

One thing that can't be changed is to actually make the game say ‘June 2025’ at the start. But by offsetting everything else, the Data Update effectively turns June 2023 into June 2025.

Of course, people don't have to agree with that and the decision to not use the +2 file is valid for anyone that doesn't want that functionality.

This situation is not specifically being introduced by the Data Update. It is part of the built-in rules for Italian clubs. I am not sure it can be fixed exactly accurately; I would need to read up on the specifics of the rules and see what combination of options exist.

If the new rule is effectively ‘you can only sign two non-EU players per season’ and the total number of non-EU players that can be registered (at any given time) is two, then I suspect that can be replicated. The complicated bit was in the old rule, which meant to register a second player you would have to sell/release an existing one.

For what it's worth, this is what you're experiencing - the complicated Italian rules being applied. It's not a ‘bug’ as such - but is a now-obsolete rule, which changed before the 2024/25 season in real-life (I think).

The error is most likely caused by your attempt to use all of the Dynamic Data files at the same time, alongside the Non Dynamic Data file. It is intended to only use either the Non Dynamic Data (which is in the main file list by default) or one file from each group of Dynamic Data files at a time. In the download, within the ‘Optional Dynamic Data’ folder there is a readme file that explains how to use them.

But for your - and everyone's - convenience, the general concept is that you should use one ‘Dynamic Data’, one ‘Dynamic New Players’ and one ‘Dynamic Pre Window Budgets’ file at a time. You can choose any combination of the numbered files, as long as you only use one from each group of ten at a time.

When using these files, you need to ensure the ‘Non Dynamic Data’ file is not in use.