What should I do if I am unable to join a Football Manager network game?

The information below is for users experiencing network connection issues from time to time.

If you are unable to connect to a lobby or your network games suddenly stops working. First, please click on this link and check the servers status - https://status.epicgames.com/ (this is also for all platforms).

If the servers are working as expected and your still having issues, please try the following:

• Make sure you have allowed firewall permissions for Football Manager. On Epic, you will be asked for authentication with your default browser opening to the authentication permissions page when you launch the game the first time. You can always check this on Epic by going to https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/ signing into your account, and make sure you have allowed this by clicking ‘account’ -> ‘connections’.
• Make sure your time zones and clocks on your machines are correct. There has been some issues where users were unable to join network games and when the time zones were corrected they were able to join.
• When running online lobbies always make sure the host is the user with the best internet connection, you can always check this with https://www.speedtest.net/
• On rare occasions, the friends only online preference could not be working. The best way to solve this would be to change the lobby to anyone can join and adding a password. Save the game then reload the save. The client then should wait for a few seconds before searching for the lobby on the join online game page.
• If you are inviting your friends to a lobby the best way would be to use the Steam or Epic overlays. Steam is ‘shift’ and ‘tab’. Epic is ‘shift’ and ‘F3’. You can also use the invite friends on the game status page.

Windows

1. In explorer type %localappdata% and press enter
2. Click on the folder sports interactive
3. Click on the folder [Football Manager title]
4. Click on the folder logs
5. Copy these two logs DISTRIBUTION_EPIC_CHANNEL and MATCHMAKING_EPIC_CHANNEL
6. Add you name to these logs for example “MATCHMAKING_EPIC_CHANNEL john smith”
7. Attach these logs with any network issue along with your save, images or videos

Mac

1. At the top of your screen click on go
2. Hold down the Alt key
3. Click on library
4. Click Application Support ->Sports Interactive -> [Football Manager title] -> Logs
5. Copy these two logs “DISTRIBUTION_EPIC_CHANNEL” and “MATCHMAKING_EPIC_CHANNEL”
6. Add you name to these logs for example “MATCHMAKING_EPIC_CHANNEL john smith”
7. Attach these logs with any network issue along with your save, images or videos