FM broken when reaching far far in the future

[Jorgen]

I've reached the end-game of FM24, or so it seems. I am in 2279 and player development is broken. There are no players anymore who are younger than 25
After this problem started at first I thought it was something of the Mexican leagues and didn't think much of it until I found it wasn't about a B-team I can't manage or something like that. It is happening everywhere. Humanity in my game is dying of old age and there is no more newgen refreshment.

All kinds of players that can be found with a scouting tool like Genie Scout don't appear in the game. Instead typing there names opens old football stars like Matthias Sammer. In the scouting center it is clear that old player take over the world. Even Ernesto Valverde lives again and he is 100 years old.

Further down the line there are all kinds of players, but most of them are unclickable. The youngest players I've found are 25.

In the squads it is even far worse. My team is dying of old age and there is no newgen refreshment of the squads

And again a bunch of unclickable players

This is not only in my team, and neighter in Mexico. It is happening everywhere, in playable leagues and leagues that have not been loaded. Small teams, big teams, all of them.

My game crashes on different dates. When a crahs happens and I reload the game it can happen a few days earlier or later. When I chose an older rolling autosave, it happens again. Using autosave 4 seemed to fixed the crash, but after two years it happened again.

I am not sure if the FM-humanity is dying because of the crashes, or if the crashes are happening because of the player problem. As far as I know I first saw the unclickable players and a few seasons after that, the game started crashing. 

If you ask why I didn't noticed this earlier, I am playing a simulation game where I only buy/sell players and set the tactics and then go on holiday for a year. With my current team Chivas Guadalajara I let my DoF do all the transfers too, so I wansn't paying attention to my squad all that much.

Is this a bug that is part of the FM end-game, or is this something that I can fix??
 

 

 

 

Edited November 17 by Jorgen

[Harryhi]

Just start again 

[Jorgen]

52 minutes ago, Harryhi said:

Just start again 

You know I am already 250+ seasons in? I am trying to win every international cup for nations and clubs there is and I only need a handful to complete the challenge. The save ran for 50 real life days or 1200 hours. Starting over would be very, very annoying to say the least. 

[Jorgen]

So I've searched these forums and internet, but I couldn't find a similar problem. I asked ChatGPT and it said the following:

Known issue:

Quote

This issue is known to occur on very long saves in the Football Manager series and is common after many hundreds of in-game years. It has to do with the way the database and regen/newgen generator work. Here are the main causes and possible solutions:

Causes
Database exhaustion: Football Manager generates players based on active leagues and country settings. If the number of active leagues or the size of your database is small, over time too few newgens may be created to replenish the player base.

Hardcoded Limits: FM has limits on the number of active players in the database, and it can fill up. When old players retire, sometimes those slots are not released properly to new players.

Greyed-out players and unclickable names: This indicates a lack of available newgens and a database overload. The game then uses placeholders, but they are not usable.

2279 specificity: These types of crashes and issues are common in extremely long games because the game is simply not designed to function robustly over such time spans.

Possible solutions:

Quote

Possible solutions
In-game solutions
To activate competitions:

Check that you have enough active leagues and countries. Activating more competitions can help restore new gene production.
For example, add leagues from larger football countries (England, Brazil, Germany, etc.), because they have a more robust newgen system.
Adjust database settings:

If you used a custom database, try restoring the default settings. A standard large database generates more players.
Force newgens:

Use an in-game editor (for example the official FM editor or a third-party editor such as FMRTE) to create players or reset leagues and countries.

Technical options:

Quote

Technical solutions
Install patch or update:

Make sure you have the latest game version and updates installed. Sometimes updates fix bugs related to long saves.
Tweaks to the game engine:

Use external tools or mods to force the database to create more players. Some community tools can fix database issues or increase the number of active players.
Restore greyed-out players:

With an editor you can convert some "greyed-out" players into usable players. This can temporarily help make your database playable again.

 

 

So first I am going to add more leagues from England, Germany, Brazil to see if I can get the newgen generation going again.

Edited November 17 by Jorgen

[acidmonkey]

soon as you add more leagues when they kick in it will generate players, im not as far as you only 2100's but ive had no issue with youth players so far

[Supermercado99]

Could it be an issue with regen UIDs? Not that this would help your game, but it would be interesting to know if it's an issue that can be looked at in the future.

Player IDs seem to start at around 2000****** and I can see clubs in edited databases with UIDs starting at 20003***** - is there a limit to how many IDs can be handed out? Or does it start reusing the IDs of retired players? What are the UIDs of the most recent newgens in 2279?

 

[Jorgen]

43 minutes ago, acidmonkey said:

soon as you add more leagues when they kick in it will generate players, im not as far as you only 2100's but ive had no issue with youth players so far

I've now added a lot of new nations and lower divisions and the database should grow from about 37k to 93k players when all of them become playable. I really hope that your are right and this will help the game to 'reboot'.

 

This would make my game far slower ofcourse, so I hope I can dismiss  lot of those leagues again after the reboot.

[Jorgen]

36 minutes ago, Supermercado99 said:

Could it be an issue with regen UIDs? Not that this would help your game, but it would be interesting to know if it's an issue that can be looked at in the future.

Player IDs seem to start at around 2000****** and I can see clubs in edited databases with UIDs starting at 20003***** - is there a limit to how many IDs can be handed out? Or does it start reusing the IDs of retired players? What are the UIDs of the most recent newgens in 2279?

 

You mean greyed out players too? Placeholder players can't be checked. 

The youngest real player on my squad has 2010366020 according to Genie Scout.

The highest UID in game is a player from Kerala in India who is 19 years old. His UID is 2010893177 according to Genie Scout. He is not the youngest though. Also, he is nowhere to be found in the Kerala squad. Not normal, not greyed out, not as placeholder He can also not be found anywhere else in the game. So I have absolutely no idea where Genie Scout found him.

[wazzaflow10]

Its a well known issue that using non SI editors and tools could break the save.

[phnompenhandy]

57 minutes ago, wazzaflow10 said:

Its a well known issue that using non SI editors and tools could break the save.

GenieScout just read the data. It's not an editor; it doesn't change anything.

[scythian12]

6 hours ago, Supermercado99 said:

Could it be an issue with regen UIDs? Not that this would help your game, but it would be interesting to know if it's an issue that can be looked at in the future.

Player IDs seem to start at around 2000****** and I can see clubs in edited databases with UIDs starting at 20003***** - is there a limit to how many IDs can be handed out? Or does it start reusing the IDs of retired players? What are the UIDs of the most recent newgens in 2279?

 

The game does indeed reuse the regen IDs after regens retire. It was a massive pain for using the NewGAN face tool (ethnicities were all over the place, the IDs the faces having been assigned to now belonging to a different player) until I reprogrammed it with this behaviour in mind.

[Jorgen]

I hope this is going to work, because all the crashes will cost a lot of time too. I suspect my game is broken, but I hope this will fix it.

 

Is there anything I can do to prevent this in a future savegame? As I hope to do a 500 or 1000 year career if that is possible.

[Arijit]

8 hours ago, Jorgen said:

Is there anything I can do to prevent this in a future savegame? As I hope to do a 500 or 1000 year career if that is possible.

Yes. Create a bug report with SI, attach your save game. Without proper bug reporting, SI will never fix this.

[Zachary Whyte]

8 hours ago, Jorgen said:

I hope this is going to work, because all the crashes will cost a lot of time too. I suspect my game is broken, but I hope this will fix it.

Is there anything I can do to prevent this in a future savegame? As I hope to do a 500 or 1000 year career if that is possible.

Based on your screenshots, you look to have a custom skin and I'm guessing a custom database, which would be my guess for the cause of the crashes.

If you could create a support ticket with your save attached we can take a closer look.

https://fmofficial.support/Ticket

[Jorgen]

20 hours ago, acidmonkey said:

soon as you add more leagues when they kick in it will generate players, im not as far as you only 2100's but ive had no issue with youth players so far

I simulated two more years, but nothing happend. Just the leagues being added, but no more new players at league start and no new players at the youth intake date.

[Jorgen]

On 18/11/2024 at 18:36, Zachary Whyte said:

Based on your screenshots, you look to have a custom skin and I'm guessing a custom database, which would be my guess for the cause of the crashes.

If you could create a support ticket with your save attached we can take a closer look.

https://fmofficial.support/Ticket

Hi Zachary, I filled in the ticket and send it but I couldn't add the savefile. Got the message that it took too much time and the connection was lost. The savefile is 1,3 GB so that might be the problem.

 

 

Edit: I have received an email from SEGA support and the files have now been uploaded so that they can investigate the problem.

Edited November 20 by Jorgen

[Jorgen]

OK. Sega can't help me. They say the savegame is broken and because I used editor files there will be too many things that can go wrong.

I am not willing to give up right away. I've cleared the game cache and let Steam rebuild it, but without avail. At the moment adding and removing leagues give no solace eighter.

I will try remove all of them and start 1 other on the same day (for example remove USA and add Uruguay, both on january 1st.)

ChatGPT suggested to use an in-game editor to reset competitions are the make greyed out players playable., but I have no idea of this will work and if it is worth the money to buy the SI in-game editor or FMRTE.

Edited November 21 by Jorgen

[turnip]

If Newgens are broken in your save, then I doubt there's anything you can do that would fix it.

Yeah, you could make a few 'grey' players into real boys with the in-game editor, but you'd have to do that every couple of seasons with every club that's affected and honestly, if you have the patience for that, there are far more worthwhile endeavors in this world. 

 

If you feel attached to the save, then I'd say park it for now. You might get lucky and it'll function in FM25 when that comes out. 

[Jorgen]

@turnip with the risk of the broken things being exported too ofcourse. But, if there is any chance that it will work in FM25 again, that might be the best idea there is so far.

[Jorgen]

Well, I think I have to take my loss and give up, as on another forum I heard that FMRTE wouldn't be able to reset a league or reset the youth intake.

So maybe I just put it on ice until FM25 as @turnip suggested and start over again with a new adventure.

 

 

Edit: for who is interested, I stopped the game at 24 june 2291. This is wat I've won:

 

 

Edited November 22 by Jorgen

[Arijit]

Nice! Thank you for sharing with us. You have organized the winning details well.

[mikcheck]

I think I've never add this issue, but I also never played into that far in the game

[Jorgen]

5 hours ago, mikcheck said:

I think I've never add this issue, but I also never played into that far in the game

Did you play with or without editor files?

[Petra90]

I had a similar issue in FM15 where the FIFA Club World Cup would stop functioning completely at the year 2035. It always happened, no matter what. But the cause was pretty obvious, I had a very large editor file that restored the Soviet Union into the game (and it disabled the single nations that were part of it).

[Ali555]

On 18/11/2024 at 03:55, Supermercado99 said:

Could it be an issue with regen UIDs? Not that this would help your game, but it would be interesting to know if it's an issue that can be looked at in the future.

Player IDs seem to start at around 2000****** and I can see clubs in edited databases with UIDs starting at 20003***** - is there a limit to how many IDs can be handed out? Or does it start reusing the IDs of retired players? What are the UIDs of the most recent newgens in 2279?

 

That’s an interesting thought! It could very well be related to regen UIDs, especially if the game is reaching a point where the ID system is hitting some kind of limit or overlapping with retired players. Typically, games like this will assign new IDs as needed, but if the pool is finite, there could be a risk of reuse or conflicts. It would be useful to know how the game handles UIDs as it progresses through the years, especially as it starts generating newgens far into the future, like in 2279. It might be something to keep an eye on, and if it’s a known issue, it could be something worth addressing in future updates.

[\'Appy \'Ammer]

I want to share this thought as it may just be a huge coincidence... Does the number 256 hold any importance here in terms of the programming, or computer language used? This figure is significant in the mathematical / computing world but I am most definitely not the man to have good knowledge on it! 0 to 255 in binary is 11111111. That's 256 in decimal.

The year of your problem is 2279, minus the start year of 2023, leaves 256. I just wonder if a limit somewhere has been reached?

Edited November 27 by \'Appy \'Ammer

[Jorgen]

4 hours ago, \'Appy \'Ammer said:

I want to share this thought as it may just be a huge coincidence... Does the number 256 hold any importance here in terms of the programming, or computer language used? This figure is significant in the mathematical / computing world but I am most definitely not the man to have good knowledge on it! 0 to 255 in binary is 11111111. That's 256 in decimal.

The year of your problem is 2279, minus the start year of 2023, leaves 256. I just wonder if a limit somewhere has been reached?

Like some kind of Y2K bug?

I ran my savegame until I finally gave up in 2291. I am not sure when it started so I opend the save to check the minimum age of actual players in this year. But there were zero left, so I opened an older version, from 2286 where the youngest player I found was 30. By playing a bit of Sherlock Holmes I deducted that 30 (age now) minus 15 (age of newgens) = 15, so it must have started around 15 years ago. That would be 2271. However, 2024+256=2080, so I am not sure if it has any correlation with eachother.

[Petra90]

On 27/11/2024 at 14:33, \'Appy \'Ammer said:

I want to share this thought as it may just be a huge coincidence... Does the number 256 hold any importance here in terms of the programming, or computer language used? This figure is significant in the mathematical / computing world but I am most definitely not the man to have good knowledge on it! 0 to 255 in binary is 11111111. That's 256 in decimal.

The year of your problem is 2279, minus the start year of 2023, leaves 256. I just wonder if a limit somewhere has been reached?

I don't think this could be a problem since there are some youtubers who managed to simulate 1000 years.

 

Edited Sunday at 14:19 by Petra90
Spelling fix

[Arijit]

I am confused and curious too about this issue. I have seen so many YouTubers simulated 1000 years in the future and this is unheard of. Without proper knowledge of game engine inner working, I'd say this could be due to custom database. 

[forameuss]

The simulations going that far forward are usually just tedious rundowns of "look what clubs won what" rather than anything in-depth.  I imagine that if this was an issue, then the game still "functions" in that games will take place and results will happen, but that doesn't mean all is well underneath.

Still, I doubt that even if there is an issue, there will be a big priority to fix something that will happen to a vanishingly small number of users.

[DavutOzkan]

They're also probably not running many leagues. Probably just the top-five, unlike OP.