End of season 1 - Can't sign staff or players - HELP!

I bought the electronic version of FM 2010 a few days ago and installed the electronic patch 3. Everything was fine until the end of the first season when I tried to re-sign some staff and place offers on players.

The pre-arranged transfers went through but the offers I've made to various staff and players (I'm now in August) haven't even been responded o. In the transfer centre, the 'contract', as it is at the start, that I have offered always changes to 'offer' and then nothing happens until ages later when I get a message that the transfer was cancelled. The staff have offers 'Mansfield - £0'.

Can anyone help? I've done a search already but without luck.