Major Save Issue (FM11)

I have a major issue.

I have finished my 35th season in my save. In mid May, I accepted the job to become the Manager of the England Under 21s, doubling up on my club job at Newcastle Town. I (probably foolishly) added all players aged under 21 to the national pool, which was around 11,000 players. Since doing that, response times have become incredibly slow, up to two minutes, for certain aspects of the game. These include accessing my squad (sometimes), accessing scout reports (sometimes), accessing coach reports (all the time), going to the news inbox (occasionally) and every time I press continue (either by pressing the button or by pressing space bar). This is effectively rendering the game unplayable. Other sections of the game appear to be working normally.

I went back to the last auto save I had, which was saved the day before I accept the job. I declined to take up the post this time, but still have exactly the same issues.

I have defragmented the hard drive, run a full virus scan (using AVG), cleared all registry errors, junk files and broken shortcuts on the hard drive. This has sped up my computer a fair bit, but it has made no difference to my FM game.

Have I screwed up my game? Has anybody else had this issue before and did they overcome it? Can it be fixed/overcome?

I will be genuinely gutted if I lost my save like this.

All the slow down causes are data processing, so that would point to you having too much data for the processor to process quickly, which would certainly point to the extra players loaded. Try clearing the cache folder :

How do I delete my Cache files?

First of all you need to turn on hidden files and folders.

XP:

My Computer

'Tools'

'Folder Options'.

The go to the 'View' tab and select 'Show hidden files and folders'

Windows Vista and Windows 7:

My Computer

'Organize'

'Folder and Search Options'.

The go to the 'View' tab and select 'Show hidden files and folders'

Once this is done, follow the instructions below:

Windows XP:

1. Open “My Computer”

2. Navigate to : “Documents and Settings\<Username>\Application Data\

3. Go into the “Sports Interactive” Folder.

4. Go to the “Football Manager 2011” Folder.

5. Delete the 'cache' Folder found inside here.

Windows Vista and Windows 7:

1. Click “Start”

2. Click your username on the start Menu

3. Click on “AppData” and then “Roaming”

4. Go into the “Sports Interactive” Folder

5. Go to the “Football Manager 2011” Folder.

6. Delete the 'cache' Folder found inside here

Thanks Fraz, that was very helpful.

Unfortunately, it hasn't worked. I might have lost my best ever save.

Dropper has posted this in my career update thread. Might this work?

If you've gone back to a previous save then it shouldn't be too difficult to fix, if a little tedious. I don't know how to clear the cache folder but that's a good piece of advice. If you still don't have any luck I'd copy the save file to another location (the desktop/dropbox folder) and then uninstall the game itself, restart the PC, then reinstall the game and move the save files back to the correct location. (I'm not sure but uninstalling and reinstalling may preserve your save files where they should be and you might not need to move the files back.) This should hopefully resolve any lingering issues, although it may take awhile depending on how quick your PC/internet connection (if required) is.

P.s. Been following this for a while now; keep up the good work! Don't let the Chairman get you down! Amazing achievement already just to get to where you are now.

It doesn't. I've tried it.

Can you remove players from the National Pool?

Clear all the irrelevant old scout reports, shortlists and any other data stored within the game

As you've rolled back to an earlier save before you added players to the national pool try deleting the entire Football Manager 2011 folder in the App Data folder, this should clear all the data that was stored for the save file that you've now ditched.

I remember doing the same thing the OP did and getting the same issues. I recall deleting the folder, as explained above, solved my problem and rescued a painfully slow save.

It has worked. Thank you very much.

I feel like I've wasted £8.75 buying FM14 on Steam a couple of nights ago now.

Good news Nobby