please read PLEASE READ - Suggestions Connection Issues

[John Kendall-Torry]

The information below is for users experiencing network connection issues from time to time. Please have a read of the information below before posting on the forums with issues. If you are still having problems after following all these steps then please let us know and we will try and find a way to sort this issue out. 

• If you are unable to connect to a lobby or your network games suddenly stops working please click on this link and check the servers status. https://status.epicgames.com/ this is also for steam users.
• If the servers are working as expected and your still having issues, please check that you have allowed firewall permissions for football manager 2021. On epic on first boot you will be asked for authentication with your default browser opening to the authentication permissions page. You can always check this on epic by going to https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/ signing into your account, on your account name click account then connections  to make sure you have allowed this.
• Please 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.