Inquiry about File Transfer and Save Game Location in Football Manager Mobile 2024

[SSolas]

Dear Sports Interactive Support Team,

I hope this message finds you well. I am an avid player of Football Manager Mobile and have recently upgraded to the latest version, Football Manager Mobile 2024. I have a few questions regarding file transfer and the location of save game files in the new game.

Firstly, I would like to inquire whether there is a way to transfer files containing Tactics, Filters, and other configurations from the previous edition of the game(FMM23) to Football Manager Mobile 2024. In previous versions, it was possible to import such files, which greatly enhanced the gameplay experience. Could you kindly inform me if this feature is available in the latest edition? If so, I would appreciate detailed instructions on how to transfer these files.

Secondly, in case file transfer is not possible, I would like to understand the reason behind this limitation. It would be helpful to know the technical or design considerations that led to the decision of not including this feature in Football Manager Mobile 2024.

Lastly, I would like to know the location where the save game files are stored in Football Manager Mobile 2024. As a dedicated player, I often like to back up my progress or share save game files with other players. Therefore, knowing the precise location of these files would be greatly beneficial.

Thank you for taking the time to address my queries. I appreciate your assistance and look forward to your valuable response.

Best regards,

[RSeven]

Hi SSloas

There are import and export buttons in save, tactics save/load page. So you can export and import.

And you may try to export a tactics file first then replace it with your previous one. and import back to game. [I am not sure FMM2023 tactics file works for FMM2024]. 

[StephenCronin]

There is a deeper issue here that can't be solved by exporting and importing. 

As users we used to have direct access to these files and now we don't, we can only access them through the export / import layer. Yes, we can still access them, but it is very clunky and not direct enough. 

I used to use FolderSync to automatically sync my saves and selection files with a backup on Dropbox. It just picked up the files from my device and synced them. I didn't have to do anything, just save the game or save my selection.

Now... well it can back up my exported save but that doesn't get updated when I save in the game. So for the sync to be useful, I have to regularly do the following:

• Save the game
• Exit to the Main menu
• Press Load
• Select the Career
• Press Export
• Name the export (yes you have to do this every bleeping time)
• Press Export again
• Press Cancel
• Load the save file.

9 manual steps instead of just pressing save... And I have to remember do that every couple of hours if I want a relatively recent back up.

Full disclosure: I have vested interest in this because I created a scouting app that won't be able to access the save files unless the users go through those same steps each time, which is a horrible experience for them - but leaving that aside, I think this issue is a terrible step for users in general

Also, who owns the save files? In the past it's been the user. It's been in the Documents folder or somewhere we could choose. I can go back to older versions and find these files still on my device. But with the new system, as soon as you stop subscribing to Netflix, not only do you lose access to the game, you lose access to your saves. Yes, you can export it before you cancel the subscription, but if you forget (or someone else in the household cancels it), then you can no longer access these files at all. Okay, you can't use the save if you don't have the app, but maybe you just moved out of home and have your own Netflix subscription now, but the only way to get your save back is to get your parents to resubscribe to Netflix. I'm on the parent save of that equation now and I can tell you, it's not happening! 😀

The whole thing just seems like a massive step backwards and moving away from being user centric. I assume it has something to do with tying the files to the user's Netflix profile? But even so, there should have been direct access to these files somehow.

[Mike Gormley]

Hello! There are a few issues raised here that warrant a bit of clarification so I'll do my best to answer some of these.

Quote

Firstly, I would like to inquire whether there is a way to transfer files containing Tactics, Filters, and other configurations from the previous edition of the game

Unfortunately not. As part of the rework to loading and saving for FMM24 we had to change the file format for all saved files. This will give us greater felixibility in the future and will also make it easier to maintain compatability should the format of these files change again. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this will cause but we're optiomistic it will be short term pain for long term gain.

Quote

Lastly, I would like to know the location where the save game files are stored in Football Manager Mobile 2024.

This will depend on whether you're playing on Android or iOS. For iOS the changes are minimal. There is now a 'user' folder that contains these files and is essentially partitioned based on your Netflix user account. For Android things are quite a bit different. Saves are stored in the app's internal storage making them inaccessible. This is the reason behind adding the import/export functionality on Android. By using those features you can transfer files to and from the internal location from your device's external storage.
 

Quote

As users we used to have direct access to these files and now we don't, we can only access them through the export / import layer. Yes, we can still access them, but it is very clunky and not direct enough. 

This is an interesting point and something I'll raise with the wider team. Thanks for your feedback!

[StephenCronin]

Thanks for your response @Mike Gormley, very much appreciated.

Just a note about a potential issue with the new format for shortlists (apologies if I've got it wrong!).

It looks to me like the new format for shortlists works off the record number for people? I believe that is generated as people are added to the list when the save is generated and is therefore not uniquely associated with the player? The problem with this is that if you subsequently try to use the shortlist with a different save, with different nations loaded, a lot of the record numbers will be pointing to different players and the shortlist will be 'wrong'.

The old format was more robust and would always include the right player no matter what combination of nations were loaded. If a player on the shortlist wasn't in the save, they were just quietly dropped. Worked great!

Would it be possible to do something similar with the new format? Maybe use the second id field in the person record instead of the first - ie the unique ID which is the number used on sites like sortitoutsi (when converted from HEX), rather than the record number which isn't unique? I have no idea whether this would have a performance hit or even be feasible, but it would make shortlists more useful. 

This doesn't directly affect me, but I noticed this issue when looking into people complaining that shared shortlists (mostly of wonderkids) were wrong. Not sure if SI Games (or Sega) have a position on fans sharing shortlists etc, but it seems to me like that's the sort of thing that builds community around the game and inspires increased loyalty etc, so it would be great if you could support that somehow. Thanks. 

[Mike Gormley]

We're aware of this issue but it is unrelated to the new format changes which are mainly metadata changes rather than changes to the actual file data itself.

[Pete1234]

1 hour ago, Mike Gormley said:

We're aware of this issue but it is unrelated to the new format changes which are mainly metadata changes rather than changes to the actual file data itself.

Hi Mike - do you know where we can place modded database folders? Last year it was android/ documents/ sigames/ fmm2023 but this year that isn't working. Any help would be really appreciated. 

[bearrock]

4 hours ago, Pete1234 said:

Hi Mike - do you know where we can place modded database folders? Last year it was android/ documents/ sigames/ fmm2023 but this year that isn't working. Any help would be really appreciated. 

It has to go in the android/data/netflix.fm24(I can't recall the exact name for this but basically the fm folder)/files/documents/.... 

The problem is that depending on your version of Android, your access to all folders in android/data may be extremely difficult and only possible using third party apps (android 11 and above will have this issue and android 13 and above is very restrictive).

Really feels like an unnecessary design change.  User folder for fm should have remained outside of android/data

[Pete1234]

9 hours ago, bearrock said:

It has to go in the android/data/netflix.fm24(I can't recall the exact name for this but basically the fm folder)/files/documents/.... 

The problem is that depending on your version of Android, your access to all folders in android/data may be extremely difficult and only possible using third party apps (android 11 and above will have this issue and android 13 and above is very restrictive).

Really feels like an unnecessary design change.  User folder for fm should have remained outside of android/data

Thanks. I have full file access - I just need the exact location and what to name the folder. "database" doesn't work, nor does the formula from last year, which was "db_archive_2330". I have tried playing around with the numbers but no success so far.

[StephenCronin]

7 hours ago, Pete1234 said:

Thanks. I have full file access - I just need the exact location and what to name the folder. "database" doesn't work, nor does the formula from last year, which was "db_archive_2330". I have tried playing around with the numbers but no success so far.

Haven't tried this and don't know anything about where to put it, but the current database version is 2403 (so maybe db_archive_2403?). Just a guess though

[Pete1234]

24 minutes ago, StephenCronin said:

Haven't tried this and don't know anything about where to put it, but the current database version is 2403 (so maybe db_archive_2403?). Just a guess though

Thanks, will let you know if it works.

Edit to add, no - doesn't seem to work regardless of placement.

Edited November 11, 2023 by Pete1234

[RSeven]

23 hours ago, Mike Gormley said:

We're aware of this issue but it is unrelated to the new format changes which are mainly metadata changes rather than changes to the actual file data itself.

And I can not export .pkm files (saved match file) out. There is no export button now. Please add!

 

[AlphaDave]

On 10/11/2023 at 10:34, Mike Gormley said:

This will depend on whether you're playing on Android or iOS. For iOS the changes are minimal. There is now a 'user' folder that contains these files and is essentially partitioned based on your Netflix user account. For Android things are quite a bit different. Saves are stored in the app's internal storage making them inaccessible. This is the reason behind adding the import/export functionality on Android. By using those features you can transfer files to and from the internal location from your device's external storage.

Just as a confirmation on this point, are the same files themselves not located in the "android/data/com.netflix.NGP.FootballManagerMobile/files" somewhere?

Reason is in previous years I have previously used OneSync to auto-sync save files between my android tablet & phone. I cannot seem to find the saves anywhere now and while the export/import function exists this is a much more clunky system than the one time set-up I previously had.

If I know what files in the android storage system pertain the user save data than I could sync those in a similar manor to last year.

Edited November 14, 2023 by AlphaDave