FAQ

Frequently asked questions

updated: june.2024

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* do not let the antivirus delete any of Football Life files

all the files on the smokepatch website are safe and free from viruses or malware, we use BAT scripts to install and run the game, antivirus programs usually mark all BAT-based files as dangerous, and we cannot afford to buy a digital certificate, as the price for that is insane, do not let the antivirus delete or block the installation

Frequently Asked Questions and Common Issues:

1. Microsoft Windows missing files error
2. Error cannot find football life
3. Cannot save edits or career
4. Starting lineup looks wrong
5. Lag or crash using a laptop with two GPU
6. Cannot find the game exe (FL_2023 start.exe)
7. Error stuck in the loading screen
8. Customized sider addons not working after the update
9. Cannot import PNG in edit mode (white import)
10. Transfers in edit mode cause bugs in Master League/BAL
11. Windows preventing map_teams.txt from saving
12. How to connect controllers
13. Game crash when playing a second match
14. Game crash after adding an external mod
15. sider addons installer or files not found
16. crash after installing the mega facepack

General Notes:

* be sure the game is updated to the latest FL version available.

* test with an unmodified game to be sure the report is valid

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1. Microsoft Windows missing files error:
windows might be missing files especially newly installed systems or un-updated systems, below are the potentially needed updates from Microsoft for Windows:

- Microsoft DirectX End-User Runtime

- be sure your system has updated DirectX software, you can update it from the official Microsoft source: 

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35

if the directX is not up to date it can cause various issues including failure to start the game or error of missing DLL files

- Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable

- be sure the visual C++ is updated from the official Microsoft source:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=48145

this will fix issues like the sider not working or settings not starting.

- Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5

- be sure the .NET Framework is updated from the official Microsoft source:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/download/details.aspx?id=30653

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2. Error (cannot find football life)

this means there are game files missing or deleted from the game folder, reinstall the game and make sure the antivirus does not delete any of the game files.

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3. Cannot save edits or career mode, settings.exe does not save the changes

the game and the settings need access to the (save folder) that is located in the documents folder (some systems use OneDrive documents), if the access is blocked or not granted then the system will prevent writing the save.

right click on (FL_2023.exe) and select properties, in the compatibility tab select (run this program as an administrator), then click OK

now start the game normally from the usual (FL_2023 start.exe)

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4. The starting lineup looks wrong:

if you see a strange starting lineup in teams it means the edit file is not installed, if the edit file is not installed you will find other issues.

Reinstall Football Life and update, be sure to run as administrator so the installer can access your save folder and install the appropriate files.

some users might have a customized documents folder, in this case, the edit file might need to be moved there manually respecting the folder structure.

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5. Lag or crash using a laptop with two GPU

for a gaming laptop, there are two GPUs, Football Life needs to run on the powerful one, 

to be sure the correct one is assigned run settings.exe and check the specification tap

assign (FL_2024.exe) and (Settings.exe) in the graphic card software

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6. Cannot find the game executable (FL_2023 start.exe) or (FL_2024 start.exe)

this is the football life start file, this is a customized script to run the game in a specific sequence and CPU launch commands, this might be flagged by the antivirus and deleted.

all the files downloaded and installed from the smokepatch website are safe, all our files are scanned and tested multiple times, and do not let anything delete the game files.

a reinstall is needed to recover any deleted files.

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7. Error stuck in the loading screen

* specific to FL23 first version only

this error is due to selecting a theme in the previous version, themes are not included and this function is not working and is disabled in later versions, 

to correct this, open the save folder of the game from documents and delete (SYSTEM00000000)

run settings.exe so the game would create a new one.

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8. Customized sider addons not working after the update

football life update might update and replace football life sider files, if users made any changes to the files including sider.ini they would need to redo them.

please make backups for any edited files before updating.

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9. Cannot import PNG in edit mode (white import)

although this is still not available due to using Sider, there is a workaround to import png kits to the edited team:

1. start the game without the sider by running (FL_2023.exe) or (FL_2024.exe)

2. import the png kits then save and exit

3. restart the game from the main executable as usual

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10. Bugs in BAL or master leagues started with custom transfers in edit mode 

this is a known issue due to the change of the game starting year, no fix is available for this yet, but it can work if the starting year in the master league is reverted to 2020,

see this temporary workaround to bypass this issue:

for FL23 change starting year tutorial

for FL 24 see sider function

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11. Windows prevents saving sider.ini or similar sider files

your system is preventing you from saving to that location,

get admin access or move the file to another disk, change it and save it then move back

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12. Connect controllers

recommended method (free and easy)

1- connect the controller to your PC via Bluetooth or USB

2- Install and run this free utility (DS4Windows)

Original link: https://github.com/Ryochan7/DS4Windows/releases

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13. Second game crash

if you can play one match but the game crashes when starting a second one, see the COMPATIBILITY menu for special CPU cases that need to run the game from a specific provided exe

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14. Crash after adding an external mod

Although Football Life is compatible with most mods for PES21, not all mods can work, it is recommended not to add mods that are not specifically made for Football Life,

- always make a backup before changing any game files.

- reinstall the game to restore the game

 

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15. sider addons installer or files not found

football life installer will install everything in the correct place, unless your antivirus deletes or block the installation, do not let anything delete any of the game or installer files as its a false positive, all files on smokepatch website are safe

 

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16. crash after installing the mega facepack

the mega facepack is huge and requires more system resources, this usually is managed in windows, but users might need to (increase the pagefile) for windows so the game would have enough memory to load the face files.

see here how to increase page file:

https://mcci.com/support/guides/how-to-change-the-windows-pagefile-size/

 

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Update 2.00 for SP Football Life 2023

Update 2.0 for SP Football Life 2023

version 2.00/exe 23.2

(24.Dec.2022)

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The new update is available, please read the release before updating.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas

dido/SP

update summary:

- multilanguage support (18 languages are now pre-installed)

- audio enhancements (added more tracks, fixed volume control)

- database updates (added players, updated stats, updated squads, ...)

- graphics updates and fixes.

- updated sider addons and added new features (CL kitserver, new nets physics)

- added more updated kits (+100 teams)

- updated the gameplay (the previous version is still available in the new switcher)

- added classics in ML and BAL new feature (available in the new switcher)

- fixed all edit mode bugs, (old edit files will not work)
- added compatibility with intel +12th gen processors

- many other fixes and enhancements based on user feedback, thank you.

see details below:

Announcement: Issues with intel 12th gen processors (DRM)

hello,

reported problem with spec: 12th Gen processors

20/Dec/2022

the new generation of intel processors uses something called efficiency cores (e-cores), which causes many games to randomly crash, this is a well-known issue, and many games including pes21 and subsequently, football life v1 are affected by this issue.

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Intel Official Statment:

"Certain third-party gaming Digital Rights Management (DRM) software may incorrectly recognize 12th Generation Intel Core Processors efficient-cores (E-cores) as another system. This prevents games implementing that DRM software from running successfully. Games may crash during launch or gameplay, or unexpectedly shut down."

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we are glad to announce that after a lot of research, football life's new exe will be able to run in the next update without issues with 12th gen or newer processors, no action is required from the user.

thanks to users who helped test the new exe on various system configurations.

below are some boring technical details and a list of other games affected

Announcement: information and notes

hello,

It's a pleasure seeing the number of users enjoying football life, I certainly did not expect this amount of new users, it is totally experimental and it makes me happy that many gamers share my preferences in playing a football game.

Dido

13/12/2022

please find below important information

SP Football Life commentaries archive

SmokePatch Football Life in-game commentary 

Archived versions:

version 5 (16.Jun.2024)

version 4 (05.Oct.2023)

version 3 (28.Apr.2023)

version 2 (25.Jan.2023)

version 1 (5.Nov.2022)

Compatibility:

- SP Football Life all versions

Find latest commentaries version HERE

Update 1.01 for SP Football Life 2023

Football Life update 1.01

prior to the first release, and following issues reported by our fans, a new update is available to address these issues.

* updating football life does not damage the career mode.
* the update will reinstall a new edit file

the following issues are resolved:

Tutorial - Install SP Football Life

Step-by-step installation tutorial:

this is a detailed installation tutorial, aided with visual pictures to make it clear for a correct installation without any problems.

Summary:

1. download SP football life archive parts

2. extract all the installer files from the archive

3. run the installer as an administrator

4. start the game from the desktop shortcut or (FL_202# start.exe)

* virus-free files (possible false positive with antivirus).

* check for and install any available updates.

Announcement: SP Football Life 23 Facts and information

What is Football Life?

SP Football Life is our attempt to continue playing updated career modes, using the career modes of PES.

Like many other gamers, we do not have any interest in playing online matches, we prefer to play career mode in a football game almost exclusively, this is not available anymore as Konami has retired the pro evolution soccer series, and the game is no longer available to purchase, we cannot continue creating content for a game that cannot be bought anymore. newer games do not have any offline or career modes yet, waiting for that to happen, we will be playing and creating content for football life.

SP Football Life is how we like to play a football game, it is made with the same standards as previous smokepatch contents and is built according to our guidelines to the best of our knowledge, users can read the description before deciding to use football life as everybody have their own taste and preference

Release Date

in smokepatch we rarely announce release dates for our content, announcing a specific date to release a specific product is a responsibility that must be honored, and there can be a huge amount of unpredictable reasons that can cause delays, we can never be sure but we can only promise that we are doing the best we can.

we are still expecting the first version to be released by the end of this month, but it might be delayed for some days if needed, constant updates will be provided after the release to enhance features and apply more updated content.

SP football life Database Reference

SP Football Life
Database (Leagues, teams, and players)

every new season comes with a new selection of teams and leagues, we have our own criteria for our selection, it is not possible to add all the teams and leagues we want to add so we have to select what we think is best based on league rankings and/or SP fanbase, and we are working on expanding the game to have more teams and leagues in the future.

please note that in football life and smokepatch in general, we do take liberties to make slight changes to the structure of some leagues for the purpose of stable gameplay, this can be modified in further updates.

Announcement: SP Football Life 2023

SP Football Life 2023

released

Hello and welcome to smokepatch

Football Life is our attempt to continue the offline modes of the retired PES series, football life is a heavily moded standalone football game made solely for offline modes. No online capabilities nor does it require connections, online gaming cannot be played or accessed, for online gaming we recommend efootball.

Football life does not require any assets and will include all our heavily moded assets, based on the fox engine of PES21 (fox engine powered PES 18/19/20/21), graphics of older PES series can mostly be adapted to football life and many features will be available as optional add-ons. game is detached from the pes series and uses the smokepatch database, graphics, gameplay, and scripts.

PES2021/PES2020 SP Face Pack

SP21/SP20 Mega Facepack v4

release (20.Jan.2022)

contains +4400 real faces (see list below)

Update 1 is available

- added more faces

- fixed reported faces

- includes face pack tattoo files 

* extra faces for SP20 is available (from PES21 game)

Compatibility:

- SmokePatch21 all versions (PES2021)

- SmokePatch20 all versions (PES2020)

PES2017 SmokePatch17 v4

SP17 v4 for PES17

SmokePatch17 v4 (for PES17 PC)

version 17.4.0 (all in one) (23.Nov.2021)

update 17.4.3 (2.Mar.2022)

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update 17.4.3 is available:

- added a fix for various players not showing boots

- added a fix for Man United and other database fixes

previous updates included:

- updated major winter transfers (+3000 transfers)

- updated player stats (Konami new stats)

- added more youth players

- updated more kits

- recovered some teams previously not showing in the game

- graphic updates (emblems, flags, ...)

- multiple patch system enhancements

- includes the previous updates

* no relegation/promotion for the new season of some leagues, which will be upgraded in later versions to preserve current master league modes.

* Find the patch information and description below:

SP Themes

smokepatch themes

Smokepatch Themes

compatible with all smokepatch versions.

Description:

SP themes addon will change the audiovisuals of the patch, replacing the graphics and audio, this addon uses the following CPK files:

- SMK_Addtheme.cpk (contains graphics)

- SMK_Addmusic.cpk (contains sound effects)

users can backup these two files to recover the previous theme.

PES2021 SmokePatch21 v4

SmokePatch21 v4 (for PES21 PC)

version 21.4.0 (all in one) (03.Nov.2021)

update 21.4.5 (24.Feb.2022)

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update 21.4.5 is available

- fixed a bug with the Chilean league that caused a random crash with career modes that started with 21.4.4

previous updates included:

- updated major winter transfers (+3000 transfers)

- updated player stats (Konami new stats)

- added more youth players

- updated and fixed more kits

- graphic updates (emblems, flags, ...)

- multiple patch system enhancements

- includes the previous updates

* no relegation/promotion for the new season of some leagues, which will be upgraded in later versions to preserve current master league modes.

* Find the patch information and description below:

PES2018 SmokePatch18 v4

SP18 v4 for PES18

SmokePatch18 v4 (for PES18 PC)

version 18.4.0 (all in one) (24.Nov.2021)

update 18.4.2 (22.Feb.2022)

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update 18.4.2 is available

- updated major winter transfers (+3000 transfers)

- updated player stats (Konami new stats)

- added more youth players

- updated more kits

- reconverted the kit pack to load correctly

- graphic updates (emblems, flags, ...)

- multiple patch system enhancements

- includes the previous updates

* no relegation/promotion for the new season of some leagues, which will be upgraded in later versions to preserve current master league modes.

* Find the patch information and description below:

PES2019 SmokePatch19 v4

SP19 v4 for PES19

SmokePatch19 v4 (for PES19 PC)

version 19.4.0 (all in one) (15.Nov.2021)

update 19.4.2 (19.Feb.2022)

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update 19.4.2 is available

- updated major winter transfers (+3000 transfers)

- updated player stats (Konami new stats)

- added more youth players

- updated and fixed more kits

- graphic updates (emblems, flags, ...)

- includes the previous updates

* no relegation/promotion for the new season of some leagues, which will be upgraded in later versions to preserve current master league modes.

* Find the patch information and description below:

SmokePatch Adboards

SmokePatch Stadiums Adboards
Release 6 (29.Jan.2022)

release 6 is a revised and updated version that includes many new animated stadium advertisement boards (animated ads credits to predator and max), this release is made for SP21 and is compatible with previous game versions with almost the same features.

Compatibility:

- SmokePatch21 all versions (PES2021)

- SmokePatch20 all versions (PES2020)

- SmokePatch19 all versions (PES2019)

- SmokePatch18 all versions (PES2018)

- SmokePatch17 all versions (PES2017) (separate link)

How to play ML with SmokePatch21 without Errors

smokepatch is known to focus on offline modes only, as we play master league almost exclusively on a daily basis for many years now, never having any crashes or issues in all of the smokepatch current and previous versions, tens of thousands of our users are playing ML without any problems, it is impossible to have a problem without us knowing about it immediately, we intensively test the patch to ensure that all our users can play error-free master league.

SP21/20/19 Sider Kitserver

SmokePatch kitserver v4
Released: (14.Jan.2022)

Season (21/22)

Compatibility:

Smokepatch21 v4 (PES21)

Smokepatch20 v4 (PES20)

Smokepatch19 v4 (PES19)

this addon provides more variety in football life modes by having different variants of the kits playing in CL or EL leagues when using many teams, also applies special referee kits depending on the tournaments, more details below

PES2021/20 Languages and commentaries

SP21/SP20 in-game commentary 

release 3 (8.Jan.2022)

* R3 Commentaries are converted from eFootball 22

* includes more player call names and commentary variants in all languages and commentators.

* volume is a little lower than the original coms, you can adjust levels in the game audio setting.

Compatibility:

- SmokePatch21 (PES 2021) all versions

- SmokePatch20 (PES 2020) all versions