FIFA Ultimate Team Updates

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Hi All,

Firstly and most important, we have not been happy with the level of communication we have been able to provide to you all. We know we need to do this better by being more frequent and more focused.

This new thread will only allow FIFA staff and our forum admins to post so you can quickly see a running list of the updates we are providing and the progress we are making. We've restricted posting so that it is easy for you all to quickly reference our latest updates.

What you can expect from us:

- Daily updates in this thread with what we are working on and when we hope to have things resolved
- Working with our Forum Staff, we will work at proactively updating the 'Help!' threads with the latest info. Most of those updates will be located in this very thread, so we will encourage people to come back here for the latest updates.
- We will not be able to respond to individual threads. We will remain focused on updating this thread and our 'Help!' threads as priority.

We’re are also working on an updated FAQ and Help section. This should be ready by April 3rd.


Thanks all.
Football Live Team

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 1st, 3am GMT

Early this morning we deployed some caching solutions to Trading for Xbox 360. We've seen this have a positive effect on DB load, but it is still too slow during peak usage time. By working on this optimization we are in effect lowering the amount of occurrences of the following bugs – once fully optimized (we WILL get there) we believe all these issues will be fixed:

- Card packs not being properly awarded
- Tournament progression, results not saving, input loss/hangs/crashes after matches
- Trophies not being rewarded
- Coins, skill points not being awarded following a match
- Significant delay in trading screens
- Delay in card swapping in Team Management Screens
- Crashes/hangs when substituting a player
- Team names disappearing
- Hang when entering Ultimate Team
- Trade search errors
- Errors when you are kicked out of the mode unexpectedly
- Disappearing players, disappearing trophies
- Errors when applying training cards or contracts
- Other random hangs, freezes, or error pop-ups

There could be more issues in addition to the above that some people have rarely seen. As you can see, we have one problem causing many issues. The problem is simple, we have many more users playing the game than we expected.

We are working on new optimizations that we hope to release Thursday 10pm PDT / Friday 6am GMT. We expect to see more improvements, but we are not stopping after tomorrow.

Other updates we are planning for or already working on:

- Once optimized we want to sort trading by expiry time again
- Look at solving issues around match-making
- Leaderboard issues

Next update tomorrow.

Thanks all.
Football Live Team

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 2nd, 8pm GMT

We are planning to take down both the X360 and PS3 servers this coming morning at 6am GMT (10pm PDT). In this update we will be updating the PS3 with the optimizations that were done on X360 on Wednesday morning. Additionally we are hoping to deploy the following (will confirm and update once finalized - still working at getting it ready):

- Memory leak fix for 360/PS3
- Improved analytics for monitoring the system

We realize that the service is still slow and people are having errors during peak usage times. Even though we have an update planned tonight, we know further optimizations will still be needed. We continue to urgently work at improving optimization and will continue to keep you updated with our progress.

Thanks again.
Football Live Team

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[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 2nd, 3am GMT

We will be updating the FUT component of the game this morning at 6am GMT (10pm PDT). Outage will last approximately 20 minutes. The planned updates will include:

- Updating PS3 with the latest optimizations
- Memory Leak fix for 360/PS3
- DB configuration changes for increased memory

With PS3 getting the latest optimizations we expect the DB connections for that console to improve. We are still working on further optimizations in parallel with this deploy and hope to be able to release them at some point this weekend. We believe that services may still remain slow for X360 users during peak times until we have the next optimization released.

Thanks.
Football Live Team

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 3rd, 6:30pm GMT

We have been urgently looking in to an issue where trading transactions are delayed in completing - it does not look like any data is lost, only delayed (in some cases significant). Next update in 1 hour once we have more info.

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 3rd, 7:10pm GMT

The team is still investigating what is causing the trading transaction delay for both X360 and PS3. From analyzing the system, there is no data being lost, it is only waiting in a long queue.

Our top priority is to ensure we maintain data integrity and get this resolved as soon as possible.

Although no data is being lost, we recommend to not use the Trading Area until this is resolved.

Next update once we have more info.

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 3rd, 8:20pm GMT

We are still diagnosing the problems with the delay in trading transactions. We have many people looking in to the issue and believe we may have identified the possible issue. More investigation is still needed.

As mentioned previously, we recommend to NOT use the Trading Area until we have this resolved. We are not seeing any data loss, but the less people using it the faster the current queue will be processed.

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 4th, 1:30am GMT

We have forced the queue of auctions to properly expire in the system for both PS3 and X360.

We are also planning on updating both the X360 and PS3 servers tonight with some additional fixes:

- Auction Expiry Fix
- Hardware Reconfiguration Changes

All changes are aimed at improving stability and optimizing everyone's connection to our database.

Will post again once we have confirmed tonight's deploy schedule.

Thanks,
John

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 4th, 2:15am GMT

We will be updating both our X360 and PS3 servers this morning at 7am GMT (11PM PDT). Outage will only affect FIFA Ultimate Team and will last for approximately 1 hour. Fixes are aimed at optimizing db connection speed.

Our QA team has been working 24/7 and will be monitoring changes following the deploy.

Thanks,
John

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 6th, 8:30pm GMT

We have tentative plans right now to release some new fixes and optimizations at 6am GMT. We are hoping to release the following (will confirm later tonight):

- Proper fix for expired auctions not properly clearing
- Database maintenance and clean-up

Since Saturday morning we've been closely monitoring stability and we've seen improvement. We are still actively working on more optimizations as they are needed to reduce some of the bugs seen during peak times.

More details to follow later this evening.

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 7th, 2:45am GMT

Both FIFA and Ultimate Team will be down at 6am GMT (10pm PDT) for approximately 30 minutes. During this time you will be unable to login in to the EA servers. The following updates will be completed:

- Lobby system maintenance
- Proper fix for expired auctions not properly clearing

We still have further optimizations and fixes that we are working on. More details to follow tomorrow.

Thanks.
John

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 8th, 2:45am GMT

We are continuing to work at improving the Ultimate Team experience. We have tentative plans to provide the next server update April 9th, 2am GMT. Further details to follow tomorrow.

Thanks,
John

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 8th, 9:00pm GMT

As mentioned earlier, we are planning to deploy some new fixes/optimizations this coming morning at 6am GMT. We are still on track to do this. Current plan of updates will include:

- DB optimizations
- Fix to prevent tournament trophies disappearing

Will confirm the above once we have our plans finalized later this evening/morning.

Thanks,
John

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 9th, 2:30am GMT

Ultimate Team will be down for approximately 20 minutes at 6am GMT (10pm PDT) to deploy our latest fixes and optimizations. Included in the update will be:

- DB index optimizations around trade searching
- Fix to prevent tournament trophies disappearing

Thanks.
John

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 9th, 7:20am GMT

We are experiencing problems with getting the server fully back up. We have all hands on deck and are urgently trying to resolve the issue.

Will try and keep you updated as best as we can while we to try get services back up.

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 9th, 8:15am GMT

Services are fully back up now. During the update we ran in to some critical issues and had to revert our new changes in order to restore services.

Apologies for the unexpected length of downtime tonight. Next update this afternoon (GMT time).

Thanks.
John

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 9th, 9:00pm GMT

We are tentatively planning on doing another update with last night's changes at 6am GMT.

More details once we have our plans solidified.

Thanks,
John

[EA_ClemKwong]

Update: April 10th, 1:45am GMT

At 6am GMT (1pm PDT) Ultimate Team will be unavailable for approximately one hour. During this time we will be updating the servers to prevent trophy collection loss and club name loss.

Thanks,
Football Live Team

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 15th, 2:45am GMT

We've been busy working on our next update. We've seen a lot of improvements in our db and server connections with the update done before this last weekend. Although a very positive step we realize there is still more work to be done.

Looking forward to sharing more info once we have our next release finalized.

Thanks.
John

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 16th, 11:15pm GMT

We have tentative plans to update the servers on both X360 and PS3 this coming morning at 6am GMT. More details to follow in a few hours.

Thanks.
John

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 17th, 1:40am GMT

FIFA 09 Online services will be down for approximately 1 hour on both PS3 and Xbox 360 this morning. Specific time by platform:

PS3: 6am GMT - 7am GMT
Xbox 360: ~7am GMT - 8am GMT (start/end dependent on PS3 completion)

Downtime is to update components on the Clubs/Leagues features, as well as some updates for Ultimate Team.

Thanks for your patience - and sorry about the inconvenience.
John

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 23rd, 3am GMT

Hi all. It’s been some time since the last update. The team has been busy investigating many of the reports in this forum and working and testing some new updates to the game. Updates planned for this Friday morning 6am GMT (final confirmation tmrw):

- Auctions sorted by expiry time
- Database Maintenance and Clean-up
- OTP stability fix

We are still investigating and/or working on other top issues reported.

Next update tmrw with confirmation on the update details.

Thanks.
John

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 24th, 2:20am GMT

Ultimate Team will have scheduled downtime at 6am GMT (10pm PDT) for approximately 45 minutes. During this time you will be able to access the EA servers, but you will not be able to connect to the database and could experience errors if you were already within Ultimate Team. We recommend not playing until you can successfully search for trades again (good test to ensure the component is up).

The following updates will be made:

- Auctions sorted by expiry time
- Database Maintenance and Clean-up

Thanks all.
John

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 28th, 6:35pm GMT

We are aware of issues being experienced on PS3. We believe this is due to unexpected maintenance that Sony is performing on their Playstation Store. We are awaiting word from Sony on when they expect their Store to be back up. All PS3 users will experience errors until the store issue is resolved.

Next update once we have more info.

Thanks guys.
John

[EA_JohnShepherd]

Update: April 28th, 7:25pm GMT

Heard from Sony and they plan to have the PS3 store back-up at 8:30pm (1 hour from now). Errors on trading and matching up with other users will continue until the PS3 Store is back-up.

Thanks all, and we apologize for this unexpected inconvenience.

John