FIFA 21 has come under a lot of criticism with some critics even calling the latest title the death of FIFA. We obviously don’t think it’s the death of the game, but the current title is bugged to the core and users are seeing a range of errors. In the FIFA 21 category, we have listed some posts with solutions to certain bugs. But, another day and yet another error in the game, this time affecting multiplayer. Users are reporting seeing the FIFA 21 “Game Session No Longer Available” error.
Users encounter the error when trying to join online friendlies or while inviting friends. From what we gather after comparing notes is the error occurs when you try to invite a friend with a different version of the game. It seems online friendlies is bugged and only works when you invite players with same game version. Stick around and we will tell you more about the error ”The game session is no longer available” and what you can do about it.
Fix FIFA 21 “Game Session No Longer Available” Error
It seems that the bug is only affecting PC players for now. If you have the Standard Edition of FIFA 21 and you try to invite a friend with the Champion Edition, you may receive the error. The same goes for players with EA Play Pro. While, playing with friends on the same version of the game has no problem at all. It does not matter whether you are playing on the Steam or the Origin client, inviting friends with a different version will not work. Let’s see how you can fix for FIFA 21 “Game session no longer available” error.
Before we proceed with the solutions you should know that a similar error existed with past titles of FIFA and unfortunately, the developers never fixed those as reported by a user on Reddit. Another user on the EA forum has also suggested you need to buy the ‘Multiplayer-DLC’ to be able to play co-op. Currently, the problem is not even listed among problems that the developers are investigating, that’s another unfortunate news.
However, don’t fret yet, we have some suggestions that can get you playing with your friends again. The gist of the fix is to trick the game that you are playing on a version similar to your friends. Here are the steps you can follow.
You have to use your friends account to log-into the game. If you are on Champion or Ultimate Edition and your friend on the Standard Edition, use their account to log-into the game. Once you log-in with the friends account, a verification process will be forced by the game, wait for it to load. Log back in with your account and that should allow you to play with your friends without the FIFA 21 “Game session no longer available” error.
Another fix that has worked for players with either the game on Origin or EA Play Pro is to ask a friend on Steam to send them the game executable file FIFA21.exe. Once you have the file, place it in your game directory and Windows will prompt to rename or replace, choose to replace the current file with the new. Once you have replaced the file successfully, double-click on the FIFA21.exe to launch the game. Do not launch from Origin.
For future use, right-click on the FIFA21.exe is select Create shortcut. The system will prompt you that a shortcut cannot be created at this location, select “Yes” to create a shortcut on the desktop. You can use the shortcut to launch the game.
In order to bring the problem to the developers attention, post the problem on Twitter and hopefully, there will be a permanent solution to the issue.
For not though, your only hope is to trick the system into thinking you are playing on a different version of the game then you actually are. Both the solutions – logging in with friends account and replacing the game executable aim to manipulate the system into thinking you are playing on another version of the game.
If you have more effective solutions to the problem, share them in the comments. Browse our game category for solutions to other FIFA 21 problems.