Adds the manager reference, the last remaining difference from the squad the same
client demonstrably accepts. Staging's squad shape is now identical to production's:
zero missing keys, zero type differences, zero empty-vs-populated mismatches.
The manager looked unfixable. Production points at instance 100000427 while the
staging club holds 11 players and zero staff, so there was apparently nothing to
reference, and inventing an id would have pointed at a non-existent item.
Checking production properly dissolved the problem: 100000427 is absent from
production's OWN club listing too. /club/staff returns 1975 items spanning ids
100000001..100004826 and 100000427 is not among them, and the type=staff/type=manager
filters are ignored (200 players either way). Production's manager reference is
dangling and the client accepts that squad anyway, which proves the client does not
validate the manager id against the club -- only a populated array matters.
So the reference is mirrored verbatim, dangling id included. That replicates the
known-good state exactly and is better than pointing the manager slot at a player,
which would have been a guess dressed up as a fix.
Method note: every step here came from diffing against production rather than reading
the client. The host reported squad-active 200 outcome=ok throughout, and 200 with the
right players was never evidence the client accepted the body.
First seed sent only squadName/formation/captain/players. The host logged squad-active
200 outcome=ok and /squad/0 showed 11 occupied slots, yet the client still threw a FUT
squad update error -- a 200 with the right players is not proof the client accepts the
body.
Diffed against production's known-good squad, which the same client accepts, comparing
key presence and JSON TYPES rather than values. Staging returned null for exactly the
five fields the PUT never carried, because the extension stored nothing for them:
squadType (a string enum), chemistry, rating, starRating (ints) and custom (the opaque
33-int tactics array the client definitely parses). kicktakers was empty where
production carries five.
Now sends all of them: squadType REGULAR_SQUAD, chemistry, rating/starRating derived
from the XI's mean rating, production's custom array verbatim (opaque server-side, only
its shape matters), and five kicktakers. Re-diff leaves exactly one difference --
manager, which production points at owned staff instance 100000427 while the staging
club holds 11 players and zero staff. Left empty rather than inventing an id that
references a non-existent item; recorded in the code as the one known remaining gap.
Also fixes a KeyError from the rewrite dropping the players key.
The A/B identity had owned items but no squad, because the sold-row work only ever
needed the tradePile wire. Every headless check passed -- none of them asks for a
squad -- but the real client refuses to enter the FUT hub with an empty one and shows
a squad update error. A squad is a hub precondition, not a Transfer-List detail.
Seeds via the real PUT /ut/game/fifa17/squad/0, the same request the client sends, so
parse_squad_put/build_squad_write produce exactly what a genuine save would. Writing
Core rows by hand could yield a shape the live path never emits, which is the kind of
divergence that quietly invalidates an experiment.
Picks one owned player per 4-3-3 slot, best rating first, without reusing an instance;
fills the fixed 23-slot array with 0..=10 as the pitch and empty slots as
itemData.id == 0; refuses to write a partial XI and reports any out-of-position
substitution loudly rather than silently reproducing the broken state. Verified
0 -> 11 occupied with no substitutions and a {"id":0} ack.
funman300