Problem with FXCM

When trading with FXCM through the FXConnect plugin, it's possible that after one or several weeks online trading you'll begin to see messages like "No Data" in the window, followed by a crash, either immediately or some days later.

We had hoped that we could fix the problem, but it turned out that only FXCM can do that. Until then, here's the workaround when that happens:

- Stop trading. Select not to close open trades.
- Edit Z.ini, and set "Weekend = 7".
- Start trading again.

Zorro will now resume trading with the open trades. The "Weekend = 7" setting will automatically log off and release the FXCM API every weekend, and open it afresh Sunday evening. This is supposed to prevent the "No Data" messages and the crashes.

This problem only affects FXCM, you don't need to change the Weekend setting with other brokers.

A couple of questions:

a) Does Weekend=7 apply to 1.12?
b) As a preventive, should we stop Zorro this evening or this weekend to update Z.ini? I would rather not have No Data's much less a crash go unnoticed for an extended period...
c) The difference between Weekend=4 and 7 is the release of the API?
d) Weekend=7 will still apply after FXCM fixes the bug?

Thanks.

Yes, this is for 1.12. There is no difference between Weekend = 4 and 7.

If you see the "No Data" message, stop Zorro. Otherwise I'd leave that to you. We have Zorros running since several months without an FXCM API problem, but to be on the safe side, it's probably better to stop it and do the Weekend workaround.

When FXCM has fixed the bug, there won't be a need for Weekend = 7 anymore, but it won't harm either.

To be honest, that sounds like a science fiction to me. I have four Zorros running for less then 24h, and they all already managed to get hit with dreaded "No data!" at least once! On the bright side, they're all still up & running.

In a view minutes my new FXCM real account will be running with Z12. I hope i won't see those "No Data" messages. When i also have those problems then i have a question: Can i use the MT4 bridge to trade with my FXCM live account? I think there is nothing that would speak against it!?

Yes, you can use MT4 with FXCM, but it's a different account type, so you have to ask FXCM support for switching your account to MT4.

The workaround above is only required for directly trading with FXCM through their API, not when using the MT4 bridge.

jcl,

Running 1.12. Already have Weekend=4 (equivalent to Weekend=7 per above). Received "BrokerAsset ... No Data!" sometime after 08:19 UTC (no timestamp on the message; & for AUD/USD running Z2, if it matters). Zorro appears to still be running normally - one message has posted since the "No Data!" (to Stop out of the AUD/USD for a loss ).

Since I already have Weekend=4, the workaround appears not to work.

What is the recommended course of action now?

Thanks.

How long was this session running before the "No Data"?

This Zorro instance started on July 25. Login to FXCM was at 16:18. So a bit less than 6 days, including the weekend when Zorro was running but logged out.

Thanks. For the next course of action, please do this every day or every two days, for instance when you're anyway checking your account:

Click [Stop], then click [No] for not closing open trades and [No] for continuing trading. Zorro will log out, close the broker library, then open it and log in again.

Check if you then ever get a "No Data" message again. If not, we'll provide a mechanism that closes and opens the FXCM API automatically. Otherwise we really have to wait for the fix by FXCM.

Do you have a preference for time of day to do this? If not, I suppose at night during slower trading would be best...

Won't I need to click Trade to get Zorro going again?

Lastly, this is the impossible "proving the negative", so after how many days will we consider that this works?

Thanks.

Yes, slower trading would be better. You need not click Trade because Zorro will be still trading when you did it right.

After how many days is hard to say - we're running Zorro 1.12 since months and had no problem so far. If you previously had a "No Data" after 6 days, I think 60 days with no crash would indicate some significance of the workaround.

OK, I'll try it tonight. Do I need to do it over the weekend too? Zorro will have disconnected, but will still be in Trade mode...

Within 60 days will be a new version, right? So we'll have to restart the 60 day clock after it's installed?! Or maybe FXCM will come through...

Well, that didn't take long. I reset per above last night and sometime within the last 2.5 hours another No Data occurred.

Next step?

Thanks.

Continue nevertheless.

I'm just an observer in this issue (which may affect me some day lol)... but out of curiosity, is it possible that the issue could be related to DDlV's internet connection to FXCM?

For example, have you done any robustness testing with Zorro->FXCM while simulating a flaky connection? Would be easy to do by randomly unplugging the CAT5 connection to your computer (or flipping off wireless connection for example)

I thought something similar. I have no problem with FXCM connection either.
Or could it be OS based problem? I'am running at MS Server2012.... You know this free VPS from Amazon. There surely have a stable internet connection :-)

Good point... the OS could also get in the way. Also specifically antivirus and/or nonstandard firewall applications. For example, Windows ships with a built-in firewall, but some Antivirus packages like Norton and Sophos allow you to provide a replacement firewall.

Some antivirus and/or firewall applications also filter what they deem "abnormal" port traffic. For example once I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure out why Metatrader couldn't send outbound email alerts... and tracked the problem down to a "feature" in McAfee antivirus that blocked port 25 traffic by default, assuming it was a spambot since it didn't come from an "approved" application.

(note: with all of the above said -- I personally will always use an antivirus software, the Windows firewall service and a hardware firewall in front of my computer. I require these minimum basics.)

jcl: Continue with exactly the same Stops every (or every other) night? Do you want a post of every No Data that occurs over the next 58 days?

Also, last night occurred a large number of "Broker: Error - Cannot place more than one order of this type for each trade" attempting to Close a position. The position eventually closed. Was Zorro trying to place more than one order of whatever type for the trade?

dusktrader, Sundance: Thanks for your thoughts! This Zorro is also running on an Amazon AWS, Server 2008 R2 (before jcl posted about 2012), no antivirus, etc., & Windows updates not done. Only other software installed is Broker interface and ShadowCopy.

Thanks! We need no report of further "No Datas" at this point, as we know this problem already. But as to under which conditions it happens more often or less often, my guess is as good as yours.

The problem is unrelated to the internet connection, but it is seems to be affected by something else, because it happens much more frequently on some user's machines than on others. Maybe it's the RAM size, which would explain why we never observed this problem here with version 1.12.

The message "Cannot place more than one order of this type for each trade" was wrong. Zorro does never place several orders per trade. The real reason of the problem was no quotes at that time, so the trades could not be closed. Zorro retries until the trade is closed.

Thanks jcl.

Re. the cause of No Data, could it be having the Broker interface open while Zorro is running? I do. Perhaps those not experiencing it don't?

What do you mean with "having the Broker interface open"?

Let me guess. You are running FXCM with Zorro and on MT4 the Zorro interface/bridge?

I think he meant having FXCM Trade Station open while Zorro is also open. Is that an issue?

Yes, I meant having TS running while Zorro is also running. Zorro is almost always on-screen ( ) while TS may be minimized, the active window (sometimes maximized), or merely on-screen but not the active window.

I don't recall if I started Zorro 1st or TS 1st, if that matters...

Then it would be an idea to close TS over night and see what happens...

When I finally get up and running with FXCM... I was planning to use the FXCM web version only. It's lighter-weight on the system and I don't intend on really needing heavy-duty charting for the platform that runs Zorro. We'll have to wait for JCL to chime in, but it "seems possible" that both the Trade Station app and Zorro "could" be accessing the API in the same way.

I have MT4 and Zorro with FXCM running with no probs. I'am really to scared to start the web app and see if i would get the same errors :-)

I think this is a perfect task for jcl and is team :-)

My demo is running without TS started, and I'm still getting "No data!" errors. So, TS is definitely not the culprit. At least, 1.13 now survives those errors and keeps trading.

From my experience, TS in no way interacts with Zorro. Yes, they're typically logged into the same FXCM account, but I've never had a problem because of that.

The limitation of only one connection to the broker from one machine exists only in Zorro's FXCM.dll. And only in the free Zorro version, says jcl.

Thanks acidburn. So much for that idea!

Some news about the FXCM crash situation.

FXCM apparently could not yet fix the problem. But we now got a lot of advices how to prevent the crashes. They happen due to internal state changes of the API. This explains why they happen on some PCs much more often than on others. It also explains why the problem went unnoticed by us and also by FXCM at first.

We're now going to produce a new FXCM plugin that does not access the API when such a state change is likely. If this was really the reason of the problem, the crashes should be gone. Otherwise we have to abandon the FXCM API until they fix the problem on their side.

We hope to have the new plugin ready in the next time and will then upload it for beta testing.

I would be very interested in this update as i wrote here i had an Zorro/FXCM crash when i logged into my VPS...

Do you think there is a chance those crashes will also be vanished with the new version?

All crashes are the same crash, so they all will be vanished when that problem is fixed. I've given you access to the Zorro beta forum, so you can there download the new plugin and test it.

Now i got a No Data! message on my FXCM live account under Zorro 1.12. The MT$ bridge Live account with GlobalPrime under Zorro 1.14 is still running fine.
I stopped Zorro and restarted it. Now its running again...


@Acid @JCL: Do you think i can change to 1.14 with my FXCM account!? Seems it is stable and i see no errors on GlbapPrime and neither on acids accounts...
When i do the change i have to wait till all trades are closed since the Z12s was recompiled and can't continue my old trades!? Is this right?

Yes, I think you can change to 1.14. I don't know if the No Data problem is completely solved, but at least it's certainly not worse than in 1.12. The Z12 trades can be continued with 1.14.

Thanks JCL!! Will do it ASAP because tomorrow i'am going on holiday.

PS: So its done. Running live FXCM under Zorro 1.14 :-)

FYI, jcl: Received No Data today sometime between 16:00 and 20:00 UTC on 1.14 release.

Do you have the diag.txt?

Don't seem to have an applicable one. The one I have starts with timestamps of 29-08 00:xx, which is after the problem occurred.

Zorro also crashed after doing the Stop, No, & No... Maybe that messed it up?

Can the diag.txt's be versioned rather than being overwritten?

Just an info from my FXCM account. Since changing to 1.14 i have no errors.

jcl, I have on 1.16 release running Z2 a "Broker Asset GBP/USD: No Data! at UTC 08.10. 03:23:08". Should I click OK or Cancel?

I tried using Shadow Copy to get the Z2diag.txt, but the 1st message is timestamped 11:30:36...

First copy the diag.txt to a safe place for posting it here, then click "Ok" for continuing trading.

OK, I just clicked OK. Do I also need to Stop?

What do you mean by "continuing trading"? Trading seems to have continued behind the pop-up as a new position was entered in GBP/USD many hours after the pop-up and before I clicked OK...

I can post the diag.txt, but there's nothing in it from the time of the error - it starts hours later...

No, you do not need to stop. The diag.txt records only the last 1000 events, so if trading continues, the situation will be overwritten after some time. Still, if that happens again and you notice it in time, I'm very interested in the diag.txt.

OK - I'll try to get up earlier next time!

As a thought, how about an even higher verbose # for special situations like this that would create a series of diag.txt's? And perhaps pops up cleanup reminders like happens for logs...

I've received another No Data, this time for AUD/USD. It happened at 00:34:06. By coincidence I noticed it about 35 minutes later ~01:16. diag.txt had already been overwritten. In fact, it looked like it had been reinitialized - it had hardly anything in it - only 1 group of records from 01:16:05. I've clicked OK to continue trading per the above.

Since Zorro can pop up a window, can it also save the diag.txt?

Yes, it's certainly possible to save a diag.txt copy when a message box pops up. It's too late for the upcoming version 1.2, but we'll do that for the following update.

No Data again today at UTC 14:57:47, USD/CAD. I paid closer attention this time. I saw it ~15:10. diag.txt was 1k, timestamp 15:08. Started Shadow Copy and looked again - still 1k, but timestamp 15:10. Shadow Copied diag.txt contains only messages from after 15:10 - the only timestamp in the file is 15:19. What's clearing the diag.txt so often? Is there a bug that it's not being appended to?

I've clicked OK to resume trading.

For the record keeper, another No Data again last night on EUR/USD, Zorro 1.16 release.