Zorro 2.50 MT4 bridge issue

Hello,

I have connected Zorro 2.50 to my MT4 4.00 1359 (26 Jul 2022)

Using Z1 strategy.

I see prices not ticking in MT4 every time when Zorro is in Trade mode (connected to the EA). The MT4 UI is not responsible either. The clock in MT4 is ticking fine though.

Other issue is Z1 strategy in Zorro keeps printing the same price every 4 hours?

Is latest Zorro-MT4 EA bridge broken? Does it have some aggressive request/response loop, which doesn't allow other parts of MT4 to run?

Have you tried the TradeTest script? If that's working well, then there might be an issue with the Z1 script.

AFAIK it's still Holiday season, so it might take some time before JCL (Zorro's main developer) can assist.

Thanks for the answer, Grant.

I have tried to tamper with Zorro.mt4 code

I've uncommented `Comment("Runs ",count," Loops ",loops); `

And seems like it's ever growing and never stops. So the problem was with the main loop.

I have made `uint loops = 0` non static and added loops limit in a single run ` while(cmd != 0 && loops < 500) `.

Now it works ok - MT4 is responsive and prices are updated.

But I'm still seeing Loops 1..2/Loops 500 blinking (a screencast is here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XbQCqY3A8jYroq1Xq1p_2Dt3ljzZ8voW/view?usp=sharing)

So I assume Zorro sends too many unnecessary messages to the bridge.

Same problem with Z1 or TradeTest.

UPD: The code of the command which spams the channel cmd=170 (CMD_ASSET)

Due to my licence, I'm unable to run the same setup, so I can't assist you on that.

Instead, I'm using Zorro 2.44 with it's older MT4 plugin (version 4.26) and this combo works fine for me with the latest built of MT4. There was no need to modify the Zorro EA.

No problem. I think I'm fine for now.

I'm on a free Zorro license, with a demo MT4 account.

Zorro 2.52
ZorroMT4.dll 4.26
Zorro.mq4 (EA) 2.12

The issue reproduced consistently across multiple brokers.

So you're able to connect with MT4 without a Zorro S license?
That's interesting. I thought this wasn't possible, see https://zorro-project.com/manual/en/restrictions.htm

Yes, it works but only for demo accounts.

I have a problem though that it's not updating price in Zorro.

I'm not sure if it's related to license or the bug I've described above. I believe it's the second.

It's definitely some bug with the latest Zorro/Bridge.

Since TradeTest worked in my MT4.

Also found this doc:
https://zorro-project.com/manual/en/mt4plugin.htm

Ok I've finally got this fixed.

What happened:
1) My NAS100 called USTEC and I have misspelled it for UCTEC
2) I've seen that in the log and fixed
3) Nevertheless the message got stuck in the Zorro-MQ4 message queue and the expert tried to process CMD_ASSET for UCTEC endlessly

This caused both issues - blocking MT4 UI and other threads by the endless while loop in Zorro.mq4 and not updating prices in Zorro itself, since CMD_ASSET was sent for UCTEC only and not for other assets.

A workaround: remove the pipe file for IPC between Zorro and the EA - C:\Users\Admini~1\AppData\Local\Temp\mt4sock*.sys

Suggested fix - that file should be automatically removed when both EA and Zorro broker connection are not in use.

Good to hear that you made progress. I expect that JCL is back online in September for further support.

Yay! I even had two first Z1 demo trades open. :excited:

I've just updated to 2.53 and tried to replace my hacked MQL stuff.

Unfortunately the MQL4 for connector shipped with Zorro still doesn't work

Here are my changes (latest revision) if anyone wants to fix this in the Zorro distribution: https://gist.github.com/alun/91538e...b9a8d00cab61bc11379c13ff2f4e3fbd452aR300

Just for info.

Different experience here. (Things worked before, but getting worse now)

I am running/testing a mix of MT4/MT5/API connections, multi strategy, multi instance on a server.

2.56.2 has updated (only) the Zorro.mq4/.mq5 expert files.

(btw - for the developers: versioning would be nice, or at least some header comments)

2.53.9 worked well.

But now 2.56.2/Zorro.mq4 tends to stall all instances on a regular basis. Seems MT4 gets unresponsive and locks all other instances.

As all other files of the MT bridge, and the bridge itself seems unchanged, for the moment I rolled only the 2.56.2/Zorro.mq4 file back to 2.53.9.

Seems to work again. Will monitor and 'stress' test the setup for the rest of the week.

@phs thanks for sharing, interesting

The symptoms you describe look similar to what I had in https://opserver.de/ubb7/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=486504#Post486504
(misspelled asset name)

But I'm not sure how switching to the older version of EA would fix that.

The Zorro EA terminates with a crash message when you load prices of a nonexistent symbol. The EA must then be restarted.

The next Zorro version will have a workaround for that, but still, before starting the EA, make sure that all symbols are correct.