Zen-Fire stutter?

[higler]

This morning my YM charts have had a few instances where they "freeze" for a few seconds then get a burst of bars. I also just had a "connection lost" for a few seconds. Is Zen-Fire haveing some issues or should I look elsewhere for the cause of this? I have seen similarities to this on some very heavy volume days, but I certainly can't trade when the system freezes, stutters, bursts, etc. Thanks

[NinjaTrader_Ben]

Hello,

If you are disconnecting the freezing is probably a symptom of this.

Unfortunately NinjaTrader does not dictate when a connection is lost. It operates like a radio receiver in that it receives a signal from your broker and then displays/reports these signals back to you the trader. When a connection is lost, it is the broker's API that determines this and reports this to NinjaTrader which in turn reports this back to the trader.
The common problems that contribute to this are:
- ISP issues
- hardware firewall issues changing IP addresses frequently
- Dynamic ISP address switching the address frequently intraday. Usually this happens once a week but you may want to check with your ISP. If they do change daily, a static IP address may work.
- With Windows XP SP2, if you have more than 10 open TCPIP socket connections open (10 programs making connections through the internet) windows will randomly shut down some connections
- Broker servers having problems
- Satellite and wireless connections

[higler]

Thank you. Actually, I was aware of many of these possible causes. It can be hard to track some of these possibilites down and isolate them so I was just throwing my observations out to the general NT Zen-Fire community to see if anyone else was having the same problem. If so, then it might point to the data feed, Zen-Fire in this case. Thanks.

[NinjaTrader_Ben]

Hello,

I do not know if this is related to your situation, but the Zen-Fire/NT connection is experiencing some issues right now. We are in contact with them to resolve it. As soon as we have more information we will post here.

[higler]

Thanks. I look forward to hearing what's happening.

[higler]

I continue to get some "weirdness" that I haven't seen before with NT Zen-Fire. When I try and load some data in a chart or Market Analyzer (TF in this case) I get the message "Unable to load chart data. Object reference not set to an instance of an object." Eventually everything seems to get loaded OK. Possibly due to erratic data feed? I have not previously experienced this message in using NT for a couple of years. Thanks.

[NinjaTrader_Ben]

Hello,

Please wait until I post again. As I mentioned below, we are currently working on this issue.

[higler]

I've had this problem again periodically today during heavy volume. I am getting less enamored with Zen-Fire and their reasons for this. It doesn't do me any good to have my charts, etc. "freeze" for few seconds and then have a burst of bars. Also, it totally messes up Automated Trade Management. It is untradeable when this happens. If you're in a trade with trailing stops everything seems to get hosed since I'm assuming that trailing stops are handled on NT.

Are the positions reported back through NT accurate. With ATM and this stuttering data/charts I can see how multiple orders might inadvertently be issued in the same direction. Are the positions reported in NT acurate? Does Zen-Fire report back the current positions or does NT keep track of it based upon buy/sell orders?

[NinjaTrader_RJ]

Hello,

Can you please send in a note to support AT ninjatrader DOT com? Put attn: Ray Stein and reference this post.

I will provide further instructions.

[BigAAPL]

RJS,

Yesterday I experienced essentially the same thing watching the YM. There seemed to be 'bursts' of data that resulted in fast price changes and 'long' bars ( I use CV candles). So, I backed off and watched the CV bars populate using the Volume Counter to see the flow of contracts traded. Normally, I can see an orderly countdown with orders mostly from 1 to 20 or so contracts even in heavy volume conditions, but yesterday there were blocks clicking off in excess of 50 or 80 accompanied by brief periods of data freeze, only to resume violently, then eventually settle down. T&S did not support many of these large price changing orders leading me to believe that there could possibly be an aggregate of data coming through, similar to IB's 'snapshot' of 200ms data. Now, I realize that ZenFire is not your responsibility, but it seems designed specifically for the NT app., and getting a response from ZF is a tall order. Any comments?

[TAJTrades]

BigAAPL,

Not sure what is going on with ZenFire / Amp this morning (Saturday) but I can not connect:

Getting the following errors in the Log Tab:

12/6/2008 6:55:56 AM Connection AMP Futures: Unable to login (10001)(LoginFailed)
12/6/2008 8:23:11 AM Connection AMP Futures: Unable to login (10004)(LoginFailed)

Is anyone else having issues this morning? And I was seeing the same thing as you yesterday. I did an F1 search on the error codes and nothing came up. Any advice from Tech Support would be wonderful.

Thanks.

[higler]

I haven't tried connecting this morning so I don't know the situation this morning. I can report back my communications with Zen-Fire from a few days ago. It was frustrating because they seemed defensive, but following is the gist fo the Zen-Fire responses:

1. ZF blamed everything on an ISP (I think in New York). They utilize numerous ISP's so it was only the people who had the misfortune of being routed through that ISP that experienced these problems. (Lucky us).

2. ZF said that they had thousands of users who experienced no problems. Only the unfortunates who were routed through the affected ISP experienced problems. Well, good for the other people. That doesn't help us.

3. ZF said that they had no control over the situation since it was an ISP and not them. Then they said that as soon as they became aware of the situation that they routed data around the affected ISP. If they have no control then how could they fix it by routing around the affected ISP. Sounds like they really do have some control.

4. They said that they have a highly redundant system. I don't know what part is redundant but it doesn't seem like they have a means of automaticaly monitoring the data feed through all their ISP's with automatic switching and fallback. This is pure supposition, but I have dealt with datavendors before who use their customers as a monitoring system. When they get complaints then they think maybe there is a problem.

My whole communcation with ZF was largely unproductive.

NinjaTrader folks, I realize that data feed reliability is somewhat out of your hands, but I thought that maybe you were "tight" with the ZF people. I'm not trading with play money anymore and this is frustrating. I cannot trade while the data is so erratic. Automatic trade management is a powerful NT feature that appears to be useless (if it's managed by NT and not the trade servers) under these conditions. It is also unclear if trades have really been executed. I cannot use NT to trade under these conditions. I would very much appreciate a clear response on what's happening and if anything can be done to fix it. I realize that this seems to be the ZF responsibility.

Can NT incorporate some data feed reliability monitoring system? I only get a warning from NT when the feed is essentially gone or dropped (connection lost). That's too late. I used to have some system monitoring software that would ping designated servers at intervals and report back times, etc. I could use this to monitor the data provider reliability if I knew the appropriate IP addresses. However, perhaps NT could incorporate something similar and at least give an early warning that there is a data feed problem so that I can stay out of a trading. If the pings aren't reponding promptly then warn me fast. You can also use it for diagnostics purposes. Thanks.

[BigAAPL]

Nice post higler, that should spur a few phone calls. I want to keep my NT/ZF platform as I feel it is a nice and robust tool. Unreliable streaming data renders it useless.

[higler]

I also want to keep the combo. I have spent a lot of time getting familiar with NT and getting it configured. I have used other trading platforms and I love NT. The NT/ZF has a strong reputation for speed and reliabilty. That is what is so frustrating to me. We need the speed and reliability that has historically been a hallmark of the NT/ZF combo and lately it hasn't been there for me and it appears to be ZF related. I obviously don't have enough clout to get real solutions and answers from ZF. That is why I am wondering if NT can at least incorporate a network reliability and monitoring feature into NT so that we can at least get early warnings of when the network has a problem. I realize that systems will occasionally have glitches (it has been excessive lately IMHO) but I would like to be aware of it as early as possible so I can refrain from trading.

[NinjaTrader_RJ]

I also want to keep the combo. I have spent a lot of time getting familiar with NT and getting it configured. I have used other trading platforms and I love NT. The NT/ZF has a strong reputation for speed and reliabilty. That is what is so frustrating to me. We need the speed and reliability that has historically been a hallmark of the NT/ZF combo and lately it hasn't been there for me and it appears to be ZF related. I obviously don't have enough clout to get real solutions and answers from ZF. That is why I am wondering if NT can at least incorporate a network reliability and monitoring feature into NT so that we can at least get early warnings of when the network has a problem. I realize that systems will occasionally have glitches (it has been excessive lately IMHO) but I would like to be aware of it as early as possible so I can refrain from trading.

ZenFire is performing some system upgrades this weekend that should be finished around Sunday noon Eastern.

Hopefully these upgrades will help with some of your connection issues.