Constant Optimizer Crashing

[darckeen]

I've been experiencing constant crashing when running optimizer runs. Either at the end or in the middle the results screen gets x'ed out by a big red boxed x. I tried to do a fresh install and still am having the same problem. Any ideas on how to correct this critical problem?

[ctrlbrk]

When this happened to me, it means out of memory, NT will do this sometimes as it approaches 1.3GB-1.5GB of usage.

You'll have to run a smaller optimization job, or just exit and re-load Ninja more frequently (the longer it is open, the more it consumes).

Mike

[darckeen]

I don't remember having this problem with earlier versions... mabey i'll try to roll back.

[darckeen]

When this happened to me, it means out of memory, NT will do this sometimes as it approaches 1.3GB-1.5GB of usage.

Do you still get this with your 12g machine?

I've found that this happens sporatically. Sometimes i can do a 5000 run optimization with a demanding strategy and it works fine. Then I do a 2000 run optimization with a undemanding strategy and it crashes. Perhaps I'm delusional but there are a few things that I think reduce the occurance of this. First off before running an optimization do a multi-instrument back test or small optimization. This switches the strategy analyser GUI from instrument view to instrument/optimizer view so it doesnt have to do this upon displaying the results. Also switching to the "instrument" tab and placing your results tab to "settings" before doing the optimization seems to reduce taxing NT.

[ctrlbrk]

darkceen,

Yes 12GB does nothing for Ninja which can only use 1.5GB memory max.

The longer you leave Ninja open, the more backtests you do, the more memory it uses. So a job that may have worked 5 times in a row will fail on the 6th time, for instance.

I have worked with NT support on this, and after many months they have actually come through and delivered a patch that does improve it quite a bit. It will be included in NT7, and there are also alot of other memory improvements in NT7 which should make things a lot better.

For now my advice is to keep the Control Center "log" tab open and visible at all times. Once you get an out of memory error, close and re-load ninja. Often times the error will be logged but will not be alerted via a dialog box on-screen. This means sometimes the backtest will appear to have worked when really it was out of memory, and the results will not be accurate.

Mike

[darckeen]

Well the latest update seems to get rid of the red X and stops the NT from crashing, but still stops optimizing though. One thing that i've figured that may help with strategies that use alot of memory is to destruct your variables and run garabge collection at the end of the run in your strategy.

Something like this in OnBarUpdate():
// destruct objects
if (CurrentBar == Bars.Count-2)
{
object1 = null;
object2 = null;
GC.Collect();
}

This frees memory and keeps NT from hitting the point where it crashes, i think.