Orange connected status

[Owlman]

I have noticed a number of times recently (pretty much every day) that the Connected status on the bottom left of the Control Centre turns orange. I searched the forums and found several (very old) posts that state that this means the connection has been partially lost, either to the Price server or the Order server. When I look at the price movements (in the Order tab) they are still happening so I assume the connection to the Order server is lost. Does this mean that when my strategy submits orders they are not being actioned?

Also, in one of the posts, the explanation stated that Ninja will continuously try to reconnect to the lost connection. According to the log Ninja lost the connection at 8:48 am local time (GMT+10). I only saw this just now at 11pm local time, so the connection was down for 14 hours. I stopped both my strategies, disconnected from Zen-fire, reconnected, and voila! A green connection again, immediately. It seems to me that Ninja must have given up trying to reconnect at some point, because the connection is fine now.

Because of the time zone I live in my strategies run unattended all night, so I am not monitoring what's going on with any regularity, so this is a concern for me. I understand that NT cannot guarantee the connection, (it's like a radio receiver according to the explanation) and if the signal is lost there's not much it can do. Fair enough, but it would be nice if it did reconnect (and turn green) as soon as the signal was rediscovered (to continue the radio analogy).

I have been using NT for several years now (the last six months live) and this has never been a problem before. Now it seems to be almost a daily occurrence. It started several weeks ago, and I have to say I didn't really pay a lot of attention as everything seemed to be still working, but tonight I thought I'd investigate a little further, and now I'm worried. I should also mention I've been using NT7 almost since it was first released. I'm using the 32 bit version as I'd read there were problems with the 64 bit version and Zenfire (although I believe that's since been resolved I'm still using the 32 version just in case (call me paranoid...) and anyway there's really no reason I know of to go to the 64 bit version).

Nothing on my PC has substantially changed recently (except one of my monitors is dying), I'm using WIn7 (and have been since the free beta was first released), same antivirus (Microsoft security essentials) and pretty much nothing else as I only use my PC for running Ninja (and the net and email of course, Google Chrome and Thunderbird if you're interested) and that's about it, so I don't think my setup can be causing the problem. My ISP, iinet, is the second biggest in Australia (according to their advertising) so I don't think the problem could lie with them. Again, been using them for years and never had a problem. And yes I've installed the latest version of NT7 (7.0.1000.3), I always install the latest version as soon as it becomes available. I'm reasonably sure this issue was occurring under the previous version too (7.0.1000.2) but I wouldn't bet my house on it.

No idea if there's anything anybody can do about this issue, but if there is any action I can take to alleviate the problem I sure would like to know about it.

Thanks,
Ian

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello Ian,

"Does this mean that when my strategy submits orders they are not being actioned?"

Yes, if you are not connected to the order server, orders cannot be received at your broker.

NinjaTrader will try to automatically re-connect for 2 minutes or so. If no connection could be established, it will stop trying. Unfortunately, you will then need to manually restore the connection.

Do you notice any consistencies between the disconnections so far? Could it be it occurs always at the same time?

I suggest to check what IP address and port your Zen-Fire connection will use with your broker. Subsequently check if the IP address or port is interfered on your end.

[Owlman]

Blimey! that was quick! Thanks for that.

Not entirely sure how to check the IP address and port, never had to look at it before... and I don't know what you mean by the port being interfered at my end. How would I check that?

Thanks,
Ian

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello Ian,

Unfortunately I do not have specific information listed on my end how to check this. However please check if firewall or anti-virus software is interfering the IP address and port in question or any other program on your PC.

Check if the IP address and port are interfered in your internet connection setup as well (modem, router). If you need assistance with this process, I suggest to contact an IT guy.

[Owlman]

Orange connected statue - SOLVED???

Not sure but I think I might have solved this. I was thinking about it a couple of nights ago, and I thought the only thing I've changed on my PC lately is that I started using Google Chrome instead of Firefox, and it was around the same time as I started having the connection problems. So as an experiment I shut down Chrome while my strategy was running and, waddya know, no more connection problems.

I have no idea how Chrome could interfere with my Ninja connection, but I have not had a disconnection in three days now, and it used to be a daily occurrence. I have left Firefox running though, and still have not had any connection problems. Think I'll be deinstalling Chrome...

:-) Ian

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello Ian,

Great to hear you do not experience disconnections anymore and that you likely found the cause of the issue.

Unfortunately I am not sure how Google Chrome could interfer with your Zen-Fire connection, but as per your description the disconnections do not occur anymore after shutting it down.