Brief ZF disconnects Friday 9 March 2012 - confirm

[steve2222]

Can anyone confirm if they also had some brief disconnects with ZF today.

See attached NT log snapshot - the times are USA ET.

The disconnects are only for a couple of seconds.

I am trying to understand if this is a ZF issue or something to do with internet quality between the USA and New Zealand - so I would be interested in other NT members from the USA and overseas having a look at their log tab on NT7 if they are using ZF data feed.

Some days I don't get any, but probably 50% of the time I get 2 or 3 disconnections a day.

I am not losing broadband connection and my ISP has confirmed this.

[NinjaTrader_AdamP]

steve,

I am not seeing any connection issues currently, however we are in Denver, Colorado.

Many things can affect connections.

Do you have a wireless network setup at home that you access the internet through? Do you use a proxy or firewall?

[steve2222]

Thanks Adam,

We do have wireless on the router but I used Ethernet connection on the trading computer.

I have subsequently noticed that the 8.30am ish disconnections were at the time of the unemployment news, so maybe some issue with ZF buffering to this part of the world (we are on about 300ms latency to ZF). But this does not explain the 10.20am disconnection as there was no news then.

I also wondered about the number of instruments. I have Market Analyser going and I had double the number of instruments on it as I was capturing volume on the March and June contracts to see when to switch for each instrument. So Market Analyser was probably tracking 16 contracts. Could this have an impact during big news events with lots of activity ie high activity time across 16 instruments, so ZF could just not keep up??

The Microsoft firewall is ON. What do you mean 'do I use a proxy' - how do I check?

Thanks

[NinjaTrader_AdamP]

Steve,

I have subsequently noticed that the 8.30am ish disconnections were at the time of the unemployment news, so maybe some issue with ZF buffering to this part of the world (we are on about 300ms latency to ZF). But this does not explain the 10.20am disconnection as there was no news then.

Disconnections can be frustrating, however I still suspect a network issue here. You can try pinging their servers and running a speed test locally to see if you can identify an issue like lost packets.Your ISP can also check into the following IP addresses for you, and see if there is any configuration issue on their end.

Speed Test :

http://www.dslreports.com/stest

IP Addresses for Zen-fire :

ritpz02502.02.rithmic.com (64.202.118.230)
ritpz02503.02.rithmic.com (64.202.118.231)
ritpz02504.02.rithmic.com (64.202.118.236)
ritpz02505.02.rithmic.com (64.202.118.240)
ritpz02506.02.rithmic.com (64.202.118.241)
ritpz02512.02.rithmic.com (64.202.118.207)
ritpz02513.02.rithmic.com (64.202.118.208)

PORTS TO ACCESS ON MACHINES LIST ABOVE:

TCP Ports: 65000, 64100, 63100, 56000, 55555, 44444, 40000 through to 41099
UDP Ports: 45454

I also wondered about the number of instruments. I have Market Analyser going and I had double the number of instruments on it as I was capturing volume on the March and June contracts to see when to switch for each instrument. So Market Analyser was probably tracking 16 contracts. Could this have an impact during big news events with lots of activity ie high activity time across 16 instruments, so ZF could just not keep up??

This shouldn't affect the connection unless it was a slow connection. What sort of connection do you have?

The Microsoft firewall is ON. What do you mean 'do I use a proxy' - how do I check?

A proxy is something that you send all your network traffic through to mask your local identifying network items like IP address. You would most likely know if you had one, but you could always check with your ISP.

[steve2222]

Update

Thanks Adam,

I will try the speedtest and pinging ZF servers and if necessary talking to my ISP.

Yesterday (Monday USA time) was not a busy news day. But I closed Market Analyser for the day and only had 7 instruments (2 being light volume micros) running on 7 charts and I had no disconnections.

I will keep monitoring this for a few days and see if the disconnections stop.

The type of broadband connection we have is ADSL2+ over the telephone copper wires. We do not have cable or fibre to the home coverage in our area yet.

You asked if I had a Firewall running in your first reply and I aid yes. Are you suggesting I turn it off when trading?

[NinjaTrader_AdamP]

steve,

ADSL should be fine for speed.

You don't necessarily have to turn off the firewall, you just need to add an exception for NinjaTrader, and possibly some IP ranges such as the ones I provided in my last reply.

If you have windows firewall this is how to do it : http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...exception.html

Definitely keep me posted. You can also email us at support at ninjatrader dot com and we usually get back to you in 15 minutes during regular business hours.

[steve2222]

UPDATE:

Had no connection issues at all last week.

Only change I made was not to have Market Analyser open. I still had 7 charts/instruments open though.

Will keep monitoring this week.

[NinjaTrader_AdamP]

steve,

Yes, please update me. We may require your log/trace as well as any relevant connection logs. For example, Zen-fire logs look like : Zen-Fire20120312.000 and are in your trace folder.