Repeating Alert

[Rashid Garuba]

Actually got ONE alert at 8:55pm preceding the 9:00pm condition.

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

We need to simplify the alert on your end to make sure we can get one condition to work then we can repeat that to get the additional conditions working. I've tested the settings in the attached screenshot in Market Replay and they work for me. I would recommend that we try for just a few minutes after you finish this configuration instead of waiting for the half hour in order to speed up the confirmation of working/not working

[Rashid Garuba]

That worked...

[Rashid Garuba]

Patrick,

There is an inconsistency with the way this works.. A few times it did nothing and on the latest it is alerting DEFINITELY 5 minutes early.. same exact settings. On timer re-arm is consistent but the bar close is confused in some way...

[Rashid Garuba]

Patrick,

This likely has something to do with the alerts being 5 minutes early:

https://ninjatrader.com/support/forum/forum/ninjatrader-8/platform-technical-support-aa/1041198-10-min-need-to-begin-at-the-hour

[NinjaTrader_Jim]

Hello Rashid,

I'm responding on behalf of Patrick who asked me to look into this further.

Something to note with time based alerts is that they will check the timestamp of the developing bar with each incoming tick rather than checking the current time against the time noted in the alert. This would mean that on the first tick that develops the "trigger bar" the alert will fire and this will look like an early alert. I created a feature request to improve time based alerts so they can either check the actual time relative to the timezone configured in NinjaTrader's options menu or to check on bar closes instead of on each tick. That feature request is being tracked with the ticket ID SFT-3671. We can't offer an ETA or promise of fulfillment, but if anyone else would like to see these sort of improvements, we will track interest in that ticket ID.

You can work around the "early alerts" with time based bars by creating an alert that triggers on the next bar.

As for OnBarClose rearms not consistently firing alerts, this may be related, but I have opened a ticket with our QA team to look into further.

I'll keep you posted on how that matter develops.

Thanks for your post and bringing this to our attention.

[Rashid Garuba]

Jim,

Thanks for looking into it.. As long as the behavior is known I can adjust my alerts to compensate.. Will keep an eye out when it is fixed so I can re-edit the alerts back at that time.

While you're at it can anything to be done we can use the Equals (makes more sense..?) rather than combining "Greater equal" and "Less"? Equals allows stacking ANY of several time conditions. ALL of "Greater equal" and "Less" forces using several separate alerts.. Currently Equals doesn't work.

Thanks

[NinjaTrader_Jim]

Hello Rashid,

Statements of equality can potentially be off for timing reasons and for floating point calculation reasons. There are also circumstances where tick based bars and bars that have local time stamps (depending on your provider) can give timestamps that cannot be checked by equality. Creating alerts that check greater-or-equal with a less-than will be more universally reliable.

In the meantime, you should be able to handle creating your alerts with the 2 conditions and using a ReArm period for a timer matching the length of the bar's life.

[NinjaTrader_Jim]

Hello Rashid,

I would like to get connected with you on a call to discuss these alerts and some potential issues.

Could you send me a message at platformsupport [at] ninjatrader [dot] com with the text "Attn Jim" and a link to this thread? Please also let me know a time when we can get connected during our normal support hours. (Please include a time zone.) Our regular support hours are 8:30am to 6pm US Eastern, Monday through Friday and I will be in the office at 9:00 AM EST.

I look forward to being of further assistance.

[NinjaTrader_Jim]

To update this thread, Rashid and I discussed a couple issues that could be encountered when testing alerts in the Playback Connection:

1. Playing back replay data at a faster time may miss alerts. See here
2. OnBarClose ReArm alerts will not fire if that trigger bar does not close. (Rewinding the Playback Connection and replaying the alert will not fire if bar has not closed.)

The first item would be expected when playing back at a faster rate since the alerts are checked on a 200ms interval which could be missed at higher playback rates.

The second item I have opened up an enhancement ticket so OnBarClose alerts are re-armed on a rewind of the Playback Connection. Currently you will have to disable and re-enable the alert if you have rewinded before the trigger bar closes. This is being tracked with the ticket ID SFT-3678.