TDA. There was a problem updating the account: We were unable to process your request

[bertochi]

This is another issue with TDA that happens at random. "Almost" every day it happens upon launching NT for the first time on that day, but it can also happen during other times of the day. NT connects successfully to TDA price feed, but not to your live account.

Due to this bug, all your positions show as 0.

If you enable your strategies without realizing about this issue, you could end up duplicating your live positions if for example your long condition is true and your strategies see that your position is flat, when in reality it might be already long.

Long and trace files already sent to customer support.

[bertochi]

A safety measure could be added to NT, such us if an error = "There was a problem updating the account", then BLOCK the application, DO NOT ALLOW any further processing and RESTART automatically.

[NinjaTrader_Marco]

Hello bertochi,

Thanks for your post.

There is a new process that requires authorization from the connection on the TDAmeritrade side in order for the connection to continue working. Please recreate the connection following the steps below in the Connection guide for this connection:

https://ninjatrader.com/ConnectionGu...nnection-Guide

Please let me know if I may be of any further assistance.

[bertochi]

Dear @NinjaTrader_Marco,

I am aware of such new process that came into effect from the start of 2020.
Please be advised this issue has nothing to do with such new process.
I have created the new connection before the start of 2020.
If I hadn't created the connection months ago, I wouldn't be able to connect at all.
If you read my first message you will see that this error/issue/bug happens at random.
You are able to connect to TDA "price feed" but not to your "live account", hence not retrieving all your positions.
Even though NT will record this event as an error in your log file, it will allow you to continue working as normal, when this is a critical issue that should prevent you from doing anything else, forcing you to restart NT until there is no such issue.
Why is it critical? Well, all your positions start as flat, even though your broker real position might be long or short. If you enable any strategies, you could potentially be creating a mess with your real/live positions, by sending a long or a short order, when you are already long or short.
This critical issue needs to be addressed by the developers.
Unfortunately, We, as users, can not trigger events inside NT based on log events.
As a workaround, I have created an external script that will read the latest log file upon a connection to my price feed, and search for that error: "There was a problem updating the account: We were unable to process your request"

If such error exist on the log file, NT will be killed and restarted.
But let me stress you that users should not work with workarounds.
Thank you

[bortz]

Once again,the old adage- if you want to know how good an app is, just check out it's message board. I can just imagine all the potential NT8 potential customers who run for the hills when they visit this message board.and they read some of these posts. You've got customers who appear more knowledgeable than support/developers and BASIC issues still being addressed after x iterations of this software. This version 8 has been out for over a year now and they're still adding basic functionality/features. It appears that the suckers born every minute surpasses the incompetence of this company or they would have gone belly up long ago. Yes, that was harsh but it's also the truth..

[NinjaTrader_PatrickG]

bortz , thanks for your feedback. When we have no context of previous conversations in a forum post, we must start from the bottom from a troubleshooting perspective. What my colleague was unaware of was an ongoing conversation between bertochi and myself where we've been discussing TD Ameritrade symptoms. I hope you can appreciate that we're all humans making an effort to help the best we can with any symptoms that are reported to us.

TD Ameritrade API development is ongoing and I expect that all of these symptoms will be resolved.

[bortz]

@PatrickG Yes, I do appreciate that fact. At the same time, I hope you can appreciate the fact that some of us are long time live traders and when an API screws up, it's like taking the pipe wrench out of the plumber's tool box and hiding it on him. The unfortunate part is that TDA always has it's data feed available and error free for it's own think or swim platform users and NT is always far down their priority list. (look at resolution time for this API matter as an example) When we purchased multi-license NT, we also purchased implied functionality between yourselves and other brokers and that we would be provided a NT compatible data feed from these brokers/sources. Also the implied promise that things like NT strategies and real time order entry would work flawlessly with these brokers/sources. So as you can see, this is very frustrating, income robbing (Since I'm now back on sim trading until this API issue gets ironed out and some of the best day trading opps since January are passing me by with this Carona crash). Again, this isn't personal or an attempt to troll the board. Just a day trader trying to express an objective opinion of the situation and feeling like the guy who got his pipe wrench stolen. Thanks for your help and for listening while keeping it professional,

[bertochi]

Dear @PatrickG, I also appreciate your help all the time when things do not work as they should. I started testing NT back in 2016, and bought my license in 2017. Since then, the API has never worked 100% fault free. I share the same frustration that bortz has so respectfully expressed. I thank you once again and hope things get sorted for good one day.