Bug Report: full title in text, too long for here

[NinjaCustomer]

title: Bug Report: Edit Strategy screws up nt8 platform if trying to access the dialog while compiling

Here is a bug I've run across twice.. don't know if it is specific to my workspace, files or whatever. Please don't ask me to replicate because it will crash my workspace when I force close ninjatrader and I don't like to do that because every time you crash a ninjatrader workspace you are playing with fire (might corrupt something, it has happened before - but not related to this situation).

But I will give you enough details here to determine if you can replicate it yourself.

NT8 Version: 8.0.17.2 64-bit

To replicate:
1. edit strategy
2. compile ninjascript
3. make sure the compilation IS NOT finished.. that the icon is still moving and no sound has been heard yet
4. Right click a strategy in the strategy tab (for me it is the same strategy I edited and was compiling)
5. choose edit strategy
6. workspace is still BUSY (meaning that the workspace is not crashed but not accessible either.. if you click the control center you get a ding.. but charts are still updating.. ) it is where you get a dialog to change the settings of a strategy.. only The dialog never appears.. AND .. the compiling icon still continues endlessly with no compilation sound heard.

so that is the bug.. doing this makes an endless compile and the workspace is no longer accessible.. i cannot find any dialog on screen that i can close to get the workspace back.

this has happened to me twice, the 2 and only times I have ever tried to edit a strategy settings during a compile.

also debug mode was enabled, don't know if it was enabled the previous time as well.. but i was not attached or trying to debug it.



But if you think it is something specific to my strategy that I might be doing in OnStateChange(), please let me know.. I don't think I'm doing anything suspicious there - just from previous threads on the forums I realize that that might be a possibility for this kind of problem. Or if you think there is some magically hidden dialog box, please tell me what to look for - like maybe the title of a window or other identifying text that I can search for with software that lists all the windows running in the OS because I can't see any dialog window myself.. but since it has the modal dialog ding when i try to click on the control center, I realized that it might be a possibility and it might be hidden or somewhere offscreen.

[NinjaTrader_Kate]

Hello NinjaCustomer,

Thank you for your post.

I am not able to replicate this exactly as you've described, however, I did see similar behavior with endless compiling when I clicked compile and then tried to cancel out of a Strategy Builder window while the compile was occurring. If you are able to create a short video showing exactly what you're clicking on to achieve the behavior you describe, it would help me greatly in ensuring I'm taking the correct steps to replicate your original issue.

Thanks in advance; I look forward to assisting you further.

[NinjaCustomer]

I forgot to add that the way I compile is while editing in Visual Studio 2019 (but not actually debugging, just editing) ... so when I press ctrl S in VS to save then the NinjaScript Window starts to automatically compile.. then while it is compiling I do what I mentioned above. The file that was saved is the strategy file of the strategy I right click in the strategies window (it was a tab but i use it as a "duplicate to new " window but I doubt that makes a difference - I only duplicated it as a window one time when creating the workspace initially)

[NinjaTrader_Kate]

Hello NinjaCustomer,

Thank you for your reply.

The additional data you've provided is very helpful. I will do some testing and follow up with my findings.

Thanks in advance; I look forward to assisting you further.

[NinjaCustomer]

I also managed just now to get an "endless compile" doing this:

1. Editing in another IDE (Visual Studio Code) - before I used Visual Studio 2019, so I think it makes no difference except maybe a compile resulting from the detection of a file being saved externally outside of NinjaScript Editor might be a factor vs compiling inside NinjaScript Editor manually, which I don't do

2. So I was compiling the same strategy this time

3. but instead of right clicking to edit a strategy in the strategies tab duplicated window, I was right clicking on a chart in a window* where there are no strategies at all - and chosing Indicators...

* = while the NinjaScript editor had detected a change and started a compile and had not yet finished compiling

4. the Indicators Dialog does not show and endless compile in the ninjascript window results

[NinjaTrader_Kate]

Hello NinjaCustomer,

Thank you for your reply.

I'm not sure if it's necessarily compiling outside of the NS editor that's the issue, given that I was able to trigger the same endless compile effect by triggering the compile from within the NS editor and then trying to cancel out of a Strategy Builder window before the compile completes. I was actually also able to trigger it earlier today by hitting compile in the Strategy Builder and then trying to unlock the code for the strategy before the compile was complete. I'm going to keep doing some testing so I can give our QA team a solid rundown. If you run into any other ways to trigger this behavior, please let me know.

Thanks in advance; I look forward to resolving this item.

[NinjaCustomer]

ok, I'll keep an eye out for it. If it does get fixed, maybe you can drop a note here. But really I don't think I'll come across any new ways before you send the description to QA.

[NinjaCustomer]

about my previous post that you replied to.. I just mention that I am compiling outside of ninjatrader so you have a more complete picture of what I'm doing .. the important part of that post was that there was another way to "soft crash" the platform (meaning the platform did not disappear from the screen, it just became so inaccessible that I had to force close it with task manager)... what I was pointing out was that it happens also from the indicators dialog on a chart, not just the edit strategy dialog from the strategies grid.. so you could probably extrapolate and say that any kind of dialog opened during a save might have the potential to do this, or at least possibly more than just the edit strategy and charts indicator dialogs might exhibit this problem as well.

[NinjaCustomer]

I deleted the message that I posted here, it was an endless compile as well but due to user error on my part - a new addon I created. Messages posted above are describing a situation with no AddOns running (i.e. an empty AddOns) folder

[NinjaTrader_Jim]

Hello NinjaCustomer,

Thanks for your detail.

I have seen some situations like this and have spoken with our QA team regarding this behavior.

They are currently looking into this with the ticket ID QA-4323. I'll keep you posted on any findings here.

EDIT: Development has applied a fix for thread locking issues that are seen after compiling and opening a dialog. The fix is tagged with the ID NTEIGHT-13704 and the number for this ID will be noted in the release notes page of the Help Guide when the next release of NinjaTrader 8 goes live. Since there are other tasks involved with release schedules we cannot provide an ETA for when a new release will be available.

Release Notes - https://ninjatrader.com/support/help...ease_notes.htm

Thanks for reporting!