MetaTrader 4 - Dealing with problems

I have been working with MT4 since 2002.

It is an excellent program.

It is very stable, reliable and powerful.

But once in a while, not very often,

you may experience a problem ...

If you do not know how to deal with a problem quickly and effectively, it can result in losing trades.

I'd like to compile a list of problems here, and solutions on how to solve them.

If you experience problems with MetaTrader 4, or if you can recommend solutions to the problems, please let me know.

This way we can help each other and become better traders!

1. My Metatrader stopped to work!

MT4 is not connecting to the internet anymore.

There may be several reasons for this.

1.a Your computer is not connected to the internet.

It may sound stupid, but every once in a while somebody will contact me with this problem and then they simply forgot to connect their computers to the internet!

MT4 can only work as long as there is an active internet connection.

Solution: Make certain your computer in online.

1.b Your demo account has been cancelled.

Some companies will put a time limit on a demo account, for example it will only work for a month.

Solution: You will have to apply for a new demo account.

At other companies a demo trading account will stay active as long as you are using it. If you did not do any demo trade for a period of 30 days, your demo account may be cancelled because the Fx company thinks you no longer need it and they want to save space on the trading server.

Solution: You will have to apply for a new demo account.

1.c MT4 has been upgraded and the old version will stop to work.

The newest upgrade version (Build 825) became available on Friday, May 22 2015.

How do I know which version is installed on my computer?

In Metatrader 4 click on Help on the Menu and then on About (bottom option). A Popup window will appear with the version number in the bottom left corner:

IMPORTANT: All trade server builds below 745 are no longer supported and will not be able to connect to 825 and above servers. Do not forget to update your servers operating on the older builds.

The update will feature the following changes:

- Higher flexibility in interaction with various web services;

- The terminal interface has been adapted for high-resolution screens;

- Multiple improvements and fixes have been implemented in the Virtual Hosting service;

- Now you can customize the list of news to your convenience and filter them by categories;

Read a full description of the 825 build.

At some companies the MT4 version will upgrade automatically the next time you log into your demo or live trading account.

If you have a very old version of MT4 on your computer, it may be unable to update automatically.

Solution: You will have to download and install the newest version of MT4 manually.

2. Trade context is busy.

A problem that some people experience is that when they try to close a trade on their computer a message will appear :

Trade context is busy

They are then unable to close the trade and they are losing pips while waiting.

The easiest solution:

Quickly Close the MetaTrader program and immediately Run it again. It will take a few seconds and you will be back online again. You will now be able to close the trade without a problem.

Do you know about a better solution to the problem?

3. Using more than one screen.

It is very nice to work with more than one screen as you can look at more graphs at the same time. This will enable you to identify more trading opportunities and hopefully you can make more profit.

When using a laptop with an external monitor you can run into problems with MetaTrader when you disconnect the external monitor and use only the Laptop's build-in monitor.

Metatrader uses a system of popup windows for certain functions, for example for the screen where you activate or close a trade.

When opening (activating) a trade manually there are several methods to do this:

You can click the New Order button on the Menu bar, or
you can right click on the screen and select Trading > New Order, or
you can press the F9 button which is the short-cut key.

All 3 methods will open the Order window.

If you want to close a trade, you will have to right click on the trade (the blue line in the picture below) in the Terminal Window at the bottom of the screen and select Close Order, or you can double click on the trade (the blue line in the picture below) in the Terminal Window and the Order window will open.

You can now close the trade by clicking on the Yellow bar with the word Close on it.

The problem I experience when using MetaTrader with more than one screen, and then switching back to only one screen, is that MetaTrader stores the position of the popup windows and will open them in the same position when you run MetaTrader again.

It can be that the popup windows will now open in a screen position where there is no screen attached, with the result that you may be unable to change a graph setting or close a trade because you cannot see the popup window!

You can press Alt + F4 to close the popup window but you will still not be able to close your trade due to the fact that the popup window will open every time in the off-screen position and you cannot see it and do not know where to click!

Do anybody know how to solve this problem?

One thing is to make certain that you move all popup windows back to the primary screen before closing down Metatrader and disconnecting your second screen. Hopefully all the popup screens will open in the right position when you next run MetaTrader again.

It will be nice if MetaTrader can get a button that you press to move all popup windows to a default position on the main screen when you press it.

I received the following suggestion from Warren to solve the problem:

An updated solution to the problem of MT4 dialogue windows going missing offscreen is the following:

1. Go into your broker mt4 config directory (mine is Oanda) inside of "C:\Program Files (x86)\OANDA - MetaTrader\config"

2. Open "terminal.ini" in Notepad (or whatever :))

3. Look for the dialog which is missing, and change the 'top' and 'left'

values (in pixels) so the dialogue will appear inside of your screen resolution.

4. Restart MT4

If this file is too complicated for the user to figure out, they can simply delete terminal.ini or rename terminal.ini to something else (eg.

terminal.bak) if they don't feel comfortable deleting it, and restart MT4; this will cause MT4 to generate a brand new file, with all dialogues at their default position.

Thanks Warren! I believe this tip may save many traders from losing money!

4. Be careful when using the notepad or laptop build-in mouse!

If you move the mouse cursor with the touchpad over the Buy or Sell button in the expectation of activating a trade, you can get into trouble. If for any reason you decide not to continue with the trade, you will be unable to move the mouse cursor away from this button without activating a trade! The moment you touch the pad to move the mouse cursor away, the computer will see it as a click action and you will be in a trade in the wrong direction.

I learned this lesson the hard way because I lost money with a touchpad!

My recommendation: It is better to use an external mouse at all times. Then you can move the cursor around without the risk of accidentally activating a trade.

5. Be careful when using a mouse with a wheel-button!

When you open the Order window where you activate a trade, the Symbol at the top of the screen is automatically selected.

If you touch the wheel-button by chance it will then change the currency combination without you knowing it! It is only after you activated a trade that you will notice the mistake and realize you are in a trade in the wrong currency combination. I lost money this way!

Solution: Be careful not to touch the wheel-button when you open the Order window!

If you experience problems with MetaTrader or have solutions to problems, please send me an email to info@forexmasters.co.za with a description of the problem and / or problem plus solution.

Johan

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