IB TWS auto log off driving me nuts with strategy autotrader in NT

[scriabinop23]

Basically IB TWS has a *feature* that I can't remove. It likes to automatically disconnect in the middle of the night, and when it does that, a running strategy just disappears from NT.

1) Is there a way to make it so IB TWS never logs out unless I force it?

2) Is there a way (and if not, can I feature request it) that I can either make the strategy not disappear upon disconnection from the broker, OR perhaps have a way of saving strategy templates and loading them for quick daily starts of trading strategies in NT?

[zoltran]

sorry for jumping in .. .but ...

Hear Hear ... !!! I'll second and Third the request that NT un-hooks the running of a strategy with an active broker feed. It's very frustrating !! TWS goes down and all my charts and strategy stats are gone. A better option would be a flag/color/greyed-out-something that indicates the strategy is 'off-line' vs dumping the whole thing. It also means that one cannot swing trade with NT and IB in it's current form. Quite limiting really.

Testing a strategy is hard on Saturdays when IB is down and TWS won't even start .. I have to connect to the the 'external' data feed just to attach a strategy to a chart to see what it looks like. Very unusual EUI.


scriabinop23... you can't disable this TWS feature, and IB has confirmed they will never remove it, as they feel it's a required security function.

There are some tools such as IBCONTROLER that will futz arround with the shutdown time, ie .. if TWS was supposed to shutdown at 10pm, they wait till 9:50 and then just change the shutdown time within TWS.

I haven't used it for a while, but got it from the TWS users group on Yahoo.
Sorry .. no links.

Perhaps NT could do something similar with the TWS shutdown time via the API. IT already handles pop-ups and other TWS automations.

[scriabinop23]

sorry for jumping in .. .but ...

Hear Hear ... !!! I'll second and Third the request that NT un-hooks the running of a strategy with an active broker feed. It's very frustrating !! TWS goes down and all my charts and strategy stats are gone. A better option would be a flag/color/greyed-out-something that indicates the strategy is 'off-line' vs dumping the whole thing. It also means that one cannot swing trade with NT and IB in it's current form. Quite limiting really.

Testing a strategy is hard on Saturdays when IB is down and TWS won't even start .. I have to connect to the the 'external' data feed just to attach a strategy to a chart to see what it looks like. Very unusual EUI.
.


Thanks for the agree. I agree. :)

But you know you are able to download the chart data from IB for whatever instrument you want to test end of day on friday, and you will be able to use the strategy tester on that data, right? It is stored in Ninjatrader's caches.

[zoltran]

Thanks for the agree. I agree. :)

But you know you are able to download the chart data from IB for whatever instrument you want to test end of day on friday, and you will be able to use the strategy tester on that data, right? It is stored in Ninjatrader's caches.

Data and strategy tester are ok without a broker connection.
But sometimes I just want to place a strategy on a chart to see what it looks like, before testing it. And you can't attach a strategy if there isn't a broker connection. Same reason the strategies quit when TWS goes down at night.

Using the "External Data" connection seems to be a work-around.

[scriabinop23]

Data and strategy tester are ok without a broker connection.
But sometimes I just want to place a strategy on a chart to see what it looks like, before testing it. And you can't attach a strategy if there isn't a broker connection. Same reason the strategies quit when TWS goes down at night.

Using the "External Data" connection seems to be a work-around.


The alternative of course is to just backtest in strategy analyzer. that works.

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

>>> Is there a way to make it so IB TWS never logs out unless I force it?

Not, that I know of.

>>> Is there a way (and if not, can I feature request it) that I can either make the strategy not disappear upon disconnection from the broker, OR perhaps have a way of saving strategy templates and loading them for quick daily starts of trading strategies in NT?

Sorry, not supported at this time.

[pmorissette]

Actually there is a "hack" that seems to be working well (still testing it, but I have been going for 5 days no restart...)

If you look in your JTS dir, there are some folders that seem to have random names. Open the one that was updated last. Then change the autoLogoffTime to 99999999999999:15,AM in the tws.xml configuration file and make sure that you don't store your settings on the server (checkbox at the bottom of the logon prompt). Make sure you edit this file while IB is not running, or else IB will override the settings when it shuts down.

Once you have saved the file you can relaunch TWS and it will load this file. This will allow it to stay on for several days. Then you can just restart it once a week or something to make sure it's updated.

Hope this helps.

P