ZenFire/Mirus disconnects

[dave1992]

Hello,

Under what conditions would NT register a connection lost with Zen-Fire (Mirus)?

I get disconnects every few days, sometimes three or four in half an hour. It's not very frequent, but I'd like to work out what it is.

I'm pretty sure it's not volume related, since I have a solid 15mbs download connection (up for 21 days now), and I have seen disconnects at 00:30 Chicago time on a weeknight when connected to US markets - a relatively very low volume period.

I'm also pretty sure it has nothing to do with my PC, as I'm only running NT and have a four core CPU and 12GB RAM. This is with 6 1min strategies and a ten instrument market analyzer.

I do not want to test this without the market analyzer, since it's pretty random and could take days. Besides, the market analyzer does very little at low volume.

What I would really like is a list of conditions that make it occur, and please make it as technical as possible! e.g. if high volume causes a disconnect, what is the thing that detects that and how does it work?

many thanks
Dave

[NinjaTrader_Jason]

Hello Dave,

NinjaTrader will report a disconnection once it loses the connection to Zen-Fire. Please note that NinjaTrader does not dictate when a connection is lost. It operates like a radio receiver in that it receives a signal from your broker and then displays/reports these signals back to you the trader.

The common issues that contribute to disconnections are:

- ISP issues

- hardware firewall issues changing IP addresses frequently

- Dynamic ISP address switching the address frequently intraday. Usually this happens once a week but you may want to check with your ISP. If they do change daily, a static IP address may work.

- With Windows XP SP2, if you have more than 10 open TCPIP socket connections open (10 programs making connections through the internet) windows will randomly shut down some connections

- Broker servers having problems

In addition, please check for software, such as (corporate) firewalls, spyware and anti-virus software, that could be interfering the connection as well.

[dave1992]

I should have mentioned, I eliminated firewall, spyware, server problems, static IP, ISP and I have Windows 7.

Your answer makes no sense. A radio receiver cannot detect a lost connection. What I was getting at is how does NT detect, technically, that it has lost a connection?

thanks
Dave

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

The underlying ZenFire API would report a connection loss/recovery to NT. Thus, NT would act like a radio receiver as Jason explained.

[dave1992]

Thanks, that's the answer I needed. Do I need to talk to Zen Fire about that API?

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

You needed to talk to your internet provider or your broker on connectivity issues.

[dave1992]

OK, thanks. My ISP and broker are going to know nothing about Zen Fire's API, so I'll go to Zen Fire (I already tried my broker who said 'Zen Fire report no server problems')

Dave

[dave1992]

Hello,

Could you please explain to me how the NT heartbeat works, what its timeout is, and how it signals a disconnect from Zen Fire. I have eliminated ISP issues as the problem, however, I feel the heartbeat might be too sensitive. I am still getting disconnects and I need to try and test and resolve this. I'm happy to do that, but I need some serious info from NT to do that. Happy to take it offline too.

thanks
Dave

[NinjaTrader_Dierk]

There is a misunderstanding. NT does not provide any heart beat logic. NT uses the API which is provided by ZenFire. That API controls the connection and NT has not impact nor insight.

[Zapzap]

One more thing that causes reconnects: if you synchronise your PC clock and there is a more than 25-30secs gap between previous and synced time, NT disconnects and reconnects, which takes like 2-3 secs.