How to get a fast answer when an EA is not trading
Nine times out of ten an EA sitting on its hands comes down to the same short
list. Work through it before posting and you will usually find it yourself.
Check these first
- Algo Trading is on — the button in the MT5 toolbar should be green, and
the chart should show a smiling face, not a sad one.
- The symbol is right — a gold EA needs your broker's actual gold symbol,
which might be XAUUSD, XAUUSD.raw, GOLD or XAUUSDm.
- The market is open — no ticks, no trades.
- Spread — most of our EAs skip entries when spread widens. Check the
spread filter setting against what your broker is actually quoting.
- Session windows — if the EA has trading hours, they are in server time,
which is often not your local time.
- The Experts and Journal tabs — these almost always say what happened.
What to include when you post
Paste this and you will usually get an answer on the first reply:
- Product name and version
- Broker, account type, and whether it is hedging or netting
- Symbol exactly as it appears in Market Watch
- Timeframe and the chart you attached it to
- A screenshot of your inputs
- The last few lines from the Experts and Journal tabs
Screenshots help a lot — use the camera button in the reply box to attach one.