Tickstory

Hi Support,
Thanks for reseeding me the email. I have already purchased v1.8.1.
But the main reason I purchased v1.8.1 is because I was hoping that it could resolve the hanging issue when starting the strategy tester. Unfortunately I still experienced the hanging issue when I tried to download more than 1 year of data.
I am using TickStory v1.8.1 with the latest version of Birt's TIck Data Suit (v1.4.6), but the hanging issue still persists.

When I downloaded 1 year worth of data, the strategy tester works fine.
But when I downloaded more than 1 year of data, the hanging problem will surface once I clicked on the "Start" button in the strategy tester. So once I clicked on the "Start" button, the green progress bar will not even start processing at all and then it will just get stuck there forever. When I tried to click the "Stop" button, it will just hang the whole MT4 session and I will have to force close the MT4 window. This problem is consistent and replicable.
I have read thru all Guides on both TickStory and Birt's Tick Data Suit, but still unable to find a solution to this.

From the forum, I saw people commenting that they have no issue with downloading 5 years of data or more.
But I just want to find out why other people can while I can't?
Could you please help to advise what is wrong here?

Regards,
Dave

Hi Daveng,

It is unlikely that this issue is due to Tickstory since all it is effectively doing is exporting data. The likely causes in order of likelihood is your EA or MT4. To eliminate any known issues, firstly make sure that you are not attempting to go beyond the 4GB FXT limitation that MT4 has (it's unlikely with 1 year of data, but check anyway). After that, test with a generic EA such as "MACD Sample". If this successfully completes, there is something going wrong in your EA. It may be memory related or a multitude of other reasons. I would be checking the Journal tab to see if anything interesting is being logged. Sometimes EAs are not coded to handle large volumes of data or perhaps if you are using a trial EA there is some back-test limitation. You will need to do your own trouble-shooting at this stage.
If the "MACD Sample" causes the same hanging issue, then the next step would be to eliminate TDS from the mix by renaming the Tds.exe in the MT4 Installation Folder and trying the Tickstory launcher alone. After that, something suspicious is happening and I would be inclined to try the back-test on another machine.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the info.
I seemed to have found a way to overcome the MT4 hanging issue, and what I did is to select suppress tick volume in TickStory, and in MT4 strategy tester I avoid using the date range.
Now I am able to download and test 4 years worth of tick data.
Hope you find this useful. Cheers.

Thanks for the info, Daveng! Did you have the same issue when using the "MACD Sample"? Also, does this mean if you uncheck 'suppress volume' and not use a date range that everything still hangs? What about the other way around?

I have not try the MACD EA, but thru my findings it is not related to the EA.
So it lies between unchecking the "Suppress Volume Info" and not using the date range in the MT4 strategy tester.
By doing these 2 changes, I can now test up to 10 years worth of data without hanging
So far i only tried up to 10 years and no issue, will try to download more years and see..

Great news, Daveng. We have had reports of the date range causing some issues, so please let us know if you manage to confirm this.

I am still getting this issue. My computer still hangs when specifying a date range. Has someone able to solve this?

Hi J880,

We haven't heard of this issue for some time so assumed that Metaquotes have since resolved it. The only known resolution was to reduce the size of your exported data and try again. You may also try installing on another machine if you have that option to see if that makes any difference.

Hope this helps.

I seemed to have found a way to overcome the MT4 hanging issue, and what I did is to select suppress tick volume in TickStory, and in MT4 strategy tester I avoid using the date range.