eSignal problem

[Anson]

Hope DuaneG and others can help me.


I have mentioned this on the "Anyone else down?" thread and have continued to investigate the issue. I have started this new thread so as not to clutter up the other one with a different problem.

I have been having some issues with eSignal for the last few weeks. They started simpler on the old system.

All my quote windows always worked as they should... updating properly and all.

It was my charts that had issues. Sometimes, all my charts would update nicely. (I only care about last traded price). Sometimes ES would update but NQ would not. Sometimes it would be the reverse. But my Eurostoxx charts never seemed to have any problem at all!

I would restart eSignal if either ES or NQ charts were failing to update as I could see the "live" prices on my quote windows. They never failed to update even if the charts were failing to. Sometimes, a restart would get all the charts updating again... sometimes it took a few restarts! Then in the last week or so... it was close to impossible to get any of the charts of the eminis (again Eurostoxx charts had no issue at all!!!) to update. The quote windows were still working fine.

Two days ago... I got fedup and thought it was time to upgrade my system. I thought my old pc was the source of the problems. It was an old P3-866 after all.

I got myself an Athlon 64 3000+ with 1 gigabyte of DDR 400 ram and a new 120 gb SATA 7200 rpm 8mb cache hard disk.

Upon getting everything else working nicely.... I installed esignal.

Copied my page files and templates from the old hard disk and then proceeded to start up esignal.

The charts loaded fine but the quote windows were empty. The quote windows all showed "No data".
The charts may have had data but they still pretty much were not updating!!!

Thinking I might have missed something, I copied the old esignal (latest version as well) over the one on the new system. Tried esignal again to no avail. Still empty quote windows showing "No data"

I uninstalled and then reinstalled esignal. Rebooted as well. Proceeded to copy over only template files and the quote windows. Started up esignal... created the charts using the templates... then opened the quote windows I had copied over. Everything looked fine! Then saved the page and exited. Restarted esignal again and once again... the quote windows were empty and showing "no data"!!! The charts had the same old problems as on the old pc. Ocassionally would update last price. On some restarts... they would not. Eurostoxx charts once again never had a problem!

I decided to do an experiment.
I saved a page with only quote windows and not one chart. Started up esignal again and there was data and the quotes were live!!

Added one chart now and then resaved the page. Restarted esignal again... again quote windows showing "no data". This has led me to the conclusion that for some reason... when I have advanced charts open... my quote windows do not work! Ocassionally... one or two symbols would show up... but the rest would show "no data"

The only way I have gotten around this problem is to first open my page with ONLY charts. Then open my quote windows one by one. I could get them to work this way. However, my chart "not updating last price" problem persisted. I had to force reload my charts to see any changes. Bu after each force reload... the charts would continue to fail to update last price again.

I have truly gotten quite weary. I bought a new system but things have actually gotten worse! But this problem with the quotes window is the only new one that came with the system. The NQ/ES charts failing to update has been an issue for weeks... and has been getting worse till I decided to upgrade. And it persists now.

I have done much system testing as well. My router which has remained the same has been setup right. Port forwarding is not an issue as i have set my PC to be the "default server" All connections to ports are automtically forwarded to it correctly. I have had no problems at all with many other programs that use a myriad of ports.

My motherboard firewall is disabled. (nforce 3 250gb feature) When i enable it... I can't surf the net at all. So I know its truly disabled when I uninstall the firewall software that works with the motherboard hardware firewall chip.

My own software firewall (Agnitum Outpost firewall) is working fine. Same as on old system. In fact, I disabled it several times to test esignal and the results were the same with and without the firewall activated.

As a result, due to pretty extensive testing, I do not believe it's the fault of my router nor firewalls.

The most interesting thing, though, is this. The Eurostoxx (ET Z4-DT) charts have never failed to work!!! They have never failed to update the last traded price properly at all! From old pc to new!

Thus, I have my suspicions that the issue is somewhere on esignal's side. I do have the CME emini package and I also have the North American Delayed Futures package. Do these conflict somehow? Just a thought... I doubt it.

I really hope someone from esignal can help me out here. Please see next 2 posts with screenshots.

Thank you.

Anson

[Anson]

How it looks when I start esignal with my "normal" page with both charts and quote windows.

[Anson]

The quote windows seem to be fine when I start esignal with a page that only has quote windows!

[buhrmaster]

I too have had ongoing problems with charts not updating properly. Usually it is one or more Advanced Chart that won't update, but today it was a couple of Standard charts (this is very unusual). My SOP is to go into Data Manager and Reset DBs. Why? I don't know; it usually seems to unblock whatever is going on. N.B that simply doing Ctrl+OK does not suffice to get the charts to continue updating without human intervention usually.

Perhaps related is that occasionally ticks appear to be dropped. I see this on an AC that has the SP cash ($SPX or $SPL), which updates with known frequency. A Ctrl+OK restores the dropped data.

Again, it is not all charts with problems and there is no real pattern to when the problem occurs, that I can tell. Quote windows as far as I can tell appear to work properly.

[DuaneG]

Hi Anson,

First off, thank you very much for the detailed explanation of what is happening. This makes determining what may be at fault much easier. As I read through your post, there were a couple different things that stuck out as possibly significant.

A couple of questions; as you mentioned, the Quote windows and the Quote Board stream data just fine without the presence of any Advanced Charts. During the course of copying the eSignal files (specifically the Advanced Chart files) over to the new computer, I assume the applied Style Template was transferred as well. My initial thought is that there may be some sort of corruption with either the Advanced Chart (.ach) file or the Style Template that has been applied to the .ach file. Basically we want eliminate all the possible variables and look for a common denominator, which in this case, initially points to some issue with the Advanced Chart files.

If you could experiment with Advanced Charts without a style template applied, and perhaps a second page file, we may be able to get a handle on this. Being that the symptoms are so severe, I think that if we are not able to pin point an exact cause, it may be best to speak with a technician to get this figured out and get you back a stable point.

[Anson]

Originally posted by buhrmaster
I too have had ongoing problems with charts not updating properly. Usually it is one or more Advanced Chart that won't update, but today it was a couple of Standard charts (this is very unusual). My SOP is to go into Data Manager and Reset DBs. Why? I don't know; it usually seems to unblock whatever is going on. N.B that simply doing Ctrl+OK does not suffice to get the charts to continue updating without human intervention usually.

Perhaps related is that occasionally ticks appear to be dropped. I see this on an AC that has the SP cash ($SPX or $SPL), which updates with known frequency. A Ctrl+OK restores the dropped data.

Again, it is not all charts with problems and there is no real pattern to when the problem occurs, that I can tell. Quote windows as far as I can tell appear to work properly.

Thanks for the tip, buhrmaster! Will give it a try and hope it helps tide me over at least for the time being.

Actually, I noticed that my Cash indices charts, namely the $SPX and $NDX seldom fail to update! Seems to be mainly the NQ/ES charts that give me problems. As I posted below... the Eurostoxx charts are working perfectly even right now!! This leads me to believe esignal servers have some issues or some config somewhere.

Thanks again! I shouldn't feel glad someone else has had similar issues but you know what I mean. Shows it's not unique to me. I hope esignal can help resolve these issues.

[Anson]

DuaneG,

I have created new page files and new quote windows and new charts without style template applied (for the last one... I had a default template so I blanked a chart and set it as default then created new chart which is blank and saved only this one chart with quote windows).

The first time I started esignal after that... it looked fine. After awhile, I exited then counted 10 secs and restarted esignal. Again... the quote windows showed "no data".

No progress with this but pls see next post for new discovery.

[Anson]

I have been continually perplexed by the fact that all my other charts seem to work fine expect ES and NQ.

So I suddenly had an idea. Since the new page/new charts method didn't work. I thought I should try starting esignal with most of my charts EXCEPT my ES and NQ charts.

I knew my Eurostoxx charts had consistently been working thru it all. So I started esignal with a page that had all the new quote windows and only a chart with Eurostoxx. It worked. Restarted esignal 5 times. No problems. But Eurostoxx was closed by that time... so next step.

I remember my SPX and NDX cash charts having been pretty reliable too. Don't really remember them failing to update unlike their Futures cousins (ES and NQ). Did the same this time... new quote windows and only $NDX and $SPX charts both. Proceeded to restart esignal without incident for 5 times then moved on to next step. Quote windows were perfectly fine.

The ultimate test. This time, I used my original page file. I started esignal... quote windows were empty... so I closed the ES and NQ charts, left the others open then saved all and exited. Restarted esignal... BINGO! Quote windows were fine. Did this for another 4 times. No issue.

I then went back to the new page/new quote window templates... threw an ES chart in it and restarted... quote windows were empty again.

This has led to my conclusion that the ES and NQ charts are what has been giving me all these problems with the quote windows. They are also the same charts with the problem updating the last trade. I don't know why. I hope you can help me here.

Anytihng to do with the fact I have both CME eminis live feed and North American Futures Delayed package??

I only know that I can start esignal fine with all my charts except ES/NQ. This includes not opening them on my usual market profile charts.

Please help!!


Anson

[DuaneG]

Hi Anson,

I just sent you a Private Message. Could you respond either via email or PM as soon as possible? Thanks in advance.

[Anson]

Originally posted by DuaneG
Hi Anson,

I just sent you a Private Message. Could you respond either via email or PM as soon as possible? Thanks in advance.

Replied. Thanks!

[DuaneG]

Hi Anson,

I've sent you a PM regarding the issue you described yesterday. I'll follow up shortly with an additional email. Thanks.

[Anson]

DuaneG,

I uninstalled and re-installed esignal. Deleted the folder left behind.
Started from scratch and did much testing.

I started using some efs formulas but that's the only stuff I brought over. Everything seemed fine on multiple restarts. Then went on to do another chart with the same template. Restarted esignal and quote windows showed "no data".

I thought this was it. One of the efs files was causing the problems. So I restored a backup of the clean page file I had made (before I loaded any efs) which didnt use templates either nor any efs file. 2 clean charts. No efs... no style templates. Just 2 emas each. Restarted esignal... quote windows showed "no data" again.

This hit me as strange. No efs... no style template.. just as when I first installed and setup and that previous round.. I had managed to restart 5 times without issue. A thought then hit me. I closed ES chart and left NQ chart open then chose "exit all and save". Restarted 3 times... no problems at all.

Closed NQ chart and opened ES chart. Exited and saved. Restarted esignal 3 times.. no problems either.

Now, I kept ES chart open and added a NQ chart as well. Exited and saved all Restarted 3 times. All failed. Quote windows showed "no data".
You can see this below. Only these 2 charts are open.

So... why does having ES and NQ charts open together (with quote windows) on a page while starting up eSignal cause this problem for me??
And why do ES and NQ even have issues together?

[Anson]

Quote windows are fine with only ES chart open. They are fine with only NQ chart open as well. But not together!

[Anson]

Last post for now.

This one shows ZN, ET and NQ charts loaded. That's 3 symbols. But NO ES chart.

The quote windows load fine on multiple tries!

Then I decided to throw in YM on next restart and do a few more restarts with YM in the mix with these above 3 that had tested fine.

Nope! No go. Quote windows had "no data" again. This leads me to believe that when more than 1 of the eminis (ES, NQ and YM) charts are loaded together, the quote window problem appears.

Pls help me figure this one out!

[Anson]

Thought I should mention that I use ES #F=2 and NQ #F=2 in my charts and ES Z4 and NQ Z4 in the quote windows. Just to be sure.