Tick Not Updating Correctly on Most Servers

[finpress2000]

On cc-11.sc8 the INDEX:TICK updates every 12 secs.
This is good. Now pull up a 1 min chart to see what a good
TICK series looks like. But, if you switch to
mia servers or continuum -- the charts show the TICK is
not updating like cc-11.sc8. I spend a -lot- of time lately
manually switching servers to get a good TICK. It is
becoming very tiresome. What's wrong?

Thanks,
alan

p.s. Here is 7 minutes of the TICK series from 3 different
servers. The problem with the first two is clear.

Server:cc-10a.mia
---------------------------------------------------------

08/22/2007 12:25:39 342 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:25:51 336 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:26:03 332 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:26:27 322 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:26:39 320 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:26:51 314 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:27:16 288 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:27:27 284 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:27:39 282 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:29:05 142 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:29:17 128 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:30:16 88 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:30:52 68 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:32:05 19 100 Trade x

Server: cc-08.sc8
----------------------------------------------------------
08/22/2007 12:25:39 342 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:25:51 336 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:26:03 332 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:26:27 322 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:26:39 320 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:26:51 314 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:27:15 288 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:27:27 284 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:27:39 282 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:29:05 142 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:29:17 128 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:30:16 88 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:30:52 68 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:32:05 19 100 Trade x

Server: cc-11.sc8
---------------------------------------------------------

08/22/2007 12:25:01 371 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:25:14 359 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:25:26 345 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:25:38 342 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:25:50 336 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:26:02 332 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:26:14 328 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:26:26 322 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:26:38 320 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:26:50 314 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:27:02 302 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:27:14 288 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:27:26 284 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:27:38 282 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:27:50 280 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:28:38 250 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:28:52 220 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:29:04 142 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:29:15 128 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:29:26 108 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:29:36 94 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:29:47 86 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:30:03 86 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:30:15 88 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:30:27 82 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:30:39 78 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:30:51 68 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:31:03 54 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:31:15 42 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:31:27 29 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:31:39 13 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:31:51 29 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:32:03 19 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:32:17 5 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:32:40 -143 100 Trade x
08/22/2007 12:32:53 -183 100 Trade x

[JayF]

Just to follow up on this thread... this seems to have been resolved now. Alan, can you confirm that you are seeing this fixed on your side as well?

[finpress2000]

No, the problem looks the same to me.
Here is the last 4 minutes from the "good" server
and a bad one:

cc-11.sc8
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
08/30/2007 15:34:04 27 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:34:16 53 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:34:28 155 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:34:40 137 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:34:52 -15 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:35:05 205 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:35:17 111 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:35:29 171 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:35:41 166 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:35:54 298 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:36:08 -638 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:36:20 -452 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:36:30 -126 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:36:42 -392 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:36:54 -392 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:37:07 -562 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:37:18 -573 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:37:30 -695 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:37:46 -601 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:37:57 -525 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:38:04 -339 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:38:16 -385 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:38:28 -351 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:38:40 -111 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:38:52 325 100 Trade x

cc-04.mia
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
08/30/2007 15:34:06 27 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:34:43 137 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:35:07 205 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:35:43 166 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:36:55 -392 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:37:20 -573 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:38:20 -385 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:38:32 -351 100 Trade x
08/30/2007 15:38:56 325 100 Trade x

[JayF]

Alan,

On the 21st and 22nd (some servers even had it on the 23rd) of this month there was a problem with the update frequency on $TICK. This was a problem at the source, that is to say Comstock was having a problem getting the correct calculations out.

The issue where the certain servers have more updates has been an ongoing issue for some time. This is the direct result of the limited bandwidth on the data feed that the majority of QCharts servers are working from. In essence, trades are intentionally being dropped at the data feed level when market volumes pick-up in order to keep the timely flow of data occurring.

cc-11.sc8 is on a feed that has a much bigger data pipe, and is not experiencing data drops like this. Those servers have a different set of issues, so the main solution to this ongoing data dropping problem is converting QCharts over to the eSignal network.

The attached screenshot illustrates the above.

[finpress2000]

I see -- I knew that option data was frequently dropped,
but I never realized that the TICK was routinely dropped.

It's hard to overstress what an important indicator this is
to -everybody-, so I would suggest this one be placed
on a high priority list of things never to drop if such a list
exists. After all, it only updates once every 12 secs, so
it's never going to be a greater burden than that.