Updating DDE Links in Excel

[cpatte7372]

Hi all,

I'm having a few problems updating links from esignal via dde to excel during trading hours. I can get all the quotes after the market has closed but not during market hours - excel simply freezes! I was wondering if anyone else has been experiencing similar problems. If so, can you please tell me how you resolved it?

Cheers

Carlton

[cpatte7372]

Hi again,

I thought, for a minute, that the problem might have been excel itself so restarted everything and it worked - I got all the quotes etc into excel. I then exited and went back into excel and its not working again. Therefore, I do believe the problem lies with esignal and think winros.exe.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Carlton

[cpatte7372]

Hi

Its ok, I got it to work.

Thanks anyway.

Carlton

[cpatte7372]

Hi,

I thought it was working, but once again it appears to be failing. Strange thing is, it really only breaks down during market hours. The whole of excel freezes when I try to update the links.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

Carlton

[cpatte7372]

OK,

This is what I have done so far to troubleshoot this situation with dde links to esignal.

I restarted my computer but didn't turn on esignal. I then started excel and tried to establish a link to esignal. Naturally, it couldn't link to esignal because I hadn't turned it on yet, I then get the following message "Remote data not accessible. Start application 'WINROS.EXE'?" I click on yes. I then get the message that its not able to start winros - which is to be expected because if you remember I haven't turned it on yet.

I then turn on esignal and try to again to establish a link to winros.exe. This time it works. It works fine and then suddenly it stops and I'm back to square one.

Can someone shed some light on whats going on here, because technical support here are unable to help.

Thank you

Carlton

[cpatte7372]

Hi

I found the root cause of the problem. It appears that another application, believe it or not, interactive brokers TWS was preventing the dde link to esignal.

Thanks anyway

Carlton

[DuaneG]

Hi Carlton,

Glad you found out what was causing that. I wish I had known you were using TWS; I would have been able to chime in earlier. Basically anytime you are working with an external application in conjunction with TWS, you should keep an eye out for the "Accept Incoming Connection" message that appears from IB. By nature, it doesn't appear in a Always on top mode, so you need to minimize any windows that you currently have open to see it; otherwise, it just hangs out behind the scenes blocking other processes.

[cpatte7372]

Hi Duane,

Thanks ever-so-much for the information.

Cheers

Carlton

[cpatte7372]

Duane,

Can you let me know where I can check the "Accept Incoming Connection" message, please.

Cheers

Carlton

[cpatte7372]

Hi Duane,

I'm not getting the "Accept Incoming Connection". I'm going to get in touch with IB technical support at 9:30 EST but if you have any other suggestions in the meantime please let me know.

Cheers

Carlton

[DuaneG]

Hi Carlton,

There are a couple of things that you'll want to check with TWS to make sure the connection is handshaking properly.

Within TWS, there is a setting for Enable ActiveX and Socket Clients. This is available under the Configure and API sub-menu. Make sure this is checked.



It's usually considered good practice to re-start TWS once you've applied the settings. Once you open your DDE link to Excel, you should see a message that looks like this. It appears under any windows you currently have open, so you may need to do some minimizing.



Once you confirm this request, the data should begin to flow normally. Hope this helps.

[cpatte7372]

Hi Duane,

Thanks for the images. I checked the "Enable ActiveX and Socket Clients" and restarted TWS, unfortunately I'm not given the option in your second image.

When you say "Once you open your DDE link to Excel" are you suggesting that I do something in TWS to open a DDE link to excel?

Cheers

Carlton

[cpatte7372]

Hi Duane,

I've just got off the phone with IB helpdesk. They mentioned that I should only see "Accept Incoming Connection Attemt?" if I'm using an activex client. Other than that they were a little uncertain what may be causing the problem.

If you have any other suggestions I would appreciate it.

Cheers

Carlton

[cpatte7372]

Hi Duane,

Do you think that it might just be a matter of installing some kind of plug-in with esignal?

Cheers

Carlton

[DuaneG]

Hi Carlton,

There isn't any kind of plug-in required to make use of the DDE linking feature. Out of curiosity, what version of Microsoft Excel are you currently running?