This is the support page for Roboteer. Here you will find access to an online user manual, as well as answers to frequently asked questions.
The User manual for Roboteer as an HTML page
I have also posted the Roboteer user manual here as an HTML page, simply becuase some users have difficulty with the Acrobat document. This is a large document, so it takes time to load.
Roboteer EA 1.732 User manual as HTML page
Common issues :-
Q: what impact will the new NFA rules have on using Roboteer?
A: InterbankFX (a US MT4 NFA regulated Broker) have released this email covering the impact of the new NFA rules on MT4 trading :-
"Certain US competitors have decided that their solution to the new FIFO rules are to move their customers overseas, rather than being compliant," said Todd Crosland, Chairman and President of Interbank FX. "At Interbank FX, we have embraced the NFA's efforts to help protect customers and provide a seamless solution without any changes to their current trading strategies."
The only modification for customers will be their daily and monthly account statements, coming directly from the proprietary Interbank FX backoffice system using NFA FIFO offsetting procedures. The FIFO rule takes effect beginning July 31/August 1, 2009.
Interbank FX is currently working on a step-by-step video which will be available shortly on our web site, www.ibfx.com.
1:- Does FIFO apply to all of my trades?
1A: First in / First out applies ONLY to trades of the same size.
2:- Will my Expert Advisor still work?
2A:- All of your Expert Advisors will continue to work with all of your pre-programmed stops, limits and trailing stops.
3:- Will I still be able to use Stops and Limits, Trailing Stops and Take Profits?
3A:- Absolutely – With the IBFX solution, you won’t have to make any changes from the way that you are trading currently. No need to make any adjustments to Stops and Limits, Trailing Stops or Take Profits.
4:- Will I still be able to close any of my orders of the same currency pair in any order?
4A:- Yes, with the IBFX solution, your trading will still be fully functional without any changes to your current trading strategies.
5:- How will this affect my daily statements?
5A:- Interbank FX Official Statements will come directly from Interbank FX’s proprietary back office system using our FIFO offsetting and accounting procedures. These statements will be accessible through a client’s Web Site Login. You will still be able to pull an Unofficial Trade Journal using the Trade Journal feature within the IBFX website. You will also be able to produce Unofficial Trade Journals using MetaTrader 4 as your Trade Manager.
6:- Does this NFA rule apply to all U.S. based brokers?
6A:- Yes, this rule affects any broker in the U.S. that is a member of the NFA. Other brokers have attempted different approaches to this new ruling. We at Interbank FX strive to make trading in the forex market as simple as possible for our clients, all the while in full compliance with the NFA.
Q: " When I click on the Robotrader.ex4 file, I get a message the file is corrupt" or not supported, what is wrong?
A: You are trying to load the Ex4 file directly. It is not a program, it is a MetaTrader 4 EA file. This means that you need to install metatrader 4 from a supporting broker, and then you need to
copy the RangeTrader.ex4 file into your MetaTrader experts folder on your local hard drive and attach it to a chart within MetaTrader. Please read the user manual for a more complete description of what to do.
The manual is available as an acrobat file here :-
Roboteer user manual (right click and save)
Q:" I am getting an on chart message that says I am not authorized for download of optimized settings, yet I am paying for the service, what do I do?
A: You need to make sure you put your clickbank receipt number into Roboteer's settings menu. Click F7 on the chart that has roboteer attached, and then choose the 'inputs' tab of the window that pops up. Then enter your 8 digit alpha numeric receipt number into the first field in the inpuits menu.
Q : " I have installed Roboteer and I do not see a smiley face next to Robotrader on the chart, what is wrong? "
A: You need to read the manual on page from approximately 40 onwards.
In essence, you need to enter Roboteer's properties by left clicking the chart where Roboteer is installed,and hitting the F7 key.
You then need to make sure that you have allowed live trading in the common tab, as well as checked the 'Allow DLL imports' box, You also need to uncheck the 'Confirm DLL function calls' checkbox too.
Once this is done, simply click OK and a smiley face should appear.
Q: "I have a message stating that my receipt number is authorised for optimized settings, but then the next line states that no settings can be found for symbol, Trading stopped. What does this mean?"
A: You are not trading the EUR/USD, but a proprietary symbol. This can usually be proved by looking at the symbol name on the chart. If it is not the EURUSD, or the EURUSDm but has another letter added, then it isn't following the market prices of the EUR/USD closely enough. Roboteer will not trade this symbol well, and has rejected it.
Q: " I have Roboteer installed, and a smiley face, but there is no Trades appearing. What is wrong? "
A: You have not checked the 'Allow DLL Imports' checkbox as directed above
Or you are not receiving fresh data.
Check the Experts 'Tab' of MetaTrader's Terminal window (explained in the manual on page 69 of the user manual available above) for errors.
You need to close and reload MetaTrader before Roboteer trades properly (at least once). You also need live data arriving to screen before Roboteer opens it's price grid. Make sure you are in Trading hours for the currency pair you are Trading.
It turns out that there are several MetaTrader brokers out there that have swamped their demo server with new accounts (probably from US ... !).
What this means is that the data rate is not what it should be. So rather than seeing every tick, your demo account might only see one every 20 seconds or so.
Roboteer needs to see a tick of fresh data for every change it wants to make. So to open up a price grid it needs up to 300 ticks of fresh data.
If you you are not seeing enough live data in a reasonable length of time to trigger the changes, it will appear as if nothing is happening.
To prove this you need to load MetaTrader, load say a 1 minute chart, and then leave the machine alone for 20 minutes os so. Make a note of the current price, and watch it change. Don't change time bars, because this re-initializes Roboteer, and will halt where ever it was at before the chart time frame change.
Give it time .....
Q: I cannot enter the clickbank receipt number into Roboteers settings menu, I can highlight the field, but cannot enter anything. Why?
A: You need to double left mouse click the field you want to change quickly (less than 200ms between each left mouse click) . The first click highlights the field, the second puts a cursor on the field and allows you to change the settings.
Q: I enter the clickbank receipt number into Roboteers settings, but it does not stay changed, When I next look it has changed back to default, why?
A: You are trying to change the roboteer that is in the MT4 navigator window. This is the default Roboteer. You need to change the Copy of Roboteer that is attached to the chart of the EUR/USD. You do this by clicking F7 on the chart that has Roboteer attached. Then click the 'inputs' tab and then double click the clickbank receipt field, Enter your clickbank receipt number and then click return. Then click the OK button, and the new settings will be saved.
Q: I have entered the correct clickbank reciept number and it still does not authorise. What is wrong ?
A: Make sure you have entered your clickbank receipt number in upper case (capitals) and NOT entered the hash at the beginning.
Q: The optimisation date found is quite old (several Days) How do I know this is the latest?
A: There is only one date within the optimised parameters file. If a date is found, Roboteer is using the correct optimisation settings. Roboteer checks for optimisation settings on boot up, and at the start of each trading Day.
Q: Roboteer is setting stops that are 850-1000 pips in size. This cannot be right surely?
A: Roboteer uses a two stage stop system. The initial stop is a safety stop (in case the client PC crashes or becomes disconnected from the brokers servers) Roboteer waits until the price action moves favourably in the direction of the trade (usually 30-50 pips) and then modifies the safety stop so that the new stop is then 30-50 pips away from price action and then trails this stop until either the profit exit is hit, or the stop is hit. This system has proved to work very well.
Q: When I back-test Roboteer does not do very well, and even busts my account, Why?
A: Roboteer is using constantly changing optimized settings for each of the three trading systems built into the trading array.
This means that the settings being used today, are not the same as they were more than a Month, or even a week ago. When back-testing Roboteer, only look top back-test a month of historical data, and more and you will get inaccurate results.
Different MT4 broker installation issues
I have now looked at approximately 7 different Brokers MetaTrader installations and have found that some of them are completely bespoke in terms of which folder you store the expert Advisor code in.... !
InterbankFX installation
I have installed a demo account from InterbankFX, and the following information may help :-
1:- Interbank have called their bespoke version of MetaTrader 4, Interbank FX Trader 4
2:- InterbankFX's metaTrader 4 installs under a folder called
"Interbank FX Trader 4" on local drive c:
3:- There is an 'experts' folder under this. This is where you copy 'Roboteer.ex4' file.
If you have trouble finding the 'Expert' folder , then please contact your broker to find exactly where to copy the Roboteer.ex4 file.
Q: I occasionally see an error in the journal tab :-
" Roboteer-1.731-opti-load-only: handle 1 does not exist FileClose"
Also the following additional error also appears in the journal tab :-
"
Roboteer-1.731-opti-load-only:cannot delete file: c:\Documents\files\experts\webfile.txt"
A: There is nothing to worry about, this is just the system attempting to delete a file that has alreadsy been deleted.
Q: I have Windows Vista, and the latest version of MT4 (220) and Roboteer-1.732 are not compatable. When I run Roboteer-1.732 it crashes. What do I do?
A: I have compiled a version of Roboteer-1.732 just for Vista using a previous version of MT4 (218). This has cured the problem. It is available from the download page
Q:
I have installed on my MIG account, and ran a back test on a 1min chart chart of the EURUSD.
It took a while to work through this period so there's clearly some heavy processing going on
behind the scenes. The results are very questionable, there must be something wrong somewhere.
Why the poor results?
A: Firstly the optimized settings that are available today are geared for forward Trading, not back-testing. Also the variable settings to day will not match those used to produce the actual trading results being posted. During an average Month, the optimization settings change up to 6-8 times. Therefore a back test today using a single set of current optimized variable settings cannot hope to match the posted historical results.
Q: When Roboteer is not Trading, is there anyway of knowing that this is deliberate, and not the system malfunctioning?
A: Yes, If Trading triggers are being blocked by entry filters (which is the most common reason why Roboteer does not Trade a particular system, A statement to this effect will appear in the Experts tab of MT4's Terminal window (as of Roboteer 1.732B onwards).
Q: I have added (or removed) trading margin to my trading account. How do I get Roboteer to recognise this change?
A: You need to delete the Money management files Roboteer is using, which will force Roboteer to recalculate the starting margin. To do this you need to
First close MT4 so that it is not processing.
Assuming you have MT4 installed in a default folder, simply go to
C: \ program files \ metatrader broker name \ experts \ files \ (replace metatrader broker name with your broker’s name such as Alpari or interbank)
In there you will see several files. They will all have a naming convention like the following :-
System1monies-xxxxx-Roboteer-1.yyyy.txt
Where xxxxx = your trading account number and yyyy = the revision of Roboteer.
Highlight a file by hovering your mouse over the file and right mouse button clicking. The file should highlight, and a list of actions should appear. Move your mouse down to
Delete and left mouse click. The file should disappear. Do this for all the files present with the naming convention above.
Once all the files are deleted, reload MT4/Roboteer and you are done. Roboteer will open new money management files as it trades.
Q: Does Roboteer work with the new Anti Hedging rules in the US?
A: Roboteer will work with the new anti hedging rules in the US. A simple change to the magic numbers for the 3 built in systems is all that is needed to comply. Basically each of the 3 systems magic numbers need to be the same. A special version of Roboteer has been built and is available from the download page.
Q: Roboteer has started to open a large amount of trades for system 1. What is the problem?
A: Metaquotes (the authors of MT4) have introduced several significant changes in MT4, which have been rolled out in version 223 and 224. These changes are having an impact on
Expert Advisors, especially where anti hedging rules are being enforced.
You ned to make sure you are using Roboteer 1.738 or higher to cure this issue
Q: How do I cancel the monthly subscription to Roboteer's optimisation service?
A: Simply email clickbank.com via their customer service page here :-
https://www.clickbank.com/orderDetail.htm
