Avoid Empty4 Crashes !!!!!

[Jonathan2FI]

Hi after years of suffering Empty4 crashes ....that always seem to happen when market is going the wrong way from the open trades ....ever had that helpless feeling ???
Broker saids yes this can happen reinstall

But how to avoid ..... I have found a great protocol that works and wanted to share so others don't suffer the continuous loop of task manager end task yes yes no I don't want to send a report reopen pray .... wait and bloody thing has frozen again try again reboot. And just for fun every time you open Empty4 in this situation it updates your drawdown just for a second... before the not responding message appears. Sadistical b*%%%ard.

So what is good maintenance
How to fix a sluggish Empty4 platform

Have you notice that your Empty4 has become sluggish lately? There could be several contributing factors to this, some of which include the piling up of old log files, or the use of Custom Indicators and/or Expert Advisors that are not programmed to handle five decimal pricing very well, too many charts etc

Ok so you wish you had not opend that 22nd chart tab with 10 indi s etc but too late your Empty4 has gone into I am not playing anymore so what do you do?
try the following.
1. Close Empty4.
2. Locate the icon on your desktop you use to open the software, and right click on it.
3. In the menu, select Properties.
4. Select "Find Target", or "Open File Location," and another window will open.
5. Scroll up to the "Logs" folder, and double-click to open it.
6. Delete all of the files you see in this folder. 7. Now return to the main folder directory by going back one folder view.
8. Locate the "Mailbox" folder, and double-click to open it.
9. Delete all of the files in this folder.
10. Now return to the main folder directory by going back one folder view.
11. Locate the History folder, and double-click to open it.
12. This folder contains all of the historical chart data your platform has collected over time - which often times adds up to a lot of data that may be contributing to the slow performance. We recommend deleting these history files.
13. Now return to the main folder directory by going back one folder view.
14. Locate the Experts folder, and double-click to open it. Locate the Logs folder, and double-click to open it.
15. This folder contains the logs of any expert advisors that have previously run on your platform. Recommend deleting these log files.
16. You may now close this window, and the close the properties window.

You should notice an improvement in speed and performance. This has saved me today from reinstalling which is the last resort.

So, if you do not see any difference in performance , reinstall, use less ea/indis and or get a better computer.

Does anyone have any tools / methods for determining how close you are to the edge ...e.g. the amount of indis EAs charts etc you have before the motor blows in Empty4??? Feedback would be great then we have prevention plus preventative maintanence ....shame we can't get a better Empty4!

Jonathan

[mjws00]

Pretty tough to put real numbers to the limits. It is incredibly dependant on the indicators and ea's you are running.

I have well over 30 charts open with 4-10 indi's each. At one point experimented with 3 charts per pair X 20 pairs. Plus EA's running. Smooth as silk and instant. However on the same box I can run another instance. Load up 3 charts with just a couple templates with bad indicators, and watch it grind itself into oblivion.

Best measure I've found is to monitor changes in load time and changes of TF on the same chart. The second it takes time to change timeframes, you are running something heavy (assuming you have data). At that point you have to start looking at the number of bars being loaded on computationally heavy indi's and possibly on the charts they reside on.

Best trick is multiple instances of Empty4. I keep my dev platform super light, so it loads fast. Main charting platform, speedy, but comprehensive. Been known to break out EA's and Alerts as well. Good hardware can run a BUNCH of heavy Empty4 instances at once without breaking a sweat.

Win7 64-bit. Only 8GB RAM. Decent i5 (12 months). But SSD's and ZERO garbage in the background. Clean and Mean.

My 3 year old box does almost as well. Specs the same just slower CPU and RAM.

Nice walkthrough on clean up.

Mike

[Jonathan2FI]

Thanks Mike,
I see the problem ....it depends.
I also take the point on multiple instances especially since Empty4 restricts itself to single cpu core operation. Although when your running basket EAs it becomes more of a a challenge to split.

I am also using a win7 64 8gb ram but with a top end i7. I suppose it does not make any difference if the VPS provider is not using a top end cpu. Here also lies a series of limits with the VPS provider memory storage based on your monthly cost etc..
Any way another thought what about when you open task manager and see the mem usage on terminal.exe say at 80k, or 250k could that be an early warning system ? I know when you open tak manager and mem on terminal.exe is not changing at all it is too late!
Jonathan

[MrLong]

Thanks Mike,
I see the problem ....it depends.
I also take the point on multiple instances especially since Empty4 restricts itself to single cpu core operation. Although when your running basket EAs it becomes more of a a challenge to split.

I am also using a win7 64 8gb ram but with a top end i7. I suppose it does not make any difference if the VPS provider is not using a top end cpu. Here also lies a series of limits with the VPS provider memory storage based on your monthly cost etc..
Any way another thought what about when you open task manager and see the mem usage on terminal.exe say at 80k, or 250k could that be an early warning system ? I know when you open tak manager and mem on terminal.exe is not changing at all it is too late!
Jonathan

Hi Jonathan,

I clean up with a bat file located on my desktop, open Notepad and add these lines, then save it as a .bat file.

erase "C:\YOUR METEATRADER FOLDER\experts\logs\*.* "
erase "C:\YOUR METEATRADER FOLDER\Empty4_1\logs\*.* "
erase "C:\YOUR METEATRADER FOLDER\Empty4_1\deleted\*.* "

C:\YOUR METEATRADER FOLDER <== the Empty4 main folder.

Make sure Empty4 is closed, then double click the bat file.

Andy

[madpipa]

Hi Jonathan,

Good advise, especially for new traders. I do similar to what you have outlined on an occasional basis. But not any more.

I had been thinking of writing a bat file to clean-up all instances of Empty4 at the end of each week. Thanks to Andy you have made me feel guilty for not getting of my lazy butt & doing it!! So now it is done & I am ready for next week. I have 14 installations of Empty4 on my main computer & more on my test machine, so this will save me time trying to do any manual clean-ups. (I only run 3-5 on my main machine at any time - some are for testing things like CJ's RRTs). And I have set a task to remind me on every Saturday to run the bat file on both computers.

When I install every instance of Empty4 I give it a number. So I have AxiTrader 1, 2, 3 etc as well as Alpari 1, 2, etc & now GlobalPrime versions. What I did last week was to add this number to the terminal.exe so they now each display with different names in the task manager. Now if I see an instance using a larger amount of CPU I know which one is the culprit. Then I can check to see why the level is so high. And it is also easier to identify which instance to kill, if needed. I have had a few occasions where the cross in the top-right corner just would not work & the CPU levels weren't updating, so it was a lottery trying to find which instance to kill. But my test machine is an old, slow machine. Still, it was running 7 instances all last week, including Andy's 10.4 EA - absolutely brilliant work & looks - without any problems.

Cheers,
Mick

[jlcgarcia]

Hi Jonathan,

I clean up with a bat file located on my desktop, open Notepad and add these lines, then save it as a .bat file.

erase "C:\YOUR METEATRADER FOLDER\experts\logs\*.* "
erase "C:\YOUR METEATRADER FOLDER\Empty4_1\logs\*.* "
erase "C:\YOUR METEATRADER FOLDER\Empty4_1\deleted\*.* "

C:\YOUR METEATRADER FOLDER <== the Empty4 main folder.

Make sure Empty4 is closed, then double click the bat file.

Andy

Hello,

I have found this litle program for cleaning Empty4 logs:

MT4Cleaner.rar

(It is compressed because is an exe file.)

And here it is the web of the author:

http://www.psnouvion.com/projects/view/Empty4_cleaner

Regards


José Luis

[KevinT]

Thank you Andrew & José Luis,

I was considering making an old DOS .bat file that searched for folders containing terminal.exe and then clean the relevant subdirectories (and then maybe use a batch file compiler to gather input parameters when needed under windows) as I was unable to find it on the web!

[Jonathan2FI]

Thanks to all even if Empty4 has short comings preventative maintenance will still reduce instances of crashes. Great advice ...and automation of clean up from any Andy and Jose.
Jonathan

[nwcosmas]

Pls direct me on a step by step procedure to update my Empty4.

Thanks

Cos

[Jonathan2FI]

Pls direct me on a step by step procedure to update my Empty4.

Thanks

Cos

It depends what you are trying to do.
1. Empty4 updates automatically to the next build level
2. If Empty4 is very sick then create new version from your brokers site- I always create copy of indi and experts directory in a new Empty4 directory that I call old. Your broker will direct you to the link

Just in passing .... the route to automated trading mastery and or trading mastery does require a good level of computer literacy.


JW