Support Board

[1] 2016-01-12 15:36:26 GMT | By : User - United Kingdom | Status : Open

My DAX, Oil and S&P charts froze at 14.45 London time. I have "delete and download data", restarted the application, restarted my PC and none of it has helped.

What is the issue and what is being done to fix the issue? This is not the first time I have had this issue. Many of my friends have also had the same issue

[2] 2016-01-12 21:34:50 GMT | By : Sierra Chart Support | Status : Open

The data feed from FXCM had a problem earlier. This was the cause of the issue. So this was an FXCM issue.

Will be patching the missing data later on today.

Next time you have this issue, use the Support Board and not an Account Support Ticket:
https://www.sierrachart.com/SupportBoard.php

[3] 2016-01-12 22:05:30 GMT | By : User - United Kingdom | Status : Open

What was the issue with the FXCM feed and what are they doing to ensure that it does not happen again?

My account with FXCM had no data issues today.

[4] 2016-01-12 22:08:55 GMT | By : Sierra Chart Support | Status : Open

Obviously the data feed stopped for CFD symbols from FXCM. The Forex symbols were not affected.

Beyond that we do not know what the problem was because FXCM is a separate entity.

And we do not know what they are doing to ensure it will not happen again.

[5] 2016-01-13 10:40:18 GMT | By : Sierra Chart Support | Status : Open

Letting you know, that the missing data for the CFDs has now been patched.

Follow the instructions here to download the missing data:
https://www.sierrachart.com/index.php?page=doc/doc_HistoricalIntradayData.html#RetryDownloadDataInChart

[6] 2016-01-13 22:02:51 GMT | By : User - United Kingdom | Status : Open

Regarding response 4 below, I had already figured that the CFD feed from FXCM had failed and I fully understand that FXCM is a separate entity.

From a customer perspective I need to understand that this is a reliable feed as it is vital to my trading. I would like to have confidence that you understand what the issue is and that FXCM have resolved the cause of the issue, unless that is, that the reliability of the CFD feed from FXCM is not important to Sierra.

The impression I get from response 4 is that this feed is not important to Sierra. If this is the case, Please confirm , as I would like to share this info with my fellow traders.

[7] 2016-01-13 22:38:54 GMT | By : Sierra Chart Support | Status : Open

We understand what you are saying, but we cannot guarantee the reliability of the source data feed from FXCM.

We do everything we can to ensure that the data feed is provided reliably from our side, and anytime there is a problem on our side, we take the necessary steps to prevent it.

Therefore, a problem with the data feed on the Sierra Chart side is going to be very rare.

It is not going to help us to communicate with FXCM about this. It is very unlikely anything meaningful would come from that based on our experience.

Perhaps they could give us access to a different server that was not affected assuming that was even the case to begin with, but that does not guarantee there will not be a problem with that server at some point in the future.

The data feed is important to us, but understand that we cannot control what FXCM does. So you have to come to your own conclusion based on past experience as to the reliability of it relative to your needs. And you are most welcome to communicate that information to other traders and provide what we said here word for word.

We are also going to be making the LMAX forex exchange service available at no cost if you have a trading account with them. We have discussed this in this thread here:
Announcement: New Connection Model for FXCM and LMAX

So you should consider using that as an alternative. And that is the best way in which a problem like this can be managed which is for us to provide other sources of Forex and CFD data so that the other can be used if one fails. This is what we are currently working on.

[8] 2016-01-13 22:39:45 GMT | By : Sierra Chart Support | Status : Open

But we will go ahead and ask FXCM about the reason for the outage and see what they say and see what they can suggest to help prevent that again.

So we will see what comes from that.

[9] 2016-01-13 22:44:23 GMT | By : Sierra Chart Support | Status : Open

Another thing which is apparent to us that may not be apparent to you, is at the connection with FXCM was solid and stable and the Forex data was being transmitted but the CFD data stopped.

So from our position, there was nothing to even investigate or do in this particular case unless the problem continued.

However, we took the steps to patch the missing data. That is a very special effort that we took to ensure that users are not missing chart data. That in and of itself should say something about the quality of service that we offer.

If there was a complete loss of connectivity, we would definitely be looking into that and contacting FXCM about it. Although that is not what happened here.

Even with LMAX, sometimes but rarely, their data feed server just becomes unavailable for a few minutes. That is not something that we would investigate because we just figure they have some sort of problem on their side. Especially being that we are located in a data center with direct fiber-optic connectivity to LMAX.

[10] 2016-01-13 23:22:11 GMT | By : Sierra Chart Support | Status : Open

The other thing you probably are not aware of, is that over the years, like the last 20 years, is that we do tell various problems to external services that should be addressed.

Often this leads to no resolution. So based on past experience, we are only going to take the time to communicate something to an external service which we think would result in a resolution. This is not one of them.

And are you also aware about our experience with IG Markets in the UK:
Blacklisted Data and Trade Services

IG markets is a total corrupt operation. The supporting Markets was because many users were asking for that.

So you need to understand, just because some of our users tells us about a problem outside of our control or really wants something from us, we are not going to go out of our way to accommodate them if it is unproductive or unnecessary or a complete waste of our time.

Too often, we have been too accommodating to the detriment of ourselves and to ultimately other users.

The latest issue, surrounds Rithmic, and the idea that we have to use two separate proprietary in process APIs and have complicated code and linking in order for users to avoid a 25 USD fee per month when Rithmic just simply needs to program an option on their side.

So you can understand our position on things. It is not as though we do not care. But we cannot control something and we do not want to waste time with something that we think is going to be unproductive.

You are welcome to post all of this publicly. We would be more than happy about that. We are actually going to take this thread and post it on our public support board so everyone can see it. We will have that done later today.

[11] 2016-01-13 23:28:46 GMT | By : Sierra Chart Support | Status : Open

Furthermore, are you aware that at this very moment we are actually very busy working on a problem with our stock data feed file storage. This is something that we have control over and we can resolve. So it shows that we do care about providing a quality service.

We are taking all the time necessary and cost to resolve it properly.

And all of this communication, and I know you did ask for all of this, is taking away time from that. So we are working on and focusing on solving a problem that we have control over ourselves. Not external problems which we have no control over.

[12] 2016-01-14 00:07:49 GMT | By : Sierra Chart Support | Status : Open

There were some dictation errors in the second to last posting.

They have been corrected.

Reload the page for the corrections. So if you are going to post any this information publicly, please use the current page after reloading it.

And we have even contacted other brokers like Oanda about using their data feed even for their noncustomers, but they were not enthusiastic about that idea and they also do not provide an acceptable trading interface for us to work with.

So we are grateful for what FXCM already provides us.

[13] 2016-01-14 01:20:14 GMT | By : Sierra Chart Support | Status : Open

We have a response from FXCM:

"There is a pending incident report request that we are waiting on from our production team. Once we get more information, we will pass on the information.

Thank you for your patience with this matter."