Skip to main content

Account / Profile switched

MetaTrader4 by default will disable autotrading when you switch your account or the profile has been updated. This can cause your automated trading bot to stop working until you manually resolve the issue.

Cause​

By default the settings for MetaTrader will have the following options selected:

Autotrading options menu

Here is the official explanation for each of the options and what it does:

  • Disable Auto Trading when the account has been changed – this option represents a protective mechanism disabling trading by Expert Advisors and scripts when the account is changed. It is useful, for example, when one changes demo account for a real one.
  • Disable Auto Trading when the profile has been changed – a large amount of information about the current settings of all charts in the workspace is stored in profiles. Particularly, profiles contain information about Expert Advisors attached. Expert Advisors included into the profile will start working when a new tick incomes. Having enabled this option, one can hinder the trading by the Expert Advisors launching when the profile has been changed.
  • Disable Auto Trading when the charts symbol or period has been changed – if this option is enabled, then when the period or symbol of a chart is changed the expert advisor, which is attached to it, will be automatically prohibited to perform trade operations.

Official MetaTrader documentation https://www.metatrader4.com/en/trading-platform/help/autotrading/experts/experts_setup

Implications​

When you switch your account, sign in to a different server or your broker has updated their server names, you will see your autotrading getting disabled.

Fix​

If the autotrading has been disabled due to the account or server changes, you can simply re-enable the autotrading for each chart and it will continue working as expected. To do so, right click on each chart and select "Expert Advisors" and then click on "Properties".

In the new popup dialog, navigate to the "Common" tab:

Alpha Bot common tab

Enable the "Allow live trading" checkbox:

Common tab live trading checkbox

info

Remember to perform this step for each chart!

Prevent disabling of autotrading option​

To prevent the issue from happening again in the future, you can uncheck the checkboxes before making changes to your account or switching servers:

  • Disable Auto Trading when the account has been changed
  • Disable Auto Trading when the profile has been changed
  • Disable Auto Trading when the charts symbol or period has been changed