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Ninjatrader 8 not ready for prime time?


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Ninjatrader 8 not ready for prime time?

  #151 (permalink)
 jmcg618 
New York / USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninjatrader
Trading: es
Posts: 33 since Aug 2017
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I am just in the process of upgrading from 7 to 8, after reading this thread I'm wondering if this might be a bad idea... what's the story these days with latest version, is NT8 still an unstable garbage heap? Should I bother upgrading? What's the consensus?

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  #152 (permalink)
 
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 Blash 
Chicago, IL
Legendary Market Chamois
 
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jmcg618 View Post
I am just in the process of upgrading from 7 to 8, after reading this thread I'm wondering if this might be a bad idea... what's the story these days with latest version, is NT8 still an unstable garbage heap? Should I bother upgrading? What's the consensus?



It’s fine if you know what you are doing. Understanding, like any professional tool, there is some level of maintenance. (Think Dewalt tools and sharpening, lubrication and adjustments.)

Most don’t understand this. I see odd behavior from time to time and then I know it’s time to rebuild or grab a new copy of my workspace I backed up. Or do some other maintenance I don’t feel like typing out right now.
Many traders use the same workspace month after month witnessing “weird stuff” and pronounce NT8 crap. When in reality they don’t know how to maintain it.

Another issue is hardware. Think expensive and robust machines not crap under a $1000 computers. No antivirus software running etc and a dedicated trade machine. Surf the web, do email and chat on a different machine.

Make sure your software tools are built by real pro software engineers. Someone that understands Windows inside and out, software architecture and .net. My guy is an ex-Microsoft employee and is part owner of a software patent and a trader. His tools work amazing well with NT8 and they look beautiful.

My NT8 runs (well) almost 24 hours a day save for a machine reboot and a weekend day.

Ron


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  #153 (permalink)
 jmcg618 
New York / USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninjatrader
Trading: es
Posts: 33 since Aug 2017
Thanks Given: 2
Thanks Received: 11



Blash View Post
It’s fine if you know what you are doing. Understanding, like any professional tool, there is some level of maintenance. (Think Dewalt tools and sharpening, lubrication and adjustments.)

Most don’t understand this. I see odd behavior from time to time and then I know it’s time to rebuild or grab a new copy of my workspace I backed up. Or do some other maintenance I don’t feel like typing out right now.
Many traders use the same workspace month after month witnessing “weird stuff” and pronounce NT8 crap. When in reality they don’t know how to maintain it.

Another issue is hardware. Think expensive and robust machines not crap under a $1000 computers. No antivirus software running etc and a dedicated trade machine. Surf the web, do email and chat on a different machine.

Make sure your software tools are built by real pro software engineers. Someone that understands Windows inside and out, software architecture and .net. My guy is an ex-Microsoft employee and is part owner of a software patent and a trader. His tools work amazing well with NT8 and they look beautiful.

My NT8 runs (well) almost 24 hours a day save for a machine reboot and a weekend day.

Ron


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Thanks Blash,

I totally get the Lubrication concept, goes with the NT Territory it seems... It would be tres cool if and when you have time you could maybe write out the steps you take on a daily weekly basis to keep your NT8 machine from turning into a steaming heap garbage. Thanks a lot.

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  #154 (permalink)
 iantg 
charlotte nc
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My Own System
Broker: Optimus
Trading: Emini (ES, YM, NQ, ect.)
Posts: 408 since Jan 2015
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jmcg618 View Post
I am just in the process of upgrading from 7 to 8, after reading this thread I'm wondering if this might be a bad idea... what's the story these days with latest version, is NT8 still an unstable garbage heap? Should I bother upgrading? What's the consensus?


I am a big fan of NinjaTrader, but the latest version 8.11 froze on me during live trading last week. I posted about it on their support forum and others have commented having similar issues. I believe this is just a bug in 8.11. All the other past versions from 8.6- 8.10 have worked fine for me. Basically if you are running it hard, and you open a trade performance report and click generate in the middle of an intestine process it will become unresponsive.

For example: The enclosed strategy will cause this: Run it on a time frame such as 50 ticks, with an output window open in market replay at max speed and replay 2 days, then open a new trade performance window and hit generate and you will see the bug.

For me it's no big deal because I am working off of an older version that does not suffer from this issue, but if I didn't catch this specific issue and the root of it, I might have gotten stuck trading live again with the same thing occurring again. There support team is aware of the bug, and they are working on it. Hopefully they will release an updated 8.11 version soon that addresses this and some of the others that I have seen people mention on the below thread I started last week.

Here is a link to the thread in NT support detailing what I and others experienced with 8.11 recently:
https://forum.ninjatrader.com/showthread.php?p=528262


I still say overall, NT 8 is a great product and can do some things that no other platform can do, but it still is a work in progress in many ways. Hopefully they will get it all sorted out soon though.

Ian

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  #155 (permalink)
 jmcg618 
New York / USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninjatrader
Trading: es
Posts: 33 since Aug 2017
Thanks Given: 2
Thanks Received: 11


iantg View Post
I am a big fan of NinjaTrader, but the latest version 8.11 froze on me during live trading last week. I posted about it on their support forum and others have commented having similar issues. I believe this is just a bug in 8.11. All the other past versions from 8.6- 8.10 have worked fine for me. Basically if you are running it hard, and you open a trade performance report and click generate in the middle of an intestine process it will become unresponsive.

For example: The enclosed strategy will cause this: Run it on a time frame such as 50 ticks, with an output window open in market replay at max speed and replay 2 days, then open a new trade performance window and hit generate and you will see the bug.

For me it's no big deal because I am working off of an older version that does not suffer from this issue, but if I didn't catch this specific issue and the root of it, I might have gotten stuck trading live again with the same thing occurring again. There support team is aware of the bug, and they are working on it. Hopefully they will release an updated 8.11 version soon that addresses this and some of the others that I have seen people mention on the below thread I started last week.

Here is a link to the thread in NT support detailing what I and others experienced with 8.11 recently:
https://forum.ninjatrader.com/showthread.php?p=528262


I still say overall, NT 8 is a great product and can do some things that no other platform can do, but it still is a work in progress in many ways. Hopefully they will get it all sorted out soon though.

Ian

Thanks for the info Ian. I haven't yet installed NT8, I'm still running 7 and wondering whether I should bother. My workspace is fairly simple, but it does use a lot of memory, so am worried about all these never ending bugs, even after all the years now since it has been in use in the NT community... Have read here about deleting db cache every day, but just wondering if that would delete the build in volume delta data. I currently have my gomi files and recorder to keep that data. How would that work?

Thanks

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  #156 (permalink)
 iantg 
charlotte nc
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My Own System
Broker: Optimus
Trading: Emini (ES, YM, NQ, ect.)
Posts: 408 since Jan 2015
Thanks Given: 90
Thanks Received: 1,147


jmcg618 View Post
Thanks for the info Ian. I haven't yet installed NT8, I'm still running 7 and wondering whether I should bother. My workspace is fairly simple, but it does use a lot of memory, so am worried about all these never ending bugs, even after all the years now since it has been in use in the NT community... Have read here about deleting db cache every day, but just wondering if that would delete the build in volume delta data. I currently have my gomi files and recorder to keep that data. How would that work?

Thanks


In terms of where all the data is stored and clearing out the db cache, or even deleting and replacing the db, it's all fairly simple. I may be missing the question a little but I will try to give you an idea of how everything in structured.

NinjaTrader 7 and 8 both live in a folder called NinjaTrader (7 or 8) in your main My Documents folder. In here you have the following:

Historical Data you have downloaded for backtesting, market replay is stored in a folder called db > replay. Within the replay folder are all the files you have downloaded for all the different instruments and days. You will never want to delete this. This would be the source for all your level 1 and level 2 data that you are running your charts, indicators and strategies off of.

Indicators and Strategies: These are all stored in Ninjatrader > Bin > Custom > Indicators and NinjaTrader > Bin > Custom > Strategies respectively. So again, you would never want to delete or do anything with these folders.

The actual database itself is located in NinjaTrader > db > and is a file called NinjaTrader.sdf. It is a database file type. This is the one that can grow exponentially with historical trades you run in market replay and SIM overtime if this gets over 25 MB your whole system will run slow. You can always just use their tool: Under tools > database management > reset. To reset the DB and shrink it. Or if you are lazy like me and don't want to wait 5 minutes (Because I run over 10K trades per data in testing on average) I just keep a backup copy of an already shrunk DB, and I just delete the old one and copy the small one I keep handy. It saves me 5 minutes every day, otherwise I would have to reset it via the interface and this takes around 5 -10 minutes depending on how large you let it get.

There are other ways to clear out caches and delete log files, and things but really the DB growing over 25 MB is the main thing that will slow it down tremendously and this is very easy to fix and will not interfere with anything else. So it's all pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

Did this help, or was I way off on your original question?

Ian

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  #157 (permalink)
 jmcg618 
New York / USA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninjatrader
Trading: es
Posts: 33 since Aug 2017
Thanks Given: 2
Thanks Received: 11


iantg View Post
In terms of where all the data is stored and clearing out the db cache, or even deleting and replacing the db, it's all fairly simple. I may be missing the question a little but I will try to give you an idea of how everything in structured.

NinjaTrader 7 and 8 both live in a folder called NinjaTrader (7 or 8) in your main My Documents folder. In here you have the following:

Historical Data you have downloaded for backtesting, market replay is stored in a folder called db > replay. Within the replay folder are all the files you have downloaded for all the different instruments and days. You will never want to delete this. This would be the source for all your level 1 and level 2 data that you are running your charts, indicators and strategies off of.

Indicators and Strategies: These are all stored in Ninjatrader > Bin > Custom > Indicators and NinjaTrader > Bin > Custom > Strategies respectively. So again, you would never want to delete or do anything with these folders.

The actual database itself is located in NinjaTrader > db > and is a file called NinjaTrader.sdf. It is a database file type. This is the one that can grow exponentially with historical trades you run in market replay and SIM overtime if this gets over 25 MB your whole system will run slow. You can always just use their tool: Under tools > database management > reset. To reset the DB and shrink it. Or if you are lazy like me and don't want to wait 5 minutes (Because I run over 10K trades per data in testing on average) I just keep a backup copy of an already shrunk DB, and I just delete the old one and copy the small one I keep handy. It saves me 5 minutes every day, otherwise I would have to reset it via the interface and this takes around 5 -10 minutes depending on how large you let it get.

There are other ways to clear out caches and delete log files, and things but really the DB growing over 25 MB is the main thing that will slow it down tremendously and this is very easy to fix and will not interfere with anything else. So it's all pretty easy once you get the hang of it.

Did this help, or was I way off on your original question?

Ian

Great Help! Thanks a lot. With regards to recording and storing bid/ask data, is there a file for that in db>replay that would not be affected by resetting the database via tools/db management? Just wondering how that data is stored. I think I read somewhere that you have to turn this feature on somehow to record bid/ask data and wondering how to keep that safe through all the various cache cleaning routines people have mentioned here.

Thanks again, really appreciate it.

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  #158 (permalink)
 iantg 
charlotte nc
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My Own System
Broker: Optimus
Trading: Emini (ES, YM, NQ, ect.)
Posts: 408 since Jan 2015
Thanks Given: 90
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jmcg618 View Post
Great Help! Thanks a lot. With regards to recording and storing bid/ask data, is there a file for that in db>replay that would not be affected by resetting the database via tools/db management? Just wondering how that data is stored. I think I read somewhere that you have to turn this feature on somehow to record bid/ask data and wondering how to keep that safe through all the various cache cleaning routines people have mentioned here.

Thanks again, really appreciate it.


Sure, the bid, ask, last, volume and all other relevant level 1 and level 2 data are not stored in the actual database sfd itself but rather within the folder called db > Replay. i am enclosing an image so you can see how it is structured. The last two files that look different (NinjaTrader.sfd and NinjaTrader.Old.sfd) are the actual databases, everything else lives in basic folders that you can access normally.

Inside of the replay folder is where all the download market data lives. Inside of this, you will find the structure like this:

Instrument Name / Period > Daily Playback file. For example: In mine there is a folder called (ES - 3-18) and inside this folder there will be an individual playback file I downloaded from yesterday called 20181227.nrd. The .nrd extension is just NinjaTrader proprietary file type. Getting playback data is very easy, all you need to do is go under Tools > import > historical Data > Market Replay > Select your instrument and date and download. You can download months / quarters worth of data in 30 minutes to an hour. Once you have this, you can playback market replay or backrest anytime you like.

If you ever get to a point where you have back tested or ran 1,000s of trades in market replay, and things are moving slow, just check the file size of your NinjaTrader.sfd file. If this has gotten over 25 MB, then it is likely time to reset it. Just go under: Tools > database Management > reset db. And then this will clear your prior trade history and get rid of log files, but it will not delete your downloaded replay data, or remove your indicators or strategies you have saved.

It is a fairly straight forward process.

Let me know if I can help in any other way.

Ian

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  #159 (permalink)
 bobc635 
Tucson
 
Experience: Intermediate
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Broker: Stage5
Trading: CL, YM
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When I was on NT7, I saved all of my GOMI data as well. On NT8 there is no need to save the data.
It is always available even if you do not have data comng in. SIM22 built a very nice set of tools for looking at Cum Delta and Bid Ask data.

I have been using NT8 for a year now... The learning process was a bit rough for a couple of months,
but when SIM22 and I discovered the cache and db cleaning process, I have been running problem free since.

I have a few friends that are having some problems still. I think it is important to have the latest .NET installed in Windows. I am running Win 10 Pro with 24G Ram and an SSD. My NT 8 runs between 700M and 1G every day. Memory will climb if you are messing with your charts alot. I do not have a ton of history data and I only trade CL.

Good Luck...
Bob


jmcg618 View Post
Great Help! Thanks a lot. With regards to recording and storing bid/ask data, is there a file for that in db>replay that would not be affected by resetting the database via tools/db management? Just wondering how that data is stored. I think I read somewhere that you have to turn this feature on somehow to record bid/ask data and wondering how to keep that safe through all the various cache cleaning routines people have mentioned here.

Thanks again, really appreciate it.


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  #160 (permalink)
 bobc635 
Tucson
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: NinjaTrader
Broker: Stage5
Trading: CL, YM
Posts: 209 since Jan 2011
Thanks Given: 137
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Hello Traders.... a lot of people have had issues with NT8 from odd behavior to creeping memory and crashes. About a year ago, SIM22 and I posted some suggestions ( clear cache, Min, Tick and Day data). I met up with another trader named Christian and he has a very elegant solution to clearing the data sets. I built this bat file to clear all of the data. It is not a fix for every issue, but it has really helped a lot of traders. Build a .bat file with the code below... Place .bat file in MyDocuments>NinjaTrader 8 directory. You can make a shortcut to your desktop for convenience. If you want to have it start NT8, remove the 'rem' on the last line. You will start your NT with clean directories every time...

I have attached a .txt of the file. You can download .txt to your NinjaTrader 8 directory and change it to .bat
Bob

rem Developed by Christian Ejstrup and Bob Cometta. We hope that this will help all with NT 8 memory issues.
rem Drop into your MyDocuments\NinjaTrader 8 folder and change from a .txt to a .bat file.

rd /s /q "cache"
md "cache"

rd /s /q "db\cache"
md "db/cache"

rd /s /q "db\day"
md "db\day"

rd /s /q "db\minute"
md "db\minute"

rd /s /q "db\tick"
md "db\tick"

rd /s /q "tmp"
md "tmp"

rd /s /q "trace"
md "trace"

rd /s /q "log"
md "log"

rem start "Ninjatrader 8" /high "C:\Program Files (x86)\NinjaTrader 8\bin64\NinjaTrader.exe"

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