Poor Performance Recently in ToS, anyone else?

[traderintheroom]

I've noticed recently, specifically this past Friday and today at the open I placed trades right after the opening bell and the system got super laggy. It was pretty bad that it did not honor my stop order Friday and I took a decent loss. Hey it happens but that is why I use hard stops to prevent those.

It happened again today where I placed an order 9:33 am and noticed I never got a fill, but a few minutes later I see in my active trader the fill occurred. I did contact support Friday and again today. Spoke to 3 people, one did not know, second said they were having some issues Friday AM but was resolved, and then today said it was my internet/ping to their server (I am hard wired on a fast business network).

Has anyone else had issues in ToS? Is there something that I can do as it is a bit frustrating.

 

[WayneG]

I only trade futures, does anyone have a recommendation for a platform, broker, and data stream at a reasonable price. I'm to old to put up with this nonsense.

 

[BenTen]

@WayneG See this page: https://usethinkscript.com/p/trading-toolbox/ (hint: the second option )

 

[hoojsn]

Instead of blaming TOS, I think we should check on our Computer Hardware & Software system.
Recently TOS software is a power-hungry machine, which needs a powerful system to operate. Maybe that the reason they came out with Web base Trading Platform.

I believe many of us here load many Indicators to our chart and running multiple Time frame chart at the same time. That is the reason it needs a powerful CPU/GPU to compute the calculation. Otherwise need to reduce Indicators and stick to 1 chart to mitigate the effects.

Window System with 64bits operating system
Intel I5 minimum, (do not use Ultra-Portable Chip)
At least 8 Gigabyte of Ram (With as much Ram as possible)
On-Board Graphic Cards.
Good Internet connection
If you have a Gaming PC, try to use and see how it fares.

Personally so far, I only have a few minor occasion, but so far so good.

 

[KarlWolff]

Instead of blaming TOS, I think we should check on our Computer Hardware & Software system.
Recently TOS software is a power-hungry machine, which needs a powerful system to operate. Maybe that the reason they came out with Web base Trading Platform.

I believe many of us here load many Indicators to our chart and running multiple Time frame chart at the same time. That is the reason it needs a powerful CPU/GPU to compute the calculation. Otherwise need to reduce Indicators and stick to 1 chart to mitigate the effects.

Window System with 64bits operating system
Intel I5 minimum, (do not use Ultra-Portable Chip)
At least 8 Gigabyte of Ram (With as much Ram as possible)
On-Board Graphic Cards.
Good Internet connection
If you have a Gaming PC, try to use and see how it fares.

Personally so far, I only have a few minor occasion, but so far so good.

No, TOS is rubbish. It's not a PC or internet issue.

 

[codydog]

fwiw -

https://platform.thinkorswim.com/platform/index.html#!/system-requirements

 

[hoojsn]

No, TOS is rubbish. It's not a PC or internet issue.

Then good luck to you finding another good platform.

@codydog If you copy the script over to your TOS, there is a warning that complicated Script will slow down its performance. Previously I use a computer that within spec shown on the list you given. Guess what, lagging performance until I use a better system. Anyway, I like Tos Platform but their Cusotmer Services ****s.

 

[MerryDay]

Do NOT run out and buy a faster PC; thinking it will solve your TOS problems!
I am 'babysitting' my children's gaming computers at the moment.

I am fortunate to have use of a couple of the fastest machines available with a 600 Mbps connection, yet TOS didn't load my 1st chart after the opening bell until 9:48 am yesterday.

The TOS servers hosting Long Island customers are pegged in early morning trading. I very seldom get anything other than the TOS circle of death until 10:30-10:45 am.

 

[hoojsn]

Do NOT run out and buy a faster PC; thinking it will solve your TOS problems!
I am 'babysitting' my children's gaming computers at the moment.

I am fortunate to have use of a couple of the fastest machines available with a 600 Mbps connection, yet TOS didn't load my 1st chart after the opening bell until 9:48 am yesterday.

The TOS servers hosting Long Island customers are pegged in early morning trading. I very seldom get anything other than the TOS circle of death until 10:30-10:45 am.

Really strange. I am not in the US and across the Pacific in a small country named Singapore. 12hrs of the time difference, but there was no sign of lagging. All Real-time data for my Intra Day trading. My Internet connection is 1Gigabyte Optic Fiber connection.

 

[codydog]

@MerryDay - I'm in CT with similar isp speeds and have never had charts not load for that long. I've had freezes, etc - maybe ask tos for an ip so you can check to see how many jumps between you and them. I would have thought with rentec in oyster bay, your infrastructure would be better.

Comments from tos twitter-

Replying to @GeorgeCater4

We understand the issues you've been seeing are frustrating. We hear you, and we're investing heavily in a solution. We would love to give you a firm date on when the issues will go away, but solving the problem is not as simple as we'd wish. ^MS

 

[MerryDay]

USER=674]@codydog[/USER] Thanks for the suggestion, I will do that! I do email them daily w/ my screen grabs to show them that my resources are not the least bit stretched on my end. I get the whole "we are working on the problem" speech; they have never denied that the issues exist.

I have found through trial and error that I can load 1yr monthly and weekly charts that have no lower studies w/ less delay and the monitor tab will load so at least I can track the stocks that I had in play overnight.

 

[codydog]

@MerryDay - The other things I started doing is to run Task Manager to see how much cpu/memory etc tos is taking. So far, it isnt a big number,

 

[MerryDay]

@MerryDay - The other things I started doing is to run Task Manager to see how much cpu/memory etc tos is taking. So far, it isnt a big number,

Ditto.
I highly recommend when anyone is dealing w/ TD over system issues that the following helps to provide them w/ a complete picture:

1. detail of your processor, ram, graphics card, ssd
2. a screen grab of: The system page under the Help tab in TOS +Task Manager resources tab sorted on memory +SpeedNet test showing internet speed
3. Tell them, yes you have increased the amount of ram dedicated to TOS, deleted the GUI folder and all that other stuff that they will otherwise tell you 'will solve all your problems'.

Anything that I am forgetting?

 

[codydog]

Maybe compare your processor to others -

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i9-10900K-vs-Intel-Core-i3-8300/4071vsm484077

 

[KarlWolff]

Does anyone know if TOS stupidly calculates indicators that are toggled off. Because of display glitches, I suspect that may be the case. Should indicators/strategies not being regularly used be removed? I'm running an I7 rig with16GB RAM, SSD with a fast internet connection. Believe me when I tell you that TOS is the problem when other platforms like TS run perfectly fine without latency issues. BTW, suggesting having only one chart open is a f-ing joke when you want to look at different time frames. It's totally unacceptable that the charts can't keep up with the price quote in the header or watchlist.

 

[codydog]

imo, tos is not at all forthcoming what creates processing delays for them. eg, should i roll all indicators into one study or have 10 separate studies?

It would be a big help if tos somehow could highlight when charts, studies etc will contribute to slowdowns. Also, sending a system message when they have problems would be embarrassing for them but a big help and relationship enhancer for dopes like me.

 

[vkmath]

TOS support used to respond within 20-30 minutes. Now its more like 24 hours.

 

[AidanTrader28]

Instead of blaming TOS, I think we should check on our Computer Hardware & Software system.
Recently TOS software is a power-hungry machine, which needs a powerful system to operate. Maybe that the reason they came out with Web base Trading Platform.

I believe many of us here load many Indicators to our chart and running multiple Time frame chart at the same time. That is the reason it needs a powerful CPU/GPU to compute the calculation. Otherwise need to reduce Indicators and stick to 1 chart to mitigate the effects.

Window System with 64bits operating system
Intel I5 minimum, (do not use Ultra-Portable Chip)
At least 8 Gigabyte of Ram (With as much Ram as possible)
On-Board Graphic Cards.
Good Internet connection
If you have a Gaming PC, try to use and see how it fares.

Personally so far, I only have a few minor occasion, but so far so good.

I agree with you. I’ve been trading futures on thinkorswim for a few months and I’ve only had a problem one day (June 15th) when the servers were completely messed up. I have a small account and on that day it was randomly placing orders with thousands of dollars of margin I didn’t have. Luckily the trades went in my favor and they made me $400 lol. I use a gaming laptop to trade and it seems the more ram I use, the less lag I get and the faster thinkorswim runs. I use almost 16 GB of ram to run thinkorswim and it works good for me. I just hope that the system doesn’t go crazy again and I don’t lose any money due to a system failure.

 

[soary]

I think it would be great if Ben could put up a sticky thread explaining how to overcome many of the complaints being made.

I've found that
-deleting the usergui folder weekly seems to help,
- shutting down tos and re-starting pc helps,
-once in a while re-booting modem/router helps,
-having an OK to good isp counts as does having an idea how many hops you go through to get to tos,
-not running tons of other apps when running tos,
-a modern pc with up to date, OS, lots of ram and processing speed, good video card etc. Its expensive but not having is more expensive. Dell Outlet sells some pcs at fair prices that are higher end, imo

And if tos upgraded from using java as their backbone would be amazing.

I hope that lots of savvy pc/internet folks here can add to this list!

It was laggy before the sale but not as horrible as now. I have all the above and it's still a problem, Where is the file for "-deleting the usergui folder weekly" Thanks

 

[Trader Raider]

Does anyone know if TOS stupidly calculates indicators that are toggled off. Because of display glitches, I suspect that may be the case. Should indicators/strategies not being regularly used be removed?

A trader I know called TOS to ask that very question. He wanted to know if the chart would still calculate values for studies that were placed on the chart but toggled off. He said he couldn't get a straight answer but that his take-away was that those studies probably do still get calculated and could slow down loading of the chart.

I believe this is true because I recently toggled off a study but noticed that the study's label still appeared in the top corner. To make the label disappear, I had to remove the study from the chart.

 

[codydog]

@Trader Raider - yesterday I looked at a chart with my usual studies, one of whch has an alert. Then i deleted the symbol in the chart so that the chart was blank, eg, no symbol for study to interact with.

Got alerts the rest of the day from a chart which showed nothing, and on re-start this morning the phantom alerts went away.