Schwab-TDA Merger: Thoughts, Rumors, Sightings...

[DeepThinker]

After the Nov, 4-5 upgrade weekend,
I just got in into my ToS desktop application.
Cannot locate user defined scans, studies, strategies!!!

08:26 Joseph_S: Got it, let me reach out to our back office and have them migrate those settings over for you
08:27 Anonymous so far: thanks . let me know when I can test the restore
08:28 Joseph_S: Sure thing, it will take an hour or so to hear back from them
08:29 Anonymous so far: I am online. shall wait

 

[MerryDay]

The majority of ToS users have futures trading enabled on their accounts.

But the Schwab ToS app is not currently enabled for futures or forex trading and will not be enabled until sometime 2024.

So to not interrupt trading abilities, higher volume ToS users with futures trading enabled accounts will not be migrated until 2024.

This is why the majority of you have not received migration notices yet.

https://www.schwab.com/trading/thin...bile-,Products available,-thinkorswim desktop

 

[shakib3585]

Hello All,

Is anyone having issues logging in to TOS after the transition? I have tried every possible way to log in after the transition, but I am seeing the following image with no box for login or password. Please help me if you can

 

[MerryDay]

Hello All,

Is anyone having issues logging in to TOS after the transition? I have tried every possible way to log in after the transition, but I am seeing the following image with no box for login or password. Please help me if you can
View attachment 20109

• Before firing up the TOS desktop app:
  1. Right-click app. Select Properties ->
  2. Open File Location ->
  3. Scroll down for "suit-usergui" and delete it ->
  4. Close window ->
  5. Apply.
  6. Start up TOS.
  7. It will redo the updates but should run properly.
• Pick Schwab and log on with your TDA/Schwab username and password. Go through the security verification. Click yes to agree to the terms of agreement pop-up.
• Your TOS platform should be there with everything intact.

If this doesn't work, you will have to contact customer support unfortunately. Good luck!

 

[stevevee]

Hopefully my experience is an outlier, but my ToS migration from TD to CS was a complete and still unresolved disaster. After two initial on-line support sessions, they were finally able to migrate my full library of indicators, strategies & watchlists-- as well as what appeared to be my full set of saved workspaces.

However, when I attempted to open any workspace that contained indicators NOT in ToS's standard set of indicators (i.e. any of the myriad of indicators I've imported from this amazing community) NONE of them loaded with any of those custom indicators attached. Insult to injury, when I tried to import a workspace via "open a shared item" using a workspace link that I had shared to myself last week (thinking it would be an insurance policy)--again, not a single custom indicator loaded with the workspace chart even though the various indicators are fully present in my library of indicators.

An hour and a half phone tech support session today brought no solution either. Tech support guy (who was great and as helpful as he was able) had not seen or heard of anyone else with the issue. Best he could do after trying a half-dozen unsuccessful work-arounds was say that he would have to check with his team and get back to me. Fortunately, all the custom indicators themselves seem to have "made the trip" so it appears I can rebuild my favorite workspaces... but it will take days. The frustrating part is that it doesn't appear that I could have done anything to prevent the issue. Again, hopefully y'all have fared or will fare better.

 

[MerryDay]

Hopefully my experience is an outlier, but my ToS migration from TD to CS was a complete and still unresolved disaster. After two initial on-line support sessions, they were finally able to migrate my full library of indicators, strategies & watchlists-- as well as what appeared to be my full set of saved workspaces.

Sorry to hear your experience! Very frustrating.
Just for your future information, workspaces NEVER have and NEVER will, carry over the study scripts to other accounts.
They are only created to save your workspace for your personal use, for that CURRENT account only.

So for example, if you have multiple Schwab accounts, you cannot save your workspace and then use it to port your studies to your other account.
This is the reason why shared workspaces are not allowed on the forum. They come up blank.

So, Schwab was clear from the very beginning that saved workspaces won't work to port your studies to the Schwab app.

Two of my accounts were migrated in February and the issue with our custom studies not migrating with us has been well-documented on the Schwab site, in this thread, and social media.

Schwab has developed workarounds, if you did not create shared links of your charts, grids, watchlists and scans, they will work with you to resolve the issue.

Be aware that Schwab has announced from the beginning that the:

Schwab ToS app will NOT be fully functional until the end of the year
And that Futures / Forex trading will not be available until 2024

 

[Trader Raider]

... when I attempted to open any workspace that contained indicators NOT in ToS's standard set of indicators (i.e. any of the myriad of indicators I've imported from this amazing community) NONE of them loaded with any of those custom indicators attached.

For me, the issue wasn't limited to saved workspaces or custom indicators. It was any indicator, even standard ones and any workspace, even fresh ones. Attempting to plot something simple such as an EMA resulted in the program automatically shutting down. Then it would take FOREVER to boot up again.

I discovered accidentally that if left alone, the EMA would eventually plot if TOS didn't shut itself down. But it could take as long as 5 min to plot the EMA ... if the program didn't shut down first.

Tonight TOS is running a little better for me, but still slow and buggy. Hope your troubles are resolved soon!

 

[DavidinMaui]

Just some info from the ToS chatrooms...
About half of the traders in the Traders Lounge chatroom on ToS have been migrated over to CS. So like ~200 of the ~400, with most of the ones already transitioned having occurred in the last two weeks. Some of those left have reached out to TDA and been told that they are scheduled to be transitioned in March 2024. I myself haven't reached out yet. BUT my thought process is that we've been hanging out together in a chatroom for years helping each other stay on the right side of trades... and now half of us may have no contact with the other half for like 5 months. I haven't even been transitioned yet and it already feels very frustrating...

 

[Trader Raider]

@DavidinCali, hopefully you are using this time to copy your custom code, make shared links, etc. I wasn't prepared for the move because I didn't get much notice. Copying code, making links, etc was VERY time consuming. And I didn't get it all done before the move. Please don't be unprepared, as I was, for an earlier-than-expected transition.

 

[stevevee]

Sorry to hear your experience! Very frustrating.
Just for your future information, workspaces NEVER have and NEVER will, carry over the study scripts to other accounts.
They are only created to save your workspace for your personal use, for that CURRENT account only.

So for example, if you have multiple Schwab accounts, you cannot save your workspace and then use it to port your studies to your other account.
This is the reason why shared workspaces are not allowed on the forum. They come up blank.

So, Schwab was clear from the very beginning that saved workspaces won't work to port your studies to the Schwab app.

Two of my accounts were migrated in February and the issue with our custom studies not migrating with us has been well-documented on the Schwab site, in this thread, and social media.

Schwab has developed workarounds, if you did not create shared links of your charts, grids, watchlists and scans, they will work with you to resolve the issue.

Be aware that Schwab has announced from the beginning that the:

Thank you, MerryDay for your response. Very helpful and appreciated. Not sure how I missed that business about saved workspaces not porting studies over to the new platform. The general "welcome" emails I got from CS over the past several months assured me (repeatedly) that the TD - CS ToS migration would be seamless and that I didn't need to do anything. Probably should have spent a bit more time "under the hood" (on the forums, etc as you suggest) vs just driving the wonderful "cars" you folks design and create. (Apparently, the ToS support tech I spent nearly two hours on the phone with today didn't know it either--if he'd told me as clearly as you did in one sentence at the top of the call, we could've ended it in two minutes.) Also, a moot point now, but seems CS or ToS (or whomever) could have made an exception of some sort to that rule about not porting studies to "other accounts." My TDA-now-CS account isn't an "other account"... it's the same account... my one and only. I didn't ask for, open or create an "other account." Ah, well. Grateful my migration experience went as well as it did. Thank you again for clarifying... and for all the great work you, your team and this exceptional community does.

 

[halcyonguy]

my experience
i was transferred this past weekend
it was dumb luck that i checked my emails last week and realized i had missed dozens of them, about the transfer. i was to be moved on the 4th.
one email said to create a schwab account, so i did.

i already keep a copy of every study i make/have, but scattered in different folders.
i exported my chart studies and copy/pasted my watchlist studies, 1 at a time
i have primarily worked in paper mode, with realtime data. i never got around to changing it.

on monday, i could still login to TD paper, using the green login window
all 2000+ studies are still there.

at the bottom left of login window, click the gear to change company, schwab or TD
when i logged into schwab , paper,
.. there are no studies, there are no watchlists.

when i logged into schwab , realtime, i think the correct studies were moved over? 100 or so from td live acct.? been awhile since i looked at TD live account.

too busy to call schwab now, but will later...

 

[Trader Raider]

Wow, now TOS is not even loading price data. All charts are blank but some watchlists load.

So glad I have other options for charting and trading. This is a valuable lesson NEVER to put all your trading eggs in one basket.

 

[shakib3585]

• Before firing up the TOS desktop app:
  1. Right-click app. Select Properties ->
  2. Open File Location ->
  3. Scroll down for "suit-usergui" and delete it ->
  4. Close window ->
  5. Apply.
  6. Start up TOS.
  7. It will redo the updates but should run properly.
• Pick Schwab and log on with your TDA/Schwab username and password. Go through the security verification. Click yes to agree to the terms of agreement pop-up.
• Your TOS platform should be there with everything intact.

If this doesn't work, you will have to contact customer support unfortunately. Good luck!

If this helps, I believe the new updates that were sent during the transition are having compatibility issues with Windows 11. As such, I ran msconfig on my laptop, made the following adjustments, and now I see it is running. I have lost all my workspaces and will get back to Schwab to regain them.

 

[MerryDay]

If this helps, I believe the new updates that were sent during the transition are having compatibility issues with Windows 11. As such, I ran msconfig on my laptop, made the following adjustments, and now I see it is running. I have lost all my workspaces and will get back to Schwab to regain them.

As explained above.

Workspaces cannot be migrated to other accounts nor can you share them with other users.
Workspaces are just that. Your personal workspace saved on that TDA account.

Your Schwab account is a new account. So, no workspaces cannot be carried over.

 

[stevevee]

Update: In my two-hour call w/ToS support, I discovered that while it's true that my workspaces did not carry over intact, my LIST of workspaces did carry over (they're just stripped of all custom indicators when I open them).

However, once my library of indicators and strategies had fully migrated, I was able to open a workspace--and for those workspace panels that I had saved as study sets-- I was able to go into studies/edit studies/sets, find the (workspace) study set name there, and then click on the right-facing carat at the left of the study set name and my original list of indicators attached to that panel would show up in a drop down list. I then clicked on the "use set" button (lower left) and voila(!) all of the indicators (custom and otherwise) that were attached to that original workspace panel were fully restored to the panel, which I then saved under a new workspace name.

I offer this as someone who knows literally nothing about the inner workings of ToS but this appears (for now) to be a simple fix at least for me. Perhaps it'll work for others in similar circumstances.

 

[armybender]

Update: In my two-hour call w/ToS support, I discovered that while it's true that my workspaces did not carry over intact, my LIST of workspaces did carry over (they're just stripped of all custom indicators when I open them).

However, once my library of indicators and strategies had fully migrated, I was able to open a workspace--and for those workspace panels that I had saved as study sets-- I was able to go into studies/edit studies/sets, find the (workspace) study set name there, and then click on the right-facing carat at the left of the study set name and my original list of indicators attached to that panel would show up in a drop down list. I then clicked on the "use set" button (lower left) and voila(!) all of the indicators (custom and otherwise) that were attached to that original workspace panel were fully restored to the panel, which I then saved under a new workspace name.

I offer this as someone who knows literally nothing about the inner workings of ToS but this appears (for now) to be a simple fix at least for me. Perhaps it'll work for others in similar circumstances.

This is why I recommend saving (sharing) grids because they maintain the links to the studies. That way you can load a workspace and get the grid windows... then load the grids.

 

[MerryDay]

It's awe-inspiring to see members generously investing their time and energy to document solutions amidst this challenging transition.

Your collective efforts are not only impressive but immensely valuable.

A heartfelt thank you to each one of you for providing this assistance.

 

[Trader Raider]

Just a friendly heads-up to my fellow schwab guinea pigs that were transferred over the weekend.

What I notice today is:

1- Imported studies are NOT saving. Must be re-imported if the program is closed and re-opened.

2- Styles that were saved to include studies are loading the studies but anything related to chart appearance did NOT transfer with the style and must be reapplied.

3- Scans show no results on the scan tab but if the scan is loaded in the sidebar as a watchlist then results are displayed.

4- Paper trading doesn't allow custom indicators in scans. Not sure if that will be permanent, but if so, it's something for paper traders to be aware of.

 

[Clark2001]

Does anyone know if Schwab will support live buy and sell order flow? I know think or swim currently does not.

 

[Internet Name]

I've already backed up all my studies and inserted them into the new software. I'm not about to take the risk of my system being wiped out by accident. But I'm wondering what will happen when they attempt to "port" over a custom study where the same custom study already exists in your Schwab version. I.e. you already transitioned it yourself. I guess we'll see.