Hi.

It's the third time that with the new client I lost connection with the servers during the day, something that never had happened with the previous version.

I'm using Multicharts software.

Regards,
Fernando

Hello pyro, can you give us some more details concerning the disconnects? Was there an error message displayed that corresponded with the disconnects?

Also, can you give us some information concerning the operating environment? You mentioned using Multicharts, do you use any other 3rd party apps as well? What are the specs of the computer you are running on (OS/CPU/RAM/ETC)? What kind of internet connection do you have? If you open task manager, what is the average CPU usage during normal operation? Have you noticed if it spikes prior to the crash?

How many symbols does the IQ Connection Manager show during normal operation? To open the connection manager, right-click on the dtn icon in your system tray / notification area and choose "Feed Stats" from the menu. What is the Average KB/sec displayed in the "internet bandwidth" box?

Basically, any information you can help provide will be useful in tracking this down for you.

Thanks in advance.

Hi Steve.

I haven't received any type of error from the client. Actually, as far as I could see, the status was showing that it was connected but no data was being received.

I'm using Multicharts and QuoteTracker at he same time. I'm using Windows XP on a Pentium 4, 3GHz CPU and 3GHz of RAM.

I've got a 20Mb internet cable connection.

In terms of average CPU usage I confess that I rarely take a look at that, but for the last couple of minutes that I've been watching it, it has been around 15%, more or less.

The feed stats shows that I have a internet bandwidth average of 2.46.
I also have 40 symbols and something that looks strange for me is that I have 5 clients connected?

I can tell you that between 13:09 and 13:14 pm EST I didn't receive any forex quotes, though I received eminis quotes.


Hope this helps you in discover if there's anything wrong with it.

regards,
Fernando
Edited by pyro on Aug 10, 2009 at 01:17 PM

Fernando, couple of things here. First, is the necessary distinction between disconnection and the data just stopping. If the client isn't shutting down or even logging a reconnection attempt in the connection manager, then it certainly is not actually disconnecting. I appreciate that from a user perspective it is essentially the same thing but for troubleshooting, we need to know which is happening. When this happens, does it eventually start working again by itself? Or do you have to do something to make it start receiving data like restart the feed? If it fixes itself on its own, can you confirm that the connection manager does not show that a reconnection was made and that the Start time does not update (indicating that the app closed and relaunched)? Also, while the data seems to be stopped, does the Connection manager show internet bandwidth (the KB/sec on the line above the Average you checked earlier)?

The second thing is that you mentioned today that you were receiving eminis but no forex quotes? There is really no way for this to happen that can be related to the version of IQFeed you are running. IQFeed processes all data exactly the same so if one type of data stops updating then all types of data will stop (or vise-versa). The issue you saw today would have had to been a server related issue or a client application issue (Multicharts/QT). If you can confirm that no forex data was received to either QT or MC during this time and not just one or the other, that is good enough evidence to rule them out as potential problem areas for now (of course we might have to revisit it later but right now, it wouldn't seem the likely cause).

Last, can you get me the list of symbols you watch?

There are a couple of questions that I'm not able to answer at the moment since I didn't see what the feed stats were at the moment that the quotes stoped updating, but from now on I will always take that in consideration so I can properly report the problem.

I can say though that 2 of the times I had to close the client, and the other time I as forced to restart windows since I was unable to make MC and QT to receive quotes from the client. The client was connected but no quotes were received by MC and QT.

I can tell you that the problem reported earlier about the forex data, QT also stoped receiving the data since it has the same hole in the chart that MC has.

In terms of the followed symbols, they are:

@ES#, @NQ#, +CL#, BKX.X, SOX.X, KSX.X, HGX.X, XLV, XLE, XLP, XLU, XLK, XLF, XLI, XLY, XLB, USDCAD.COMP, USDCHF.COMP, AUDUSD.COMP, USDJPY.COMP, EURUSD.COMP, GBPUSD.COMP, C,BAC, JNJ, JPM, XOM, IBM, MSFT, CVX, GE.

The indexes and forex symbols are always the same, though the stocks change from time to time. Basicaly, I only follow stocks that are part of the S&P500.

Fernando, I certainly understand not being able to answer questions about stuff you didn't know to look for.

Unfortunately, I think that we might need that information to continue figuring out what might have happened. To my knowledge, we haven't heard of any other reports about the same issue related to the latest version of IQFeed. I have heard other issues but nothing quite like this.

As far as the forex gap you saw today, I see this same gap in our tick data that is on our servers currently so it was definitely a serverside issue as I suspected previously. I have reported this to our market data team to get an explanation.

Just for verification, we did experience a problem with our datafeed from Tenfore earlier today that explains the Forex outage you saw.

Of course, this doesn't explain any of the other issues so we will have to wait until it happens again to find explanations of those.

It just happended again but when I noticed, 5 minutes later all went back to normal.

Let's see if I remember all the data I collected before things came back to normal. (I did not close and re-open the client. Data started to come in by itself)

Only the ES was being updated. Forex and NQ weren't.
The last bar that I had on EURUSD.COMP was from 01:09 am EST and it was at the time 09:15 am EST.

The CPU was at 60%.

As soon as I request Multicharts to reload the forex charts the CPU went to 100%. Stood there for a while then came down to 16%. During those 5 minutes it went back and forth between 8 and 100%.
Now that realtime data resume, the CPU is working between 40 and 100%, coming down to 10% but jumping immediately to 40%.

Also, the feed stats was showing before realtime data resume , the KB/sec above the average KB/sec, a value of 0.62. Now shows values between 0.80 and 1.50, although when data started to came in I noticed 2.62.
Average KB/sec is indicating the same values before data resume, 5.30.

At this moment CPU is testing 100% again and the forex charts that I had reload only now are being plotted again, more than 5 minutes after I hit the key to reload. There is no hole in the charts, indicating that there was no server problem from you.

CPU came down now between 14 and 33%.

What is happening?
Edited by pyro on Aug 11, 2009 at 08:36 AM

Fernando, it doesn't sound like your processing very much data. There shouldn't be any reason I can think of that would cause that sort of CPU usage with that small amount of data transmitted. This certainly sounds like a software issue (consuming 100% CPU processing the data). However, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense considering that you claim it didn't happen with the old version of IQFeed. Can you downgrade back to the old version of IQFeed to see if you still experience problems? Perhaps it was just coincidence that the problems started when you upgraded? You can find the old version on our FTP here:

ftp://www.dtniq.com/IQFeed/iqfeed_client_4_5_0_3.exe
Edited by DTN_Steve_S on Aug 11, 2009 at 10:28 AM

Hi Steve.

Just installed the 4.5 client.
With 36 symbols I had the CPU between 16 and 8%.
Now with 107 symbols I have the CPU between 25 and 10% with spikes from time to time 'til 50%.

Before uninstalled client 4.6 I noticed that it had had 5 reconnections, this, since 2 days ago. I don't remember having close it yesterday. My system runs 24/7. I only reset my PC on the weekends.

Let's see if with 4.5 version I continue to have this problem.

But Steve, are you saying that this problem might be associated with the CPU?

I'll contact MC support to see if they have any reports of this type.

regards

OK, there's definately something wrong with my system.

Last quote received at 20:48 pm EST.

This time there's no forex nor eminis quotes.

CPU usage between 4 and 50%. It's like a rollercoaster.

I've closed QT to test how CPU managed, and I noticed that the rate diminuished a bit, though things have apparentely return to the same.

Feed stats, are indicating 1133 reconnections, and increasing as I'm writing this, 8 attemped reconnections and 0.0 internet bandwith KB/sec.
This is the 4.5 client.

Now I'm going to close the client and re-open it to see what will happen
Edited by pyro on Aug 12, 2009 at 12:55 AM

OK, just re-open it and a couple of seconds MC started to receive quotes as if nothing had happened.

Reloading all my 10 charts I notice that it takes much more time for them to reload than previously, before all of this problems.

While MC is waiting for the data, CPU is jumping all over the place.

...

Now with all charts reloaded and being updated, and with QT closed, CPU is working around 4 and 15%.

I can see in the server logs the multiple reconnections starting before midnight (EST) and continuing until you reconnected again. Unfortunately, I don't know what might have been causing this reconnection loop. Since you were able to just restart the app (and not the computer or any other hardware) to get reconnected, it would seem this is a software error somewhere rather than a hardware/network error.

Did this occurance seem similar to the other occurances you observed? Obviously you don't know if it was in a reconnection loop on the previous occurances but was it the same end result (charts not updating)? If so, I am fairly confident that this is not version related at all but some other issue we need to track down. If this seems agreeable to you, I think we want to upgrade to the 4.6 again for continued troubleshooting. 4.6 has some new logging features that might make this easier to track down.

Yes it was.

I've just reinstall 4.6 client.

So you are saying that it might be something to do with the client? But the strange thing is that this never happened before.

Is it possible that with the new client you change something in the servers that could be causing this?

For now, since I re-opened the client this morning, everything is running smoothly, without a problem.
The only thing I notice is that everytimeI call a chart, the waiting time is longer than previously.

Let's see if tomorrow, when I wake up, I'm going to have updated quotes/charts or not.


Fernando

There was no server upgrade at the same time as the client version getting released. All changes to the server to support the new features had been online for several months prior to the new IQFeed version.

This almost certainly has to be some sort of software issue causing problems somewhere.

Are you familiar with modifying the windows registry? If not, please contact our support department via phone or chat so they can walk you through changing the logfile registry setting below. If you are familiar (and comfortable) with modifying the registry yourself, please change the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/DTN/IQFeed/Startup/LogLevel

to be

6840
(Decimal)

OR

1ab8
(hex)

After doing so, you will need to restart IQFeed to accept the changes. At this point, IQFeed will write out a logfile into your MyDocs directory under DTN/IQFeed called IQConnectLog.txt that details each request and error messages sent to/from the client applications. This log will hopefully help us track down what is going on during these reconnection cycles.

OK Steve.

Windows registry already modified.

So if tomorrow morning charts are not being updated I'll send you the IQConnectLog.txt file.

Do I send it through here or through an email address? Which one?

Thank you for all the help.
Fernando

Please email it to support@iqfeed.net I will make sure it gets to me.

Hi Steve.

Just to say that today there wasn't any type of feed interruption. All is running OK.

Hi Steve.

I've just opened the connection manager and for my surprise the client reconnected 1000 times since Saturday.

I've sent and email with the iqconnectlog.txt file to the email that you gave.


Edited by pyro on Sep 1, 2009 at 03:56 PM

Thanks for the log Fernando, there is certainly some interesting stuff in that log file that we are investigating. I will let you know when i have more information.

Hi Steve.

Something is happening at the moment that never happened before.

I'm receiving a IQ32.DLL error, saying that I have too many clients connected.

Acordingly to IQ Manager I have 93 clients connected.

At the moment I only have 8 charts opened in Multicharts. I've got nothing else connected to the feed.

Since it's Saturday, were you having some kind of system upgrade or cleaning?

What can be the problem causing this error?

Regards,
Fernando
Edited by pyro on Oct 31, 2009 at 07:23 AM

Hello Fernando, within MultiCharts open the Quote Manager and look in there. For Multichart to update quote data correctly you need to have the symbols connected to IQFeed. I would look in there and see if you have 93 symbols connected. As far as I know we should not get an error message with just 93 symbols connected but I will need to look into this further and test it out. Once I have an answer I post it here.

---

Curtis Thompson
curtis.thompson@dtn.com
Trading Markets Customer Service
1-800-397-7000 x3614

Hello Fernando, after some checking here within my own copy of MultiCharts it looks like I am mistaken on the symbol count adding to the Client Connected. Mine is showing 10 Clients connected with 7 symbols active with two charts open so we will need to check with Steve here and see if he has any ideas.

---

Curtis Thompson
curtis.thompson@dtn.com
Trading Markets Customer Service
1-800-397-7000 x3614

Hi Curtis.

Well, as you noticed already, it seems that a problem exists.
The thing now is to know from which side, Multicharts or IQfeed?

I already informed tssupport about this problem. Lets see what they'll say about it.

Fernando

Fernando, did you happen to email the logfile of the incident to support as indicated earlier in the thread?

As far as this specific issue is concerned, it certainly sounds like there is a bug somewhere causing what you are experiencing. And, since client connections are always initiated by the 3rd party app to IQConnect, my initial reaction is that this is an issue within multicharts. However, it is also certainly a possibility that something in the feed triggered multicharts to open the large number of connections so we can't lay blame anywhere specific at this point. I will look into this and further and see what I can come up with.

Sorry Steve.

I went to see the logfile but the one that I have is from Nov 1.
I haven't noticed this before, but apparently everytime I reboot my PC (or disconnect IQfeed?) a new log is initiated, and the previous one is deleted.

Shouldn't the old logfiles be kept for later reference?

Another thing that I need to pay more attention next time some error or other type of anomaly happens. Save the logfile immediately

Let's see what tssupport says about this.

Regards,
Fernando

Hi Steve.

Something weird is happening with IQConnectLog file.

My system runs 24/7 and god knows why, all of a sudden the IQConnectLog generates a file that drains out my hard drive.

I've about 48Gb of free space in my hard drive and, after a couple of days of receiving data, I'm forced to delete the file since it becomes as large as my hard drive free space.

How is this possible? A 48Gb .txt file? What the hell does this log produces to generate such a file size?

This never happened before.

Any ideas?

There is a registry entry to turn logging off. With their new version, they may be logging more detail, thus creating larger log files.

Pyro, as stargrazer mentioned, of you modify the same registry entry that you did above(LogLevel), to zero, logging will be turned off.

As for the large logfile, this is probably due to a bug. In version 4.6 when logging is turned on and if your CPU gets maxed out, the feed will sometimes log all data in the Queue to be sent to the client rather than just the data that was sent. This can cause very large log files very quickly to be created. This is fixed in our latest beta version (4.7) but that isn't quite ready to be released to the public yet.

Are you still having problems with the behavior in this post? If not, I would suggest turning logging off entirely.

I left the log running because this way, if the problem reappeared again, I would send it immediately to you.

But I see that is better to turn it off.

Thanks.