Where signals become trades.
You already have an indicator you trust. It paints the arrow, it changes colour, it crosses the line — and then it waits for you. It waits while you sleep, while you are at work, while you are stuck in traffic. Every signal it prints without you is a signal that never became a trade.
Signal Bridge Pro closes that gap. It is a utility that reads the buffers of your custom indicator and executes them on your account, with your lot sizing, your stops, your filters and your risk limits. No programming. No source code. No modification of the indicator at all.
| Read this before anything else Signal Bridge Pro does not generate trading signals. It is a bridge, not a strategy. You must already own an indicator that produces buy and sell values in its buffers. The quality of your results depends entirely on the indicator you connect. If your indicator is not profitable manually, automating it will not make it profitable. |
Why most indicator-to-EA converters fail you
Search the market and you will find a dozen tools that promise to turn an indicator into a robot. Try them and you will usually hit the same wall within ten minutes.
They only understand arrows.
But indicators do not all speak the same language. Some paint an arrow. Some flip a histogram from negative to positive. Some change a line from red to green. Some cross a level. Some just change slope. Point an arrow-only converter at a SuperTrend indicator and nothing happens — not because the indicator is broken, but because the converter has no idea what it is looking at.
Signal Bridge Pro reads eight different signal patterns, and it can work out which one your indicator uses on its own.
| Read mode | What it detects | Typical indicator |
|---|---|---|
| Arrow – new signal only | A value appears where the previous bar was empty | Arrow / signal indicators |
| Arrow – every bar it shows | Any bar that holds a value | Zone and state indicators |
| Two lines cross | Buffer A crosses buffer B | Moving average pairs, MACD |
| Histogram +/- flip | The value changes sign | Awesome Oscillator, OsMA |
| Level cross | The value crosses a fixed number | RSI, Stochastic, CCI |
| Colour index change | A colour buffer switches value | SuperTrend, coloured trend lines |
| Line slope up/down | The line turns up or turns down | Smoothed moving averages |
| Auto Detect | Samples the buffer and chooses one of the above | Use this first |
The two features that save you an hour of guesswork
1. The Buffer Scanner
Every converter asks you the same question: which buffer number holds the buy signal? And almost nobody knows. You end up opening the Data Window, hovering over candles, counting columns, guessing.
Signal Bridge Pro answers the question for you. Leave Show buffer map on start switched ON and the moment the utility loads it examines every buffer of your indicator and prints a map to the Experts tab:
=== Signal Bridge Pro : BUFFER MAP (MyIndicator) === buf[0] line data:100 zero:0 empty:0 range 1.08412..1.09233 buf[1] line data:100 zero:0 empty:0 range 1.08390..1.09201 buf[4] histogram +/- data:98 zero:2 empty:0 range -0.00120..0.00143 buf[7] ARROW / sparse data:3 zero:0 empty:97 range 1.08455..1.09100 buf[8] ARROW / sparse data:2 zero:0 empty:98 range 1.08610..1.09150 Detected read mode: Arrow (new) / EMPTY If signals look wrong, set 'How to read the buffer' manually.
Read it like this. data is how many of the last 100 bars hold a real value. zero counts exact zeros. empty counts blanks. A buffer with a handful of values and dozens of blanks is an arrow buffer. A buffer that is full on every bar is a line. A buffer that swings across zero is a histogram.
In the example above, buffers 7 and 8 are your buy and sell arrows. That is the whole investigation — it took one restart.
2. Automatic empty-value detection
Here is a subtlety that quietly breaks a lot of setups. When an indicator has no signal on a bar, it has to write something into the buffer. Some authors write a special blank constant. Others write plain 0.0 .
If the utility assumes the wrong convention, one of two things happens: either it sees a signal on every single bar, or it never sees one at all. Both look like the tool is broken.
Leave No signal value on Auto Detect and Signal Bridge Pro samples 250 bars of history and works out which convention your indicator uses before it places a single trade.
Quick start — three settings and you are live
| Design principle: every optional feature ships switched off. Attach the utility, fill in three fields, and it trades. Nothing is silently blocking your entries. You then turn on only what you actually want. |
| Step | Do this |
|---|---|
| 1 | Copy your indicator’s .ex5 file into MQL5\Indicators\ |
| 2 | Attach Signal Bridge Pro to a chart and type the indicator file name into Indicator file name |
| 3 | Open the Experts tab, read the buffer map, and type the two numbers into BUY signal buffer number and SELL signal buffer number |
That is it. Default lot is a fixed 0.01, default stops are fixed points, and every filter is disabled. Watch it on demo, confirm the arrows on your chart match the trades in your terminal, then start switching features on one at a time.
| Never skip the demo step. Run the utility on a demo account for at least a week before it touches real money. You are validating two things at once: that the buffers are mapped correctly, and that your indicator is worth automating. |
Complete settings reference
Every setting in the utility is listed below, in the order it appears in the Inputs tab. Sections marked ENABLE this section are switched off out of the box — the settings under them do nothing until you turn the master switch on.
1. Main indicator
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Indicator file name | — | The file name of your indicator, without the extension. If it lives in a subfolder, include it, for example Market\MyIndicator . The utility also tries the Market, Examples and Downloads folders automatically. |
| Indicator inputs | blank | Your indicator’s own parameters as a comma separated list, in the exact order they are declared. Leave blank to use the indicator defaults. Types are detected automatically: 14 becomes an integer, 0.5 a double, true a boolean, anything else a string. |
| BUY signal buffer number | 0 | The buffer that holds buy signals. Read it from the buffer map. |
| SELL signal buffer number | 1 | The buffer that holds sell signals. May be the same number as the buy buffer for histogram, level cross and slope modes. |
| Signal timeframe | Current | Which timeframe the indicator is read on. Leave on Current to follow the chart. |
| How to read the buffer | Auto Detect | One of the eight read modes. Start on Auto Detect; only override it if the detected mode is wrong. |
| “No signal” value | Auto Detect | How your indicator marks an empty bar. Auto Detect samples history and decides. |
| Show buffer map on start | ON | Prints the buffer analysis to the Experts tab when the utility loads. Costs nothing, so leave it on. |
| BUY level | 0.0 | Only used by the Level cross mode. The value the buffer must cross upward. |
| SELL level | 0.0 | Only used by the Level cross mode. The value the buffer must cross downward. |
| Keep the chart indicator on default settings. MetaTrader reuses one indicator instance when the symbol, timeframe and parameters all match. The utility sends blank parameters, which means defaults. If you change the settings of the copy on your chart, you now have two different instances — the one you see and the one being traded. If you want custom settings, type them into Indicator inputs instead. |
2. Second indicator (optional)
A confirmation or filter layer. Off by default. Its real power is that it can run on a completely different timeframe from the first, so an M15 entry can be filtered by an H4 trend.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Use second indicator | OFF | Master switch for this section. |
| Indicator #2 file name | blank | Same rules as the main indicator. |
| Indicator #2 inputs | blank | Same comma separated format. |
| #2 BUY buffer number | 0 | Buffer holding the second indicator’s bullish value. |
| #2 SELL buffer number | 1 | Buffer holding its bearish value. |
| #2 timeframe | Current | Set this higher than the main timeframe for a trend filter. Bars are matched by time, so alignment is exact. |
| How to combine with #1 | Both must agree | See the table below. |
| Sequence window (bars) | 3 | Only used by Sequence mode. How many bars the confirmation may lag behind the trigger. |
| Combine mode | Rule | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| Both must agree | #1 fires and #2 agrees on the same bar | You want fewer, higher quality entries |
| Either one can fire | #1 or #2 alone is enough | You want more entries from two systems |
| #2 is trend filter only | #2 never triggers, it only permits or blocks | Classic higher timeframe trend filter |
| #2 blocks opposite signals | #2 only vetoes trades that contradict it | You want a light filter that rarely blocks |
| #1 first, then #2 confirms | #1 fires, then #2 confirms within N bars | Entry trigger plus momentum confirmation |
3. Symbol
Broker naming is the single most common reason a working setup breaks when it is moved to another account. One broker calls it EURUSD , the next EURUSDm , a third EURUSD.a . Gold might be XAUUSD or simply GOLD .
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Which symbol to read signals from | Chart symbol | Chart symbol follows the chart. By name uses the name you type. By Market Watch number picks a symbol by its index in the symbol list. |
| Symbol name | blank | Used by the By name mode. |
| Symbol number | 0 | Used by the By number mode. |
| Auto fix broker prefix/suffix | ON | Type EURUSD and it will find EURUSDm , EURUSD.a or EURUSD_i on its own. It also knows the GOLD / XAUUSD and SILVER / XAGUSD aliases. Leave this on. |
| Trade on this symbol | blank | Read the signal on one symbol and place the trade on another. Blank means trade the same symbol you read. |
4. Signal timing
This section decides which bar is read and how long a signal stays valid. It is small, and it matters more than almost anything else here.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Read bar: 0=live, 1=closed | 1 | 1 reads the last closed bar. This is the safe setting and it is what you want in almost every case. 0 reads the bar that is still forming — faster, but a repainting indicator can withdraw the signal after you are already in. |
| Wait N bars after signal | 0 | Delays entry by N bars after the signal appears. Useful when your indicator is early and price usually pulls back first. |
| Accept signals up to N bars old | 0 | This is a recovery setting and it is genuinely valuable. Normally a signal missed because the spread was wide, the position limit was full, or the terminal was restarted is lost forever. Set this to 2 or 3 and the utility will still take a slightly stale signal. |
| Cancel if price moved N pts | 0 | If price has already run this far from the signal bar, skip the entry rather than chase it. 0 disables the check. |
| Reverse BUY <-> SELL | OFF | Inverts every signal. One checkbox to test whether a consistently losing indicator is actually a good indicator pointing the wrong way. |
| Repaint protection is always on. At the moment of execution the utility reads the buffer again. If your indicator has since removed the signal, the trade is cancelled. You do not need to configure this — but it is the reason a delay setting is safe to use here. |
5. Lot size
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Lot mode | Fixed lot | Fixed lot always sends the same volume. Risk % of equity sizes each trade so that hitting the stop loss costs that percentage — this requires a stop loss to be set. Equity step scales volume with the account. |
| Fixed lot | 0.01 | Volume for Fixed lot mode. |
| Risk % per trade | 1.0 | Percentage of equity risked per trade in Risk % mode. |
| Equity per 0.01 lot | 1000 | In Equity step mode, one 0.01 lot for every this much equity. |
| Volume is always normalised to your broker’s volume step, clamped to the minimum and maximum, and checked against free margin before the order is sent. A trade that cannot be afforded is never attempted. |
6. Stop loss / take profit
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| SL / TP mode | Fixed points | Fixed points uses the two point values below. ATR multiple sizes stops from current volatility, so one setting works across EURUSD and XAUUSD alike. No SL / TP sends naked orders. |
| Stop Loss (points) | 500 | Distance in points for Fixed points mode. |
| Take Profit (points) | 1000 | Distance in points for Fixed points mode. |
| ATR period | 10 | Averaging period for ATR mode. |
| SL = ATR x | 2.5 | Stop distance as a multiple of ATR. |
| TP = ATR x | 5.0 | Target distance as a multiple of ATR. At 5.0 with a 2.5 stop you are aiming at 2R. |
| Stops are validated against your broker’s minimum stop distance before every order. If your setting is tighter than the broker allows, it is widened to the legal minimum instead of the order being rejected. |
7. Protect profit
All three tools here are off by default. Turn them on one at a time and watch what they do to your results before combining them.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Enable Break-Even | OFF | Moves the stop to entry once the trade is far enough ahead. |
| BE start (points profit) | 300 | How much profit is required before the stop is moved. |
| BE lock (points) | 20 | How many points beyond entry the stop is placed. A small positive number covers the spread and commission. |
| Enable Trailing Stop | OFF | Follows price once the trade is ahead. |
| Trail start (points profit) | 500 | Profit required before trailing begins. |
| Trail distance (points) | 200 | How far behind price the stop is kept. |
| Enable Partial close | OFF | Banks part of the position at a target and lets the rest run. |
| Partial at (points profit) | 400 | Profit level that triggers the partial close. |
| Close % of position | 50 | How much of the volume is closed. Each position is only partially closed once. |
8. Risk guard
Account level circuit breakers. Every one is disabled by default — a value of 0 means the check is off. When any limit trips, the utility stops opening new trades and the dashboard turns red. Daily limits reset automatically at the next server midnight.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Stop at drawdown % | 0 | Halts trading when the gap between balance and equity reaches this percentage. |
| Daily loss limit | 0 | Halts trading when today’s realised plus floating result falls below minus this amount, in account currency. |
| Daily profit target | 0 | Halts trading once today’s result reaches this amount. Protecting a good day is a strategy in itself. |
| Stop after N losses in row | 0 | Halts after this many consecutive losing trades. |
| Daily drawdown % from peak | 0 | This one is different and it is the setting funded traders want. It measures how much you have given back from today’s best point, not how much you are down overall. Go up 3% and hand back 2%, and this limit sees 2% even though you are still in profit for the day. |
9. Trade control
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Magic Number | 33077001 | Identifies this utility’s trades. Give every chart a different number if you run more than one copy. |
| Trade comment | SignalBridge | Text attached to each order. |
| Max BUY positions | 1 | How many buy positions may be open at once. Raise it to allow pyramiding. |
| Max SELL positions | 1 | Same for sells. |
| Close opposite on new signal | ON | A buy signal closes any open sells first. Turn this off only if you deliberately want hedged positions. |
| Max slippage (points) | 30 | Maximum acceptable price deviation on execution. |
10. Time filter (optional)
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Use time filter | OFF | Master switch for this section. |
| Start hour | 0 | First hour of the trading window, server time. |
| End hour | 24 | End of the window. If the start hour is greater than the end hour the window crosses midnight, which is how you trade an overnight Asian session. |
| Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday | ON | Five independent day switches. Turn Friday off if your strategy dislikes the end of the week. |
11. Friday & weekend guard
Two of the thinnest liquidity windows of the whole week sit at the Friday close and the Sunday re-open. On top of that, any position held over the weekend carries gap risk that no stop loss can protect you from — price can simply open on the other side of your stop.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| ENABLE this section | OFF | Master switch. |
| Friday: no new trades from hour | 18 | From this server hour on Friday, no new entries are opened. Existing positions are left alone. |
| Friday: close everything | OFF | Closes all of this utility’s positions at the time below. |
| Friday close: hour | 20 | Hour of the Friday flatten. |
| Friday close: minute | 55 | Minute of the Friday flatten. It runs once per Friday, not repeatedly. |
| Skip first N min after week open | 0 | Ignores signals for this many minutes after the market re-opens. There is no hardcoded hour here — the utility detects the weekly gap by noticing a break of more than six hours between quotes, so it adapts to any broker’s server time on its own. |
12. Spread guard
A fixed points limit is a blunt instrument. What counts as a wide spread on EURUSD is normal on XAUUSD, and what is normal at midday is expensive at rollover. This section measures your actual spread and reacts to abnormal behaviour.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| ENABLE this section | OFF | Master switch. |
| Hard max spread, points | 0 | A simple ceiling. Above this value, no entries. 0 disables it. |
| Block if spread > average x N | 2.5 | The dynamic check. If the current spread is more than this multiple of the normal spread, entries are blocked. |
| Averaging window, seconds | 300 | How much recent history defines “normal”. |
| Wait N sec after a spike | 60 | Once a spike is detected, stay out for this long even if the spread snaps back immediately. |
| Why the baseline is a median, not an average. A spike drags an average upward, which raises the threshold, which makes the guard blind exactly when you need it. A median ignores the outliers entirely. The dashboard shows both numbers, for example 21 pts (n14) — current spread 21, normal spread 14. |
13. News filter
Two independent data sources, three impact levels, and each impact level gets its own timing. This is deliberately more granular than the usual single dropdown, because a payroll release and a minor housing number do not deserve the same treatment.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Enable news filter | OFF | Master switch for the whole news system. |
| News data source | MT5 calendar | MT5 economic calendar needs no setup and works offline. Forex Factory downloads the weekly XML file. Forex Factory, fall back to MT5 tries the download first and quietly uses the built-in calendar if it fails. |
| Forex Factory XML URL | faireconomy.media link | Only used by the Forex Factory modes. This address must be added to the allowed URL list in Tools → Options → Expert Advisors, or the download will be refused. |
| Forex Factory time offset (hours) | 0 | Shifts the downloaded times to match your broker’s server clock. Compare a known release time on your chart against the news line and adjust. |
Per-impact timing
Each level has its own switch and its own before / after window, in minutes.
| Impact switch | Default | Stop trading X min BEFORE | Resume trading X min AFTER | Typical events |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Avoid HIGH impact news | ON | 10 min | 10 min | Rate decisions, payrolls, CPI |
| Avoid MEDIUM impact news | ON | 5 min | 5 min | Sentiment surveys, trade balance |
| Avoid LOW impact news | OFF | 0 min | 0 min | Minor regional data |
News scope and actions
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Only news of the traded currencies | ON | Filters the calendar down to the currencies your symbol actually depends on. It reads the real base, profit and margin currencies from the symbol specification, so broker suffixes cannot confuse it. |
| Extra currencies to watch | blank | Comma separated list, for example USD,EUR . This matters more than it looks. Trading an index like US30 or a metal? Its own currency codes may carry no calendar events at all. Add USD here and the filter starts working. |
| Block new entries in news window | ON | The core behaviour. No new trades inside the blackout window. |
| Close open positions before news | OFF | Flattens everything ahead of the release. The blunt option — see the next section for a gentler one. |
| Close positions X min before | 5 | Lead time for the option above. |
| Freeze trailing / BE during news | OFF | Stops stop-loss management while the window is active, so a momentary spike cannot drag your stop to a bad place. |
| Draw news lines on chart | ON | Vertical dotted lines at each event, coloured by impact, with the event name in the tooltip. Excellent for verifying your time offset is correct. |
| After news, resume only on normal spread | OFF | Extends the pause past the normal window until liquidity actually returns. Spreads frequently stay elevated for fifteen to thirty minutes after a major release, long after your timer has expired. This closes that hole. |
14. Pre-news protection
Closing everything before a release means giving up open profit on trades that were working. This section secures what you already have instead.
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| ENABLE this section | OFF | Master switch. |
| Act N minutes before the release | 5 | How far ahead of the event the action runs. It runs once per event. |
| What to do with open positions | Move SL to break-even | Move SL to break-even secures a winning trade. Tighten SL pulls the stop closer. Close part of the position banks some and lets the rest ride. Close the position exits completely. |
| Break-even: lock N points | 10 | Points beyond entry for break-even mode. Only applied to trades already in profit — a losing trade is never dragged to entry. |
| Tighten: new SL distance, points | 150 | Stop distance for tighten mode. Do not set this too tight: a stop parked close to price can be taken out by the spread widening alone, before the market has moved at all. |
| Partial: close N percent | 50 | Volume percentage for partial mode. |
| A stop is never loosened. Whatever mode you pick, the utility only ever moves a stop to a safer place. It also respects your broker’s minimum stop distance, so the modification cannot be rejected. |
15. Dashboard
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Show dashboard | ON | The on-chart panel. |
| Panel corner | Top Left | Any of the four chart corners. |
| Panel X offset | 12 | Horizontal distance from that corner, in pixels. |
| Panel Y offset | 20 | Vertical distance from that corner. |
| Panel size % | 100 | Scales the whole panel — fonts, padding, row height, corner radius. Valid range is 75 to 180. If the panel would not fit your chart window it shrinks itself automatically, and it re-fits when you resize the window. |
| Dark chart theme in tester | ON | Applies a dark chart theme during visual backtests and restores your original colours afterwards. |
16. Alerts & log
| Setting | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Popup alert on trade | OFF | Terminal popup on entry. |
| Mobile push on trade | OFF | Push notification to the MetaTrader mobile app. Requires your MetaQuotes ID in Tools → Options → Notifications. |
| Write CSV log | ON | Writes to MQL5\Files\SignalBridgePro_<magic>.csv . It records far more than trades: entries, exits, partial closes, rejected orders, news pauses, Friday closes, and skipped signals with the reason they were skipped. When a signal did not become a trade, this file tells you why. |
Reading the dashboard
The panel is not decoration. Every row answers a question you would otherwise have to dig for.
| Card | Row | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| SIGNAL SOURCE | Symbol | The resolved symbol and timeframe. If you typed EURUSD and your broker uses EURUSDm, this row proves the resolver worked. |
| Indicator | The connected indicator. A +2 suffix means a second indicator is active. | |
| Read mode | The detected mode and empty-value convention. This is the first row to check when signals look wrong. | |
| Last signal | Direction and bar time of the most recent executed signal. | |
| POSITION | Lot mode | Confirms which sizing method is live. |
| SL / TP | Current stop and target distance in points. In ATR mode this changes with volatility. | |
| Open | Buy and sell counts for this utility only. | |
| Floating | Open result, green or red. | |
| DAILY | Today P/L | Realised plus floating for the current server day. |
| Closed / Open | The same number split into banked and still at risk. | |
| Day DD / Acct DD | Give-back from today’s peak, and the account-level drawdown. | |
| Trades / Win% | Closed trades and win rate, counted from real closed deals. | |
| Spread / News | Current spread, the normal spread in brackets when the guard is on, and the next event or the reason trading is paused. |
The status bar at the bottom of the panel tells you in one line what the utility is doing right now:
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| LOADING INDICATOR... | Waiting for enough indicator history. Normal for a few seconds after attaching. |
| WAITING FOR SIGNAL | Everything is healthy, no signal yet. This is the normal idle state. |
| IN TRADE | At least one position is open. |
| NEWS PAUSE | Inside a news blackout window. The impact and currency are shown. |
| SPREAD TOO WIDE | The spread guard is holding entries back. |
| WEEKEND GUARD | Friday cut-off or the post-weekend skip window. |
| OUTSIDE TIME FILTER | Outside your permitted hours or days. |
| DAILY LOSS LIMIT / DAILY TARGET HIT / DRAWDOWN LIMIT | A risk guard has tripped. Daily limits clear at the next server midnight. |
| SETUP ERROR | The indicator or symbol could not be loaded. Check the Experts tab. |
The small button at the panel’s top-right corner hides and shows it. That choice is remembered — switch from M15 to H4 and the panel comes back exactly as you left it. While hidden, the panel does no work at all: no calculations, no redraws.
Four ready-made setups
Start from the one closest to your style, then adjust. Everything not listed stays at its default.
A. First test — prove the connection works
Indicator file name .......... your indicator BUY / SELL buffer ............ from the buffer map How to read the buffer ....... Auto Detect Read bar ..................... 1 Lot mode ..................... Fixed lot, 0.01 SL / TP mode ................. Fixed points, 500 / 1000 Everything else .............. leave at default (all guards off)
Run this on demo. Compare each trade in the terminal against the arrow on your chart. Do not enable a single extra feature until the two match perfectly.
B. Intraday scalping
Read bar ..................... 1 Accept signals up to N bars .. 2 SL / TP mode ................. ATR multiple, period 14, SL 1.5, TP 3.0 Enable Break-Even ............ Yes, start 200, lock 15 Enable Trailing Stop ......... Yes, start 300, distance 150 Spread guard ................. Yes, spike multiple 2.0, cooldown 60 Time filter .................. Yes, 08:00 to 18:00 server News filter .................. Yes, MT5 calendar, HIGH 15/15, MEDIUM 5/5
Scalping lives and dies on execution cost, so the spread guard is the setting that earns its keep here.
C. Swing trading on H1 or H4
Read bar ..................... 1 Second indicator ............. Yes, higher timeframe, mode: #2 is trend filter only SL / TP mode ................. ATR multiple, SL 2.5, TP 6.0 Enable Partial close ......... Yes, at 400 points, close 50% Enable Trailing Stop ......... Yes, start 800, distance 400 Friday & weekend guard ....... Yes, no new trades from 18:00 News filter .................. Yes, HIGH only, 30/30
Fewer, larger trades. The higher timeframe filter removes the counter-trend entries that hurt most on this horizon.
D. Funded / prop firm account
Lot mode ..................... Risk % of equity, 0.5% SL / TP mode ................. ATR multiple (a stop is mandatory here) Daily drawdown % from peak ... 3.0 Stop at drawdown % ........... 8.0 Max consecutive losses ....... 3 Friday & weekend guard ....... Yes, no new trades 18:00, close all 20:55 News filter .................. Yes, HIGH 30/30, MEDIUM 10/10 After news, resume on spread . Yes Pre-news protection .......... Yes, 5 min before, Move SL to break-even
| Daily drawdown % from peak is the setting most funded-account rules actually measure, and the one most traders forget. Being up 3% and giving back 2% still counts as a 2% drawdown even though your day is green. Set it below your firm’s limit, not equal to it. |
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Cause and fix |
|---|---|
| Panel says SETUP ERROR | The indicator file was not found. Check the spelling, drop the .ex5 extension, and include the subfolder if it is in one. Confirm the file is really in MQL5\Indicators\ and compiles without errors on its own. |
| No trades at all, status is WAITING FOR SIGNAL | Either the buffer numbers are wrong or the read mode is wrong. Check the buffer map in the Experts tab, then check the Read mode row on the panel. If it says Line cross for an arrow indicator, set the mode manually. |
| A trade on every single bar | The read mode is treating a continuously filled line as a signal. Switch to Arrow – new signal only, or set the empty value manually to Zero . |
| Trades fire but at the wrong moment | Read bar is probably 0. Set it to 1 so entries are taken from closed bars. |
| Entries happen then reverse instantly | Your indicator repaints. Keep Read bar at 1 and consider Wait N bars after signal of 1 or 2. |
| “Unsupported filling mode” | Should not occur — the filling mode is detected from the symbol. If it does, report it with your broker name. |
| “Invalid stops” | Your stop is inside the broker’s minimum distance. Increase the stop distance or switch to ATR mode. |
| News filter does nothing | Confirm the master switch is on. If using Forex Factory, add the XML address to the allowed URL list in Tools → Options → Expert Advisors. Also check Extra currencies — indices and metals often need USD added manually. |
| News lines sit at the wrong time | Adjust Forex Factory time offset until a known release lines up with the actual candle. |
| Panel is cut off | It auto-fits, but you can also lower Panel size % to 85 or move it to another corner. |
| No trades in the Strategy Tester | Testing must run on local agents. Remote and cloud agents cannot load an indicator chosen at run time. |
Frequently asked questions
Q. Does it come with an indicator?
No. Signal Bridge Pro is a bridge, not a strategy. You bring the indicator, it brings the execution, risk management and automation.
Q. Will it make my indicator profitable?
No, and be suspicious of any tool that claims otherwise. It removes hesitation, missed signals and manual errors. It cannot turn a losing edge into a winning one. Test your indicator manually first.
Q. I do not know my indicator’s buffer numbers. Now what?
That is exactly what the Buffer Scanner solves. Leave it enabled, attach the utility, and read the map it prints to the Experts tab. Sparse buffers with many blanks are your arrows.
Q. My indicator does not draw arrows — it changes colour. Will this work?
Yes. That is precisely the case most converters cannot handle. Use Colour index change, or simply leave the mode on Auto Detect.
Q. Can it read an indicator that has no buffers and draws with chart objects?
No. If the signal exists only as an arrow object or a text label rather than a buffer value, there is nothing to read. This is a hard limitation of every buffer-based tool.
Q. Can I change my indicator’s settings?
Yes, through the Indicator inputs field. Type the values comma separated in the same order the indicator declares them. Leave it blank to use the indicator’s own defaults.
Q. Does it work on gold, indices and crypto?
Yes, on any symbol your broker offers. Use ATR mode for stops so that one setting adapts across instruments, and add USD to Extra currencies if you want the news filter active on an index or a metal.
Q. My broker adds a suffix to every symbol. Is that a problem?
No. The resolver reads your broker’s actual symbol list and matches on the base name, so EURUSDm, EURUSD.a and EURUSD_i are all found automatically. It also knows the GOLD and XAUUSD aliases.
Q. Can I run it on several charts at once?
Yes. Give each chart a different Magic Number so the utilities never touch each other’s positions. Every count, limit and statistic is filtered by magic number and symbol.
Q. Can I read the signal on one pair and trade a different one?
Yes. Set Trade on this symbol to the instrument you want to execute on and leave the signal symbol as the chart.
Q. Does it work with a netting account?
Yes, both hedging and netting accounts are supported. On a netting account, note that opposite positions merge rather than coexist, so the position count behaves differently by design.
Q. Why do I need two indicators?
You do not — the second slot is optional and off by default. Its best use is a higher timeframe trend filter: keep your entry indicator on M15 and set the second one to H4 in #2 is trend filter only mode. Bars are matched by time, so the alignment is exact.
Q. What is the difference between the account drawdown and the daily drawdown?
Account drawdown measures the gap between balance and equity. Daily drawdown measures how much you have given back from today’s best point. You can be up on the day and still be in daily drawdown — which is exactly what most funded account rules measure.
Q. Do the daily limits reset by themselves?
Yes, at server midnight. The day’s start equity and peak are stored on disk, so restarting the terminal or switching timeframes does not reset them.
Q. Which news source should I choose?
Start with the MT5 economic calendar — it needs no setup, no internet permission and works in the Strategy Tester. Move to Forex Factory only if you specifically prefer its impact ratings, and remember to whitelist the address.
Q. The news filter is not blocking anything.
Three things to check. Is the master switch on? For Forex Factory, is the address added to the allowed URL list? And is the event currency actually relevant to your symbol — indices and metals often need USD in Extra currencies.
Q. Why would I use pre-news protection instead of just closing everything?
Because closing everything means giving up open profit on trades that were working. Break-even mode secures a winning position and lets it continue. It is the middle path.
Q. What does “accept signals up to N bars old” actually do for me?
It recovers signals you would otherwise lose. If the spread was wide at the signal bar, or the position limit was full, or your terminal restarted, a normal converter loses that signal permanently. Set this to 2 and it will still be taken.
Q. Can I backtest it?
Yes, in the Strategy Tester on local agents. Remote and cloud agents cannot load an indicator that is chosen at run time by name, so they will produce no trades.
Q. Will it repaint?
The utility itself never repaints. Your indicator might. Keep Read bar at 1 so entries come from closed bars, and rely on the built-in re-check: the buffer is read again at execution and the trade is cancelled if the signal has vanished.
Q. Does the panel slow my terminal down?
No. All panel work runs on a one second timer, never on every tick, and it only redraws when a displayed value actually changes. Hidden, it does nothing at all.
Q. How do I find out why a signal did not become a trade?
Open the CSV log. Skipped signals are recorded together with the reason — spread, price drift, position limit, news window, or a risk guard.
Q. Can I invert my indicator’s signals?
Yes, one switch: Reverse BUY <-> SELL. Worth trying on any indicator that is consistently and reliably wrong.
Honest limitations
Every one of these is a design boundary, not a bug. Knowing them up front will save you time.
- It does not generate signals. You must supply the indicator.
- The indicator must publish its signals through buffers. Chart objects cannot be read.
- Backtesting requires local agents, because the indicator is selected by name at run time.
- A repainting indicator remains a repainting indicator. The utility can refuse a vanished signal, but it cannot make an unstable indicator stable.
- Results depend entirely on the indicator connected. No past or future performance is implied or promised.
- Multi-symbol basket scanning from a single chart is not included. Run one chart per symbol.
In closing
Most traders do not lose because their indicator is bad. They lose because they were not at the screen, or they hesitated, or they took the trade three candles late, or they moved the stop “just this once”.
Signal Bridge Pro takes the indicator you already trust and executes it exactly the same way every single time — at the right bar, with the right size, behind the right filters, inside the limits you set. Then it writes down what it did and why.
| Getting started, in order: install your indicator → attach the utility → read the buffer map → enter the two buffer numbers → run on demo for a week → enable one feature at a time. |
Questions about connecting a specific indicator? Send a message with the indicator name and a screenshot of the buffer map, and you will get the correct buffers and settings back.
SIGNAL BRIDGE PRO | Crystal AI Systems | Where signals become trades
