Confluence Sniper User Guide: Signal Grades, Gold Arrows, the Ledger, the Panel and Every Setting (Free and Pro)
What Confluence Sniper is
Confluence Sniper is an indicator that marks a closed bar with an arrow and a grade. It does so when a price-action trigger appears inside an allowed session, at a normal level of volatility, and at least one of three separate readings points the same way: the trend, a demand or supply zone, and the strength of the two currencies. Signals that fire while the indicator is running are written to a small CSV file on your computer, the ledger, and the arrows you see for them are drawn back from that file rather than recalculated. It does not trade, and a grade counts agreements; it is not a win rate or a probability.
The free edition, Confluence Sniper, has the full signal logic, the ledger and the panel with all its hover cards. Confluence Sniper Pro adds notifications, a higher-timeframe context row and, since 1.20, a multi-symbol scanner. Everything below applies to both editions unless marked Pro only. The scanner is in Pro only; the free edition does not have it.
Quick start
- Open the chart and timeframe you want to watch and drag the indicator onto it from the Navigator. It works on the chart's own symbol and timeframe.
- In the inputs, pick Language / 言語. Then check the session hours in the group Engine: Session and volatility gate. They are the broker's server hours, and the defaults (London 10 to 18, New York 15 to 23, Tokyo off) were set for one broker's server clock. Adjust them to your broker before relying on the gate.
- Click OK. The panel opens in the top-right corner. The first time it runs in a terminal, a short card explaining how to read it appears for nine seconds. Once the first calculation has finished, the five chips show a state and the bottom band reads LEDGER with a count.
- Move the panel by dragging its header, change its size with the 100% button, and fold it with the triangle at the right end of the header or by double-clicking the header.
If something looks wrong, see Frequently asked questions further down; the questions are written as symptoms.
A short introduction video to Confluence Sniper. It was recorded earlier, so the panel may differ slightly from the current version.
If the player does not show here, the video is on YouTube: https://youtu.be/Sz4eViIK7eU
How a signal is decided
| Chip | Role | What it checks |
|---|---|---|
| SES | Condition (must hold) | Session hour and ATR percentile |
| TRG | Condition (must hold); sets the direction | Momentum close or engulfing bar |
| TRD | Vote | Trend from up to five conditions, while ADX is high enough |
| ZON | Vote | Dip into a demand zone or rise into a supply zone |
| STR | Vote | Strength gap between the two currencies |
Only closed bars are evaluated. For each one the indicator asks five questions, which play two different roles.
Two of them are conditions that must both hold. SES, the session and volatility gate, requires the hour at which the bar opened (server time) to fall inside one of the switched-on windows, and the bar's ATR to rank between the 25th and the 95th percentile of the previous 200 bars. TRG, the price-action trigger, requires a momentum close (a bullish bar closing above the previous bar's high, or the mirror image for selling) or an engulfing bar (a bullish body covering the previous bearish body, or the mirror image). The trigger decides the direction of the signal.
The other three are votes, and only votes in the trigger's direction count. TRD reads the trend. By default four conditions vote up or down: the fast EMA against the slow EMA, the slope of the fast EMA, +DI against -DI, and the MACD main line against its signal line. TRD takes the direction of the net vote, but only while the ADX is at 18 or above. ZON asks whether the bar dipped into a demand zone and closed back above its lower edge, or rose into a supply zone and closed back below its upper edge. The zones are built from earlier bars with order-block rules and are not drawn on the chart. STR compares the average percentage change of the chart's base currency and quote currency against the other major currencies over 24 bars, and votes when the gap is at least 0.15%. STR works only on currency pairs and on gold named XAU or GOLD, and only when the broker offers enough of the related pairs.
If the gate is open, the trigger has a direction and at least one vote agrees, the bar gets a grade. A means all three votes agree. B means two agree and one of them is ZON. C is everything else, that is one vote, or two without ZON. By default only B and A are shown; Min grade to show changes that, and anything below it is neither drawn, recorded nor notified. The score on a signal card is the average strength of the engines that agreed, from 0 to 100. It is not a probability.
Because the gate compares the hour at which a bar opens, bars that open at midnight never pass with the default windows. D1, W1 and MN1 bars all open at 00:00, so with the default settings no signal appears on those timeframes. The input D1/W1/MN1: ignore session windows (ATR gate stays), off by default and added in 1.21, changes that: when it is true, the hour windows are not applied on D1 and higher, and the volatility part of the gate still is. It has no effect on lower timeframes, and it does not change how a signal is graded. On H4 only the bars opening at 12, 16 and 20 server time can pass.
Gold arrows, thin arrows and the ledger
A thick gold arrow is a signal that fired while the indicator was running and was written to the ledger, or one that was drawn back from the ledger later. A thin blue arrow (buy) or red arrow (sell) is a projection: when the indicator loads, it evaluates the last 1500 bars (Projection depth on attach) with the same rules and marks what the model would have shown.
The panel's help card calls these hollow; on the chart they have the same shape as the gold arrows and differ in colour and thickness. Projections are an estimate. The zones and the other currency pairs are rebuilt from the bars available at loading time, so a projection can differ from what a running indicator would have seen on that bar.
Since 1.22 the other currency pairs that STR uses are matched to the chart's bars by bar time. Before, they were matched by bar position, and on a symbol whose bars do not line up with the currency pairs, such as gold, a projection could read a later bar of a pair. A few thin arrows on gold therefore disappear after the update, and the same fix applies to the look-back rows of the scanner (Pro). Gold arrows and the ledger are unchanged.
A signal becomes a gold arrow when two things are true: its bar closed after this instance's first full calculation had finished, and the bar is the newest closed bar at the moment it is evaluated. In practice the row is written on the first tick of the next bar, because the bar cannot be evaluated as closed before that tick arrives.
Where the file is. Each row goes to MQL5\Files\ConfluenceSniper\ in the terminal's data folder (File, Open Data Folder), in a file named after the symbol and timeframe, for example EURUSD#_PERIOD_M15.csv.
What a row holds, separated by semicolons: the format mark 3, the bar time, the symbol, the timeframe, the direction (1 buy, -1 sell), the bar's close, the grade (1 to 3), the score, the zone edge (0 if none) and which votes agreed (1 TRD, 2 ZON, 4 STR, added together). Rows written by version 1.12 or later end with three more fields: the time the row was written (server time), FREE or PRO, and the version. The gap between the bar's close time and that written time is how long the first tick of the next bar took to arrive.
How the file is used. Rows are only ever added. Before each row is added, the file is read again: if it already holds a row for the same bar, symbol and timeframe, for example one written by the same indicator on a second chart or by the other edition, no second row is written and the chart still shows the gold arrow. Whenever the indicator runs its full calculation, for example when it is loaded or when the terminal reloads history, it reads the file again and places a gold arrow on every row's bar. The file is plain text: you can open it and compare it with the chart. Anything written into it by hand would be replayed as well.
When a gold arrow's zone agreed and the zone edge lies on the favourable side of the close, a dotted gold line is drawn at that edge for twelve bars. It is drawn only at the moment of the signal, not when the ledger is replayed, so it disappears when the indicator is reloaded; the price stays in the ledger row.
SL/TP guide lines (since 1.22)
Each gold arrow gets two short dotted lines drawn from the close of its signal bar. For a buy, the SL guide is 1.5 ATR below the close and the TP guide is 2.25 ATR above it; for a sell it is the other way round. Both lines run twelve bars to the right and end in a small label with the price, for example SL guide 1.08123 in a soft red and TP guide 1.08642 in a soft green. The ATR is the value of the signal bar, with the period of ATR period (displacement gauge) (the zone engine's ATR), taken once the bar has closed, so a line does not move afterwards.
They are drawn only for gold arrows, that is for signals recorded in the ledger, and not for thin projected arrows. When the indicator loads, lines are drawn for the 30 newest recorded signals on the chart; a new signal gets its lines when it is recorded. Point at a line to see its price.
The lines are a size reference: how far 1.5 and 2.25 ATR are from the close of that bar. They are drawing only. The signal logic does not read them, they do not change a grade, the ledger or a notification, they place or change no order, and they do not show whether a trade would have reached either level. Three inputs control them, the same in both editions, in the group SL/TP guide lines (loss-size reference): Show SL/TP guide lines on recorded signals (true), SL guide distance (x ATR, 0.1-50) (1.5) and TP guide distance (x ATR, 0.1-50) (2.25). A distance outside 0.1 to 50 is replaced by its default, and the Experts log says so. A change takes effect when the indicator is reloaded, which pressing OK does.
Four things about the ledger are worth knowing. They hold from version 1.12 and are unchanged in 1.22.
- Only bars that closed while it was running are recorded. A bar that closed while the terminal was off, before the indicator's first full calculation had finished, or that arrived later with a history download, is only projected: it gets a thin arrow at most, no row and, in Pro, no notification, even if the same rules would have fired on it. Restarting the terminal or re-attaching the indicator does not write a second row for a bar that is already on record.
- One file, one row per bar. The ledger file is shared by every chart with the same symbol and timeframe and by both editions, and each bar gets one row. Both editions replay every row in the file, whatever its grade, so a chart set to B and above also shows the C rows that an instance set to C recorded. If two instances with different settings disagree on the same bar, the row written first is the one kept.
- A dropped connection can still record one bar. If the connection drops while the indicator keeps running, the last closed bar that arrives when the connection returns can still be recorded, because it closed after the first calculation. The written-time field shows how late the row came.
- Rows from 1.11 stay as they are. Rows written by version 1.11 stay in the file, including any duplicate rows that version could produce, and are replayed and counted as before; 1.12 does not remove them. A 1.11 instance still running on the same symbol and timeframe can still add a second row, because that version does not read the file before writing.
Reading the panel
The picture shows the free edition at 150%, taken with version 1.11; later additions are described below, and 1.22 made the text on the panel and the cards larger. The gate is closed (SES in amber), so the three votes, which all point down, are dimmed and the state line reads GATED · session/vol (the 1.11 wording; see State line). TRG is green because the last closed bar had a bullish trigger; with the gate closed, and with no vote pointing the same way, there is no signal. The last signal on the chart, a blue arrow, is a projection graded A, which is why the Last: row starts with a grey ring and the ledger shows 0 on record.
Header
The header shows a crosshair mark, the name CONFLUENCE SNIPER, the size button (100%, 125%, 150% or 200%; each click moves to the next size), an outlined label FREE or PRO, which is not a button, and the fold triangle. Click the crosshair mark to open the About card. Point at the name to see the reading guide again. Drag the header to move the panel. The position is remembered per symbol, and the size and the folded state for the whole terminal, shared by both editions.
Engine chips
The five chips TRD, ZON, STR, SES and TRG show the state of the last closed bar. Green means up or buy, red means down or sell, and a dark chip with a small dot means the engine is watching but has no direction on this bar. SES is green while the gate is open and amber while it blocks. While the gate blocks, the direction chips are dimmed. A chip drawn as an outline only is switched off in the inputs, or, for STR, cannot work on this symbol. Point at a chip to see the numbers behind it, for example the four trend votes, the net vote and the ADX for TRD, or the window, the bar's hour and the ATR percentile for SES. The hover cards describe the last closed bar, except that the zone card measures the distance to the nearest zone edges from the current price.
State line
The large line below the chips answers what is happening now. Right after a signal has been recorded, and until the next bar closes, it reads BUY SIGNAL · B or SELL SIGNAL · A. While the gate blocks, it reads GATED · session when the bar opened outside every window, or GATED · volatility when it opened inside a window and its ATR percentile was outside the band; the SES card shows the numbers. Otherwise, when two or more of TRD, ZON and STR point the same way, it reads BUY BIAS · 2/3 or SELL BIAS · 2/3, the second number being how many of the three are in use. This is a reading of the votes only, not a signal. In every other case it reads STANDBY. The small picture on the left is a triangle for a signal or a bias, two amber bars for a closed gate and a grey ring for standby; when the gate is closed but two votes agree, the picture shows the triangle while the text says GATED, as in the screenshot above. Before the first calculation has finished, for example while history is still loading at the weekend, the state line reads LOADING · history, the five chips are idle and the Last row reads Waiting for chart history...; the band reads LEDGER · 0 on record even if the ledger has rows.
Last signal
The row Last: BUY or Last: SELL, with the grade in a small frame and the time of the bar, shows the newest arrow on the chart, gold or projected. A gold crosshair in front of it means the signal is in the ledger; a grey ring means it is a projection. Point at the row, or at any arrow on the chart, for its card: direction and grade, Recorded in the ledger when the bar closed or Projection (model estimate), which votes agreed, the score, the bar's close and its time. With no arrow in the calculated range, the row reads No signals in view yet. On a D1, W1 or MN1 chart with no arrow in view, where the hour windows blocked the last closed bar, the row reads D1+ blocked · input: ignore session › instead; pointing at it opens the SES card, which says that these bars open at 00:00, outside the windows, and names the input that turns the windows off. Since 1.21 the card of a signal also says what the grade and the score mean: the score is not a win rate and, since 1.22, the grade counts the agreeing engines and is not a performance ranking. On a gold arrow the card also gives the SL guide and TP guide prices, a line saying they are a size reference fixed at the bar's close, and a last line, Shown from the ledger file.
Higher-timeframe row (Pro only)
Pro adds a row that starts with MTF and shows the direction of the next two higher timeframes, for example M5 ▲ and M15 ▼ on an M1 chart, with — when there is no direction. Since 1.22, while any of the timeframes is still loading, the row shows only MTF loading; once all are ready the timeframes follow one another and · ref only comes right after the last. The direction uses trend conditions 1 to 4 as they are switched on in the inputs (never the fifth) and the ADX minimum, on the last closed bar of that timeframe. The row carries ref only: it never changes a grade, and its card says so.
Ledger band
The bottom band reads, for example, LEDGER · 3 on record, with a gold diamond once there is at least one record. The number counts the ledger rows that could be placed on the bars currently loaded, so it can be lower than the number of rows in the file. Point at the band or click it to see the last five rows straight from the file, how many more there are, and the file's location.
Since 1.22 the ledger card also summarises the recorded signals themselves. Once the file has rows, a block follows the rows, in neutral colours with no good or bad tint. It describes past recorded signals only.
- Past recorded signals only · n: 18. n counts the recorded signals (gold arrows) whose bar is on the chart and whose next 24 bars have all closed. Thin projected arrows are not in the file and are not counted. With fewer than 5 the line reads too few to average and no averages are shown.
- Avg favorable (MFE) and Avg adverse (MAE), in ATR. For each signal, the favorable move is the distance from the signal bar's close to the best price reached in its direction within the next 24 bars (the highest high for a buy, the lowest low for a sell), and the adverse move is the distance to the worst price against it. Both are divided by the ATR of the signal bar, the same ATR as the guide lines, and averaged over the signals. They describe what price did after past signals; they include no stops, targets, spread or costs.
- same-hour bars. Beside each average is the same measurement taken on every bar that opened at the same server hour as the signal bars, in the signal's direction, over the last Projection depth on attach (bars) bars (at least 50; the signal bars are among them), averaged over the signals. It is the figure to compare with: what price did after any bar at that hour. If any signal's hour has fewer than 30 such bars, all three same-hour figures read n/a.
- The last lines give the window, for example Next 24 bars from each signal close · same-hour bars: 628, and Not a forecast · a higher number alone is not better.
The figures are recalculated when the card is opened, at most once per new bar or new ledger row. They do not feed the grade, the ledger or any notification. With a small n they change a lot from one signal to the next.
Folded panel, About card and rating card
Folded, the panel keeps only its header. Signals, recording and, in Pro, notifications continue. The About card shows the version, the licence type and where to get support (the Comments tab of the product page), with a button to rate the product. After at least a week and some real use a card may ask for a rating; it appears at most three times in the free edition and twice in Pro, weeks apart, and never in the Strategy Tester. Don't ask again, or One-time honest rating reminder set to false, stops it.
Notifications (Pro only)
The free edition sends no notifications. Pro sends one when a signal becomes a gold arrow, at the same moment the row is written, whether or not the panel is folded. The text is in English whatever the panel language, for example Confluence Sniper EURUSD# PERIOD_M15 BUY grade B, followed by | entry zone and a price when a zone edge was recorded. Popup alert on live signal (on by default) shows it in the terminal's Alert window, Push notification sends it to the MetaTrader app on your phone (the MetaQuotes ID must be set in the terminal options), and Email sends it with the subject Confluence Sniper (the email settings must be filled in). Since 1.21 Pro can also play a sound: Play a sound on live signals (once per batch) is off by default, and when it is true the file named in Sound file (terminal Sounds folder) (alert.wav by default) is played once for each batch of alerts that go out together, from the chart or from the scanner, whether or not the popup is on; if the file cannot be played, the Experts log says so. Push and email are kept inside the MQL5 sending limit, which each Pro chart counts for itself: at least one second apart and fewer than nine a minute on each route. Messages that are waiting at the same moment go out together, as one push (the texts joined and shortened to 255 characters, with a note such as +2 more) or as one email with the subject Confluence Sniper: 3 signals; a single message goes out alone, as before. A message the limit holds back is sent as soon as it allows, and a send that fails is not repeated; the Experts log has one [CSNP SEND] line for each send. Pro does not check whether a push or an email was accepted. Notifications follow the recording rules above: a bar that closed while the terminal was off or before the first calculation had finished is not notified. They are sent even when Record live signals to ledger is off. Two Pro charts of the same symbol and timeframe give one ledger row, and since 1.21 they also give one notification for the same bar, as long as the ledger is on (it is by default): the chart that writes the row notifies, with its own switches, and the other chart finds the row, skips its own notification and writes a line starting [CSNP] to the Experts log. A row written by the free edition does not count, so a Pro chart next to a free chart still notifies; with the ledger off, each Pro chart notifies for itself. The scanner has its own alerts, described next.
The scanner (Pro only)
Since version 1.20, Pro adds a second panel that scans many symbols on one timeframe. Every symbol goes through the same five engines and the same grade rule as the chart, and the fires of grade B and A are listed, newest first. It scans Market Watch or a list you type (Symbols to scan), on the chart's own timeframe or one you fix (Scan timeframe), for up to 150 symbols, 50 by default (Max symbols (0 = 50, up to 150)). When Min grade to show is 3, only A is listed. The panel opens under the main panel, or above it when there is no room, and is dragged by its header; its position is remembered for the chart's symbol. It is on by default, and Scanner panel (multi-symbol) set to false switches it off. Every scanner setting is in the group PRO: scanner in the table below.
Reading the scanner panel
The header reads CONFLUENCE SCAN and the scan timeframe, for example M15, followed by two numbers joined by an arrow: the symbols scanned and the fires that are still fresh. With no fresh fire it reads only, for example, 48 scanned. When the list has more than one page, a counter such as 1/3 appears; click it for the next page. The percent button steps the panel through 100, 125, 150 and 200 percent. The small triangle at the right folds the panel to its header, and so does a double-click on the header. The thin strip under the header has one segment per symbol: green when the symbol's data is ready, grey while it loads, dark when there is no data. Hover over the header for a card with the counts, the limit, how many typed names the server does not have, and the terminal's current Max bars in chart.
Each row is one fire: a triangle for the direction (up for a buy, down for a sell), the symbol, a box with the grade (A has a gold frame), a gold diamond when a Confluence Sniper chart has written that bar to the ledger, a short line that shrinks as the fire gets older, and its age in a short form such as 15m, 14h or 3d. A filled triangle is a fire the scanner watched as the bar closed (a live fire); only these are alerted. An outlined triangle is a fire found when the scanner started, or late, by looking back at recent bars; it is shown but never alerted. A fire older than the number of bars set in Fires from the last N closed bars are shown as fresh is dimmed. Hover over a row for a card with the bar time, which of TRD, ZON and STR voted, the trigger, the close and the entry zone, and whether the fire is live or a look-back. Click the row to open the chart of that symbol.
Alerts from the scanner
A live fire goes out through the Popup, Push and Email switches of the group PRO: alerts, as long as Alert on live scanner fires (uses the alert switches above) is true. The text starts Confluence Sniper scan, for example Confluence Sniper scan EURUSD PERIOD_M15 BUY grade B, followed by | entry zone and a price when a zone edge was found. Several fires in the same step go out as one push or one email, within the sending limit described under notifications; the Alert window shows up to four of them as separate lines and one more line with the number of the rest. A symbol that already has a Confluence Sniper Pro chart on the scan timeframe is left to that chart: the scanner lists its fires but does not alert them, and that chart alerts them with its own Popup, Push and Email switches and its own Min grade to show. A chart with the free Confluence Sniper does not count, because the free version has no alerts, so the scanner alerts that symbol itself. If the same instrument is in Market Watch under two names, for example USDJPY and USDJPY#, both are scanned and both are alerted; keep only one of the two names in Market Watch, or use the manual list, if you want one alert. If a Confluence Sniper chart has recorded that bar in its ledger, the row carries the diamond; the scanner only reads the ledger and never writes to it.
Things to know about the scanner
One scanner runs per terminal. If Pro sits on several charts, one of them scans and the others show Scanner runs on the ... chart · paused here; when that chart is closed, another takes over. The strength engine adds the currency pairs it needs to Market Watch, so a Market Watch scan can include pairs you did not pick yourself; use the manual list when you want a fixed set. The scanner's memory follows the terminal's Max bars in chart setting under Tools, Options, Charts: on our test machine, one PC and one broker's demo account, 50 symbols took about 0.7 GB at the default 100,000 bars and about 0.17 GB at 5,000, and the figure varies with the symbols and their history. In the strategy tester the scanner runs only in visual mode.
Free and Pro
Both editions have the same engines and gate, the same grades, the same ledger file, the same projections, the same SL/TP guide lines and ledger card figures, and the same panel and hover cards; the same rules decide every signal. Pro adds the notifications, the higher-timeframe row, since 1.20 the scanner and, since 1.21, an alert sound, and its main panel is one row taller. The higher-timeframe row has no setting of its own; it follows the trend inputs.
The two editions share more than the ledger: they use the same saved position, size and folded state, and the same first-run help flag. Since 1.22 the chart objects have different names: the free edition draws with the prefix csn_ and Pro with csnp_ (before, both used csn_), and a Pro chart saved with csn_ is read as csnp_. Running both on the same chart therefore puts two panels at the same place, and the panel says so on its card; removing one edition no longer removes the other's panel, scanner and dotted lines. Chart object prefix changes the object names only; the saved position stays shared. Two charts of the same symbol also share the panel position, so moving the panel on one moves it on the other within a couple of seconds. The rating card is kept separately for each edition. Since 1.21, when the other edition is on the chart, the panel adds one grey row, Another edition is on this chart, and pointing at it opens a card that says that both use one ledger file and record each bar once, that alerts come from Pro only, and that one edition per chart is enough.
Frequently asked questions
No arrows appear at all.
Check, in order: the chart has at least 50 bars; the timeframe is below D1, or you have changed the session windows, or switched on D1/W1/MN1: ignore session windows (ATR gate stays); the session hours match your broker's server time; and Min grade to show is not set higher than you meant. Then point at the SES chip: its card shows whether the last closed bar opened inside a window and what its ATR percentile was, so a few checks through the day tell you whether the gate is the reason. On quiet charts B and A signals are simply rare. On D1 and higher, the Last row says D1+ blocked · input: ignore session › when the windows are the reason.
The chart has few bars and never showed a signal.
Up to 1.20, a chart with a short history, such as a D1 chart, a recently listed symbol, or a large Projection depth on attach (bars), could stay silent: the first calculation asked for more bars than the chart had and never finished. Since 1.21 the request is limited to the bars that exist, so the first calculation runs and the chart can show signals; the chart still needs at least 50 bars. This repairs the calculation and does not change the rules, but a chart that used to be silent may now show arrows and, in Pro, notify for bars that close after the update. On D1 and higher the session windows still apply unless the input above is on.
I have two Pro charts on the same symbol and timeframe, and only one notified.
Since 1.21 the chart that writes the ledger row for a bar is the one that notifies, using its own Popup, Push, Email and sound switches. The other chart skips the notification and writes a line starting [CSNP] to the Experts log. This needs Record live signals to ledger to be on, as it is by default.
The STR chip is only an outline.
The chart's symbol is not a currency pair or gold, or the broker does not offer at least four of the related pairs under names the indicator can find. The other engines keep working, but grade A is not possible on that chart.
The panel shows LEDGER · 0 on record, but the file has rows.
The count includes only rows whose bars are loaded on the chart, and it reads 0 until the first calculation has finished. Rows older than the loaded history are kept in the file but not drawn.
A gold arrow appeared for a bar that closed while my terminal was off, or the same bar is in the file twice.
From version 1.12 on, the indicator records only bars that closed while it was running and writes one row per bar, also when two charts or both editions share the file. Open the file and look at the rows in question: a row with ten fields was written by a version before 1.12, and 1.11 could do both after a restart or with two instances; a row with thirteen fields was written by 1.12 or later (the last field holds the version, 1.21 for new rows), and its written-time field tells you when. Rows from 1.11 are kept and replayed as they are. See the section on the ledger above.
Why do the thin arrows change after I reload the indicator?
They are projections, recomputed from the bars available at that moment. Gold arrows come from the ledger file and do not change.
Where did the two DEV inputs go?
Version 1.11 had two development test inputs, DEV: fire dummy signals and DEV: dummy signal spacing. In 1.12 they are no longer inputs and the test switch cannot be turned on, so the indicator never produces dummy signals.
I do not see SL/TP guide lines.
Check that Show SL/TP guide lines on recorded signals is true. The lines belong to gold arrows only; on loading they are drawn for the 30 newest. A row without a close, or a bar with no ATR value yet, gets none.
The ledger card says "too few to average" or "n/a".
Fewer than 5 recorded signals can be measured, or at least one signal's hour has fewer than 30 bars to compare with, in which case every same-hour figure reads n/a. A signal counts only after its next 24 bars have closed.
The panel does not change in the strategy tester.
In the visual mode of the strategy tester, the panel is redrawn once for every new bar since 1.22. On a live chart it refreshes about every two seconds. The tester without visual mode has no screen, so there is nothing to see there.
Does the free edition send alerts?
No. Notifications are part of Pro only.
The scanner panel says "Scanner runs on the ... chart · paused here".
One scanner runs per terminal. When Pro is attached to several charts, the first holds the scan and the others show where it runs. Close that chart, or set Scanner panel (multi-symbol) to false on it, and another Pro chart takes over within about ten seconds.
The scanner shows a fire but sent no alert.
Check four things: Alert on live scanner fires (uses the alert switches above), the Popup, Push and Email switches, whether the row has a filled triangle (an outlined one is a look-back and is never alerted), and whether that symbol already has a Confluence Sniper Pro chart on the scan timeframe, because that chart alerts it with its own Popup, Push and Email switches and its own Min grade to show: if those switches are off on that chart, or its Min grade to show is higher than the fire's grade, nothing is sent for that symbol. Push and email also wait for the sending limit; the Experts log shows each send.
The scanner lists the same instrument twice, for example USDJPY and USDJPY#.
Both names are in Market Watch, so both are scanned and both alert. Keep one of the two in Market Watch, or switch Symbols to scan to the manual list.
All settings
The table is generated from the source of version 1.22 of both editions, so it lists every input as the terminal shows it. The group SL/TP guide lines (loss-size reference) holds the three inputs added in 1.22. The last column says which edition has it. The three session start hours are declared on the same line as their end hours and have no description of their own in the source, so they may appear in the input window under their variable names, InpTokyoOpen, InpLondonOpen and InpNYOpen.
General
Language, where the panel first appears, and its first size. Once you drag the panel or click the size button, the saved position and size are used instead of these inputs. The position is saved per symbol, the size and the collapsed state for the whole terminal, and both editions share them.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Language / 言語 | LANG_EN | Language of the panel and its cards. The Pro notification text is always in English. Choices: LANG_EN, LANG_JP | Free and Pro |
| Panel corner (until dragged) | C_TR | Chart corner where the panel first appears. Used only until the panel has a saved position for this symbol. Choices: C_TL, C_TR, C_BR, C_BL | Free and Pro |
| Corner margin (px) | 14 | Distance in pixels between the panel and the chart corner. Used only together with Panel corner. | Free and Pro |
| Initial panel size (% chip on panel overrides) | CS_S100 | First size of the panel: 100, 125, 150 or 200 percent. After you click the % button on the panel, the saved size is used instead. Choices: CS_S100, CS_S125, CS_S150, CS_S200 | Free and Pro |
| Reset saved panel position/size/fold | false | When true, the saved position, size and collapsed state are deleted each time the indicator loads. The position returns to Panel corner at once; the size and the collapsed state return on the next load. Set it back to false afterwards, or the position is reset on every load. | Free and Pro |
Engines
Which of the three voting engines and the session gate are used, and the lowest grade that is shown. Switching off TRD, ZON or STR makes grade A impossible, and switching off ZON also makes grade B impossible. The price-action trigger (TRG) has no switch.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| TRD: trend consensus | true | Use the trend engine (TRD) as a vote. | Free and Pro |
| ZON: OB / FVG context | true | Use the zone engine (ZON) as a vote. It works with order-block zones only; there is no FVG detection despite the name. Grade B requires this engine. | Free and Pro |
| STR: currency strength gap | true | Use the currency-strength engine (STR) as a vote. On symbols it cannot read, such as indices or crypto, it stays off whatever this says. | Free and Pro |
| SES: session + volatility gate | true | Use the session and volatility gate (SES). When false, every bar passes the gate. SES master in the gate group does the same. | Free and Pro |
| Min grade to show (1=C 2=B 3=A) | 2 | Lowest grade that is drawn, recorded and, in Pro, notified: 1 = C, 2 = B, 3 = A. Signals below it are not shown at all. The value is not corrected: 0 behaves like 1 and 4 or more shows nothing. The scanner lists B and A fires, only A when this is 3, and nothing at 4 or more. | Free and Pro |
Engine: Trend consensus (Trend Dashboard consistent)
How the TRD engine reads the trend of each closed bar: up to five conditions vote up or down, and the vote counts only while the ADX is at or above its minimum.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Model 1: EMA cross (fast vs slow) | true | Vote up when the fast EMA is above the slow EMA, down when below. | Free and Pro |
| Model 2: EMA slope (fast rising/falling) | true | Vote up when the fast EMA is higher than one bar earlier, down otherwise. | Free and Pro |
| Model 3: ADX +DI vs -DI | true | Vote up when +DI is above -DI, down otherwise. | Free and Pro |
| Model 4: MACD (main vs signal) | true | Vote up when the MACD main line is above its signal line, down otherwise. | Free and Pro |
| Model 5: Price vs slow EMA | false | Vote up when the close is above the slow EMA, down otherwise. Off by default. The Pro higher-timeframe row never uses this condition. | Free and Pro |
| Min net model votes for a trend vote | 1 | How far the up votes must exceed the down votes (or the reverse) for TRD to have a direction. | Free and Pro |
| Fast EMA period | 20 | Period of the fast EMA. | Free and Pro |
| Slow EMA period | 50 | Period of the slow EMA. | Free and Pro |
| ADX/DI period | 14 | Period of the ADX and the DI lines. | Free and Pro |
| ADX below this = no-trade gate | 18.0 | Below this ADX value TRD casts no vote at all. Its strength score is the ADX, full at 50. | Free and Pro |
| MACD fast EMA | 12 | Fast EMA period of the MACD. | Free and Pro |
| MACD slow EMA | 26 | Slow EMA period of the MACD. | Free and Pro |
| MACD signal | 9 | Signal period of the MACD. | Free and Pro |
Engine: Zones (Order Block Zones consistent)
How the ZON engine builds its zones from earlier bars. The zones themselves are not drawn on the chart. There is no fair value gap detection, although the switch in Engines mentions FVG.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Break must occur within N bars of the OB candle | 3 | A bar makes a demand zone from a bearish candle when its close is the first close above that candle's high within this many bars (a supply zone is the mirror image). | Free and Pro |
| Min displacement (x ATR) to qualify | 1.0 | The breaking close must be at least this many ATRs away from the far side of the candle, or no zone is made. | Free and Pro |
| ATR period (displacement gauge) | 14 | Period of the ATR used for the zone distance above and for the volatility gate. | Free and Pro |
| Also vote on mitigated-zone retests | false | When true, zones that price has already touched can also vote, with a lower score (55 instead of 85). | Free and Pro |
Engine: Strength gap (Currency Strength Duel consistent)
How the STR engine compares the strength of the two currencies of the chart symbol. It works only on currency pairs and on gold quoted as XAU or GOLD.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price-change lookback (bars, CSD default) | 24 | Number of bars over which each pair's percentage change is measured. | Free and Pro |
| Min base-quote strength gap (%) for a vote | 0.15 | Minimum difference, in percent, between the base and the quote currency strength for STR to vote. | Free and Pro |
Engine: Session and volatility gate (server hours, Gold Pulse defaults)
The time windows and the volatility band a bar must pass before any signal is possible. The hours are the broker's server hours, compared with the hour at which each bar opens; there is no automatic daylight-saving adjustment. The three Open inputs are declared on the same line as their Close inputs, so the table shows them under their variable names.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| SES master (off = gate always passes) | true | Master switch of the gate. When false, every bar passes, the same as Engines > SES off. | Free and Pro |
| Trade Tokyo window | false | Allow signals in the Tokyo window. Off by default. | Free and Pro |
| Trade London window | true | Allow signals in the London window. | Free and Pro |
| Trade New York window | true | Allow signals in the New York window. | Free and Pro |
| InpTokyoOpen | 2 | Start hour of the Tokyo window, in server time. | Free and Pro |
| Tokyo open/close (server hour) | 11 | End hour of the Tokyo window, in server time. The end hour itself is outside the window. If the start is later than the end, the window runs past midnight. | Free and Pro |
| InpLondonOpen | 10 | Start hour of the London window, in server time. | Free and Pro |
| London open/close | 18 | End hour of the London window, in server time (not included). | Free and Pro |
| InpNYOpen | 15 | Start hour of the New York window, in server time. | Free and Pro |
| New York open/close | 23 | End hour of the New York window, in server time (not included). | Free and Pro |
| ATR percentile lookback (bars) | 200 | Number of earlier bars against which the current ATR is ranked. With fewer than 30 usable values the volatility check passes. | Free and Pro |
| Min ATR percentile (dead-market filter) | 25.0 | The bar is blocked when its ATR ranks below this percentile (a quiet market). | Free and Pro |
| Max ATR percentile (news-spike guard, calibrated) | 95.0 | The bar is blocked when its ATR ranks above this percentile (a spike, such as around news). | Free and Pro |
Ledger
The signal ledger (a CSV file per symbol and timeframe) and the projection arrows drawn on older bars.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Record live signals to ledger | true | Record live signals to the ledger file and replay the file as gold arrows. When false nothing is written or replayed, so gold arrows disappear when the indicator is reloaded; Pro still notifies. The ledger card on the panel still reads the file and shows its rows, even when this is false. | Free and Pro |
| Show model projection on history (hollow) | true | Draw the projection arrows (thin blue and red) on older bars. Switching this off hides only the projections; gold arrows are unaffected. | Free and Pro |
| Projection depth on attach (bars) | 1500 | How many past bars are evaluated when the indicator loads (at least 50). Also the depth from which the zone list is rebuilt. | Free and Pro |
PRO: alerts
Pro only. How a live signal is announced. The free edition sends no notifications.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Popup alert on live signal | true | Show a live signal in the terminal's Alert window. | Pro only |
| Push notification | false | Send a live signal to the MetaTrader app on your phone. The MetaQuotes ID must be set in the terminal options. | Pro only |
| false | Send a live signal by email with the subject Confluence Sniper. The email settings of the terminal must be filled in. | Pro only |
Rating reminder
The card that asks for a rating after some real use.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| One-time honest rating reminder | true | Allow the rating card. Despite the label it can appear up to three times in the free edition and twice in Pro, weeks apart. Set it to false to stop it. | Free and Pro |
Identity
The name prefix of the indicator's chart objects.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chart object prefix | Free: csn_ / Pro: csnp_ | Prefix of the panel and entry-zone objects. Free uses csn_; since 1.22 Pro uses csnp_ (csn_ typed in Pro is read as csnp_), so removing one edition keeps the other's objects. Under 3 characters falls back to the default and is logged. | Free and Pro |
PRO: scanner
Pro only. The multi-symbol scanner panel: which symbols it scans, on which timeframe, how many rows it shows, whether it alerts, and what a click on a row does.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scanner panel (multi-symbol) | true | Show the scanner panel and run the scan. false switches the scanner off completely. In the strategy tester it runs only in visual mode. One scanner runs per terminal (see the Scanner section). | Pro only |
| Symbols to scan | SCAN_MARKET_WATCH | Where the symbols come from: the terminal's Market Watch window (it can include pairs the strength engine added) or only the names typed in the next setting. Choices: SCAN_MARKET_WATCH, SCAN_MANUAL_LIST | Pro only |
| Symbols (used when source = Manual list) | (empty) | Manual list only. Comma-separated names such as EURUSD,GBPUSD,XAUUSD, spelled as your broker names them (suffixes included). Repeats count once; unknown names are skipped and logged. Listed symbols are added to Market Watch. | Pro only |
| Scan timeframe | PERIOD_CURRENT | The timeframe the scan runs on. Current (PERIOD_CURRENT, the default) is the timeframe of the chart the scanner sits on; any other choice fixes it. | Pro only |
| Max symbols (0 = 50, up to 150) | 0 | The most symbols scanned. 0 means 50, and anything above 150 counts as 150. Symbols beyond the limit are left out, and the status card says how many. | Pro only |
| Fires from the last N closed bars are shown as fresh | 24 | A fire counts as fresh for this many closed bars (24 by default, at least 1). The header counts the fresh fires and the fuse on each row burns down over this window. The list shows the fresh fires; when there are none it shows the older ones still kept (up to 30), dimmed. | Pro only |
| Rows shown per page (panel height follows the list) | 6 | Rows per page, 1 to 20 (6 by default; other values are brought into that range). The panel is as tall as its list. When there are more fires than rows, a page counter appears in the header; click it for the next page. | Pro only |
| Alert on live scanner fires (uses the alert switches above) | true | Alert on live scanner fires through the Popup, Push and Email switches of PRO: alerts. Only filled-triangle fires are alerted, never look-back fires nor a symbol with its own Pro chart on the scan timeframe. false: list only. | Pro only |
| Row click: open a new chart / switch this chart | CLICK_NEW_CHART | A row click opens the symbol on the scan timeframe in a new chart (default) or switches the scanner's own chart. A matching chart that is already open is brought to the front instead. Choices: CLICK_NEW_CHART, CLICK_SWITCH_HOST | Pro only |
| Template for the opened chart, e.g. "MyStyle" | (empty) | Name of a template applied to a chart the scanner opens in new-chart mode, for example MyStyle (.tpl is added when missing). Empty: no template is applied. Put Confluence Sniper in that template to see the same bar marked in the opened chart. | Pro only |
| Market Watch re-sync check (seconds) | 5 | How often, in seconds (5 by default, minimum 2), the scanner checks Market Watch for added or removed symbols and refreshes the ledger marks of its rows. | Pro only |
PRO: alert sound
Pro only. A sound for live signals, added in 1.21. It follows the same alerts as the PRO: alerts group, from the chart and from the scanner.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Play a sound on live signals (once per batch) | false | Play a sound when a live signal is announced. One sound is played for each batch of alerts that go out together, from the chart or from the scanner, whether or not the popup is on. | Pro only |
| Sound file (terminal Sounds folder) | alert.wav | Name of the sound file, looked for in the Sounds folder of the terminal. If the file cannot be played, the Experts log says so. | Pro only |
Session gate on daily and longer charts
Added in 1.21. D1, W1 and MN1 bars open at 00:00 server time, which is outside the default session windows, so with the defaults no signal appears on those timeframes. This one input changes that for D1 and higher only.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| D1/W1/MN1: ignore session windows (ATR gate stays) | false | When true, the session hour windows are not applied on D1, W1 and MN1 (nor to a scanner on D1 or higher); the ATR percentile check still applies. false: with the default windows no D1 or higher bar passes. No effect below D1. | Free and Pro |
SL/TP guide lines (loss-size reference)
Added in 1.22. Two dotted lines on each recorded signal, drawn from the close of the signal bar, with the same three inputs in both editions. Drawing only, and a size reference.
| Setting (as shown in MT5) | Default | What it does | Edition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Show SL/TP guide lines on recorded signals | true | Draw the SL and TP guide lines from the close of each signal bar recorded in the ledger (the 30 newest on loading, each new one when recorded). Drawing only: no order, no effect on grade, ledger or notification. false draws none. | Free and Pro |
| SL guide distance (x ATR, 0.1-50) | 1.5 | Distance of the SL guide line from the signal bar's close, in ATRs of that bar: below for a buy, above for a sell. Range 0.1 to 50; outside it, 1.5 is used and the Experts log says so. A size reference only. | Free and Pro |
| TP guide distance (x ATR, 0.1-50) | 2.25 | Distance of the TP guide line from the signal bar's close, in ATRs of that bar: above for a buy, below for a sell. Range 0.1 to 50; outside it, 2.25 is used and the Experts log says so. A size reference only. | Free and Pro |
What it does not do, and where it stops
It does not trade and does not promise results. The SL/TP guide lines are drawing only and place no order, and the figures on the ledger card describe past recorded signals only. A grade counts how many readings agreed on one bar; the score is their average strength; neither is a win rate or a probability. All the readings come from prices of the chart's symbol and, for STR, of related currency pairs.
Signals are recorded only for bars that close while the terminal is running, connected and receiving ticks, after the indicator's first full calculation has finished, and a row is written on the first tick after the bar closes. Projections are estimates from the bars available when the indicator loads. The session gate uses fixed server hours without daylight-saving adjustment, so its windows have to follow your broker's clock by hand, and on D1 and above, with the default windows, it blocks every bar unless D1/W1/MN1: ignore session windows (ATR gate stays) is on. STR works only on currency pairs and gold. The scanner lists the same signals for the symbols and the timeframe you chose; a row is a grade, not a forecast, and the scanner does not rank symbols by expected result. It can alert only a bar it watched as it closed, so a fire on a bar that closed while the terminal was off appears, if at all, as an outlined look-back row with no alert. The look-back rows are estimates from the history the terminal has loaded.
Apart from drawing, it adds the currency pairs it needs to Market Watch, writes the ledger files under MQL5\Files\ConfluenceSniper, saves the panel state in the terminal's global variables (names starting with CSN_), keeps the rating card's state in a small file in the terminals' shared Common\Files folder, and turns on mouse-move events for its chart. When it is removed, it deletes every chart object whose name starts with its prefix. Until its first full calculation has finished, for example when it is attached at the weekend and no ticks arrive, it may refresh the chart a few times (at most ten in a row) to prompt that calculation, and the indicators on that chart, this one included, are re-initialised each time. Pro's scanner also keeps its panel position, size and fold state, and the flag that says which chart holds the scan, in global variables whose names start with CSNP_sc_; it reads the ledger files without writing them; and it opens a chart, and applies a template if you set one, when you click a row. It uses no DLL and no web request.
What the Pro edition adds
Confluence Sniper Pro adds sixteen settings in three groups: the three live-alert channels (popup, push and email) that turn a fire into a notification, eleven for the scanner, and, since 1.21, two for an alert sound. It also adds two things that have no setting of their own: the higher-timeframe row, which follows the trend inputs, and the scanner panel itself. All of them are listed, exactly as they appear in the Inputs tab, in the table under All settings above, marked Pro only, in the groups PRO: alerts, PRO: scanner and PRO: alert sound.
Product pages: free edition, Pro.
Support
Post on the Comments tab of the product page (free edition, Pro). The symbol, the timeframe, what the panel and the cards showed and, for questions about recorded signals, the matching rows of the ledger file are enough to start.
This guide describes Confluence Sniper 1.22 and Confluence Sniper Pro 1.22.
