Multiple Instance of MetaTrader

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Can I run multiple instances of MetaTrader 4 on the same system? If so, how? I tried to but I couldn't.

Thanks,

Ed
 

Copy all MT to a new directory, Or only copy "terminal.exe" with new name in the same directory.

All OK.

 
DxdCn:

Or only copy "terminal.exe" with new name in the same directory.


You can get interesting effect of shared files interference ;-)
 
stringo:

You can get interesting effect of shared files interference ;-)

Stringo, what is the recommended way to run 2 or more instances of MT4 (for one broker)?


Useful case I can think of would be... one EA set to work across Multiple accounts within one broker


One other possibility is having some master MT4 account propogate the EA's trade across "slave" MT4 terminals. Does anyone have a good resource to share on this topic?

 
stringo:

You can get interesting effect of shared files interference ;-)

Re: https://www.mql5.com/en/forum/104033

Hi

DxdCn wrote: Or only copy "terminal.exe" with new name in the same directory.

Stringo wrote: You can get interesting effect of shared files interference ;-)

I’m TRYING to run multiple instances of MT4 as well. The above came up in my searches. I have 3 different instances ALL installed using the ‘Install Utility’ as opposed to just copying them to other directories.

I have two that I use with FxPro.Com: 1 for my Live account and the other for a demo account. The live one works fine and I can open the other instance, get logged onto the FxPro Demo account, get everything set up OK, but it will not trade with the 2 of them open at once. I have another instance installed for a demo account on ForEx.Com/UK which worked fine for a month or 2, but now for some unknown reason, every time I try to get it operating, I get a ‘Fatal Stop Error’ which of course is the end of that. I have uninstalled it, cleaned and defragmented the Registry, shut the computer completely down including draining the residual power with the power supply shut off. I then rebooted into windows safety mode, then rebooted into windows normally and reinstalled. Same outcome as initial problem: nada. I have tried this a couple of times included using 3 different registry cleaning utilities, which I have used for quite some time with no problems: they always make things better and not worst.

I’m using a full updated version of Vista Ultimate 32 bit. I need to get this working, but don’t want to have to shut off or reboot my computer as I am 1 week into a 6 week EA Optimization run.

A couple of weeks ago I found an article on https://www.mql5.com/en/articles/mt4/ about another topic, but it talks about having multiple instances installed for different purposes but can’t find it again )< 8(

Thanks for any assistance that you or anyone may be able to help me with this problem.

Doug

 

I've no problems at all running multiple instances of the platform by simply cloning the entire MT folder to differently named folders, and have used this approach to set up many live trading instances across multiple physical sites, hosting companies etc.


CB

 
cloudbreaker:

I've no problems at all running multiple instances of the platform by simply cloning the entire MT folder to differently named folders, and have used this approach to set up many live trading instances across multiple physical sites, hosting companies etc.

HI CB,

I had the two MT4 clients working for two different brokers OK as well, then for some unknown reason, the one for the Demo Account with Forex.com/UK started crashing with a ‘fatal error’ every time when I started adding EAs etc. As I said, I have been able to open both my live account and a demo account with FxPro at the same time as well. But the demo won’t trade if open at the same time as the live account.

Did you just Copy your installation to different folders, or did you properly ‘Install’ each of them as I did?

Thanks,

Doug

 
DougRH4x:

HI CB,

I had the two MT4 clients working for two different brokers OK as well, then for some unknown reason, the one for the Demo Account with Forex.com/UK started crashing with a ‘fatal error’ every time when I started adding EAs etc. As I said, I have been able to open both my live account and a demo account with FxPro at the same time as well. But the demo won’t trade if open at the same time as the live account.

Did you just Copy your installation to different folders, or did you properly ‘Install’ each of them as I did?

Thanks,

Doug

As I mentioned above, I simply clone the installation folders.


CB

 
DougRH4x:
I had the two MT4 clients working for two different brokers OK as well, then for some unknown reason, the one for the Demo Account with Forex.com/UK started crashing with a ‘fatal error’ every time when I started adding EAs etc. As I said, I have been able to open both my live account and a demo account with FxPro at the same time as well. But the demo won’t trade if open at the same time as the live account.

My personal experience matches CB's. No problems running multiple live copies of MT4 (10+ copies) on a single machine. The only thing I'd explicitly add is the ease of replication and disaster recovery as a result of having all data within a single folder on disk (rather than having bits in the registry, or in Application Data etc).


Again in my personal experience, crashes such as the ones you're describing are either caused by badly written DLLs in commercial EAs or, more commonly, by an incompatibility between the MT4 build which an EA was compiled for and the build you're using. As a result of strange phenomena which I've encountered in the past, I compile using build 220 of metalang.exe while resetting the computer clock to a long way in the past. Not had any problems with compatibility between MT4 builds since I started doing this.

 

I have them working again, though I haven’t had any trades on the practice account that is on the same broker as my live account, but it is too soon to tell.

I need Separate Account histories though. Do the ones you guys have cloned keep separate account histories on the same Broker and account number? However if the multiple instances are working, I can easily open other demo accounts as an alternative.

Thanks for your help (< 8)

 
jjc:

My personal experience matches CB's. No problems running multiple live copies of MT4 (10+ copies) on a single machine. The only thing I'd explicitly add is the ease of replication and disaster recovery as a result of having all data within a single folder on disk (rather than having bits in the registry, or in Application Data etc).


Again in my personal experience, crashes such as the ones you're describing are either caused by badly written DLLs in commercial EAs or, more commonly, by an incompatibility between the MT4 build which an EA was compiled for and the build you're using. As a result of strange phenomena which I've encountered in the past, I compile using build 220 of metalang.exe while resetting the computer clock to a long way in the past. Not had any problems with compatibility between MT4 builds since I started doing this.

Hi JJC,

They are all build 225, but it seems to me that the MT4 instance for the UK broker was crashing from a 'Fatal Error' when I was adding EAs to charts. However nothing has changed before, during or after these mysterious occurrences. The Fatal Error crashes occurred a number of times, and I haven’t rebooted since then. But did end up losing 2 week’s worth of optimizing though )< 8( Like the Back Tester, the Optimizer seems to be so inaccurate in MT4 that it is worse than nothing. I don’t have decent computers sitting around idly that I can dedicate to just running an optimization for 1.5 ~ 3 months. Which makes it very unlikely that I would ever be able to complete a successful run anyway. Hence my request for a pause, save, restart for the Optimizer in MT5.

I don’t keep the history /data under a Vista User Name. I am the only one using this computer and I have been trying the ForEx <---> Excel from FxDialogue and it won’t work with user accounts (or Vista: running it in XP sp2 compatibility mode). Almost all of my ForEx related files and installations aren’t even in the ‘program Files’ directory. The user info, data & history are each under the 3 separate MT4 installations. Are you recommending that they all be put into one folder? Seems problematic to me. I have 3 separate RAID 1/0 arrays on this computer and can and do use MS’s SyncToy to keep backups current.

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