My 20 demo accounts got auto-deleted

[[Deleted]]

Somewhere last week when I booted up MT5, all the sudden all my demo accounts were gone. I had about 20 of them to test and at the same time there was just one account with a bunch of Chinese symbols in it that makes zero sense to me. It's also impossible to delete this account.

Does anyone know what the hell is going on here?

[Fernando Carreiro]

Danny Verpoorten: Somewhere last week when I booted up MT5, all the sudden all my demo accounts were gone. I had about 20 of them to test and at the same time there was just one account with a bunch of Chinese symbols in it that makes zero sense to me. It's also impossible to delete this account. Does anyone know what the hell is going on here?

Forum on trading, automated trading systems and testing trading strategies

Suspicious account

Fernando Carreiro, 2022.06.12 13:44

You seem to have corrupted file data. Do you not keep regular backups which you can restore?

If not, you may need to delete the relevant file "<data folder>\Config\accounts.dat" and recreate it, or maybe even do a new clean install.

Forum on trading, automated trading systems and testing trading strategies

Suspicious account

Dr Matthias Hammelsbeck, 2022.06.12 14:20

That 's it!

I restored the file accounts.dat from the backup. It is ok now.

Thanks, Fernando. 

[William Roeder]

Go to your backups. You do backup your system, don't you? YouTube/watch?v=l7-6m2cE6JM

[[Deleted]]

How do you create a backup in MT5? I do save it occasionally. Is that the same thing?

And can one of you tell me how I can restore from a backup?

I searched on my PC for "accounts.dat" but it can't find it. 

[William Roeder]

Danny Verpoorten #: I searched on my PC for "accounts.dat" but it can't find it. 

On MT4, its «DataFolder»\config\accounts.ini (File (Alt+F) → Open Data Folder)

Don't you want to backup everything?

[Fernando Carreiro]

Danny Verpoorten #:How do you create a backup in MT5? I do save it occasionally. Is that the same thing? And can one of you tell me how I can restore from a backup? I searched on my PC for "accounts.dat" but it can't find it. 

MetaTrader does not create backups, nor does Windows create backups automagically. It is the user that carries out backups, either manually or by having Windows schedule the backups for you using its built-in backup services (or by using 3rd party applications).

It is something you do pre-emptively to prevent loss of data. It is not something you do after the fact when you lose your data and then wished you had done a backup.