Caching Issues with MT4 optimization strategy tester
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This typically means that the trade conditions are never met either due to the logic itself or overly restrictive input values.
The previous topic was deleted/hidden as requested. 😉 ( https://www.mql5.com/en/forum/487223#comment_56774567 )
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This typically means that the trade conditions are never met either due to the logic itself or overly restrictive input values.
Thank you for responding, I have been waiting for someone to really help me.
I understand what you are suggesting regarding overly restrictive input values but in this case, each of the value would return trades individually. For example, here below (but I stopped it early just to show that there are trades taken).
So, the issue that I have is that optimization does not work at all anymore. Even if I closed MT4 instance and restart it. I am gobsmacked. I am not new to MT4 and have run optmization many times before, and never come across this behaviour.
On the Journal tab, this is what I see, but I don't know where these cache records were coming from? Even if I chose different parameters for optimization, the run was never successful:
2025.05.25 09:01:28.120 There were 6 passes done during optimization
2025.05.25 09:01:28.102 EA MTF: optimization finished in 0:00:00, 6 cache records were used
2025.05.25 09:01:28.091 EA MTF: optimization started
Much appreciated!!! I am really stuck.
Since you've already tried all the usual steps, this looks like an issue with MT4's internal cache. Sometimes, even after deleting \tester\cache, MT4 still reuses old records.
I recommend:
- Delete everything in these three folders: \tester\cache\, \tester\history\, \tester\logs\.
- Make a copy of your EA with a different name, change something minor in the code (like a comment), recompile it, and run the optimization again. This forces MT4 to rebuild the cache.
- If that doesn't help, try running the EA in a clean MT4 installation.
It's rare, but this can happen. If none of that works, it might be a bug in your current setup or MT4 build.
If you plan to do frequent or large-scale optimizations, you might want to consider using MT5, which has a more modern and stable optimization framework. It's not perfect either, but it's generally more reliable and transparent for this type of task.
I am not able to run new optimization test on MT4 backtesting further, as every time I try to run it I get zero results and on the journal it says something like this "There were <n> passes done during optimization".
I have searched the interenet and have performed the following without any result:
1. I have deleted files in the \tester\cache folder
2. I have gone to the "Optimization Results" tab, right-click and selected "Skip useless Results". See below.
And on re-running optimization, it still does not work. Any solutions is greatly appreciated.