EA validation impossible to pass - $1 test balance, minimum lot margin requirement

[Milos Vukomanovic]

Hello,

Trying to publish an Expert Advisor (product #188394, "Risk Calculator PRO One Click Trading"). Automatic validation runs 4 tests. 3 pass with a real trade (EURUSD H1, XAUUSD D1, GBPUSD M30). The 4th (EURUSD M1) always fails:

not enough money [market buy 0.2 EURUSD]

failed market buy 0.2 EURUSD [No money]

there are no trading operations

Log shows Balance: 1.00, Equity: 1.00 for this specific test. Required margin for the symbol's minimum lot (0.2) is ~216 USD. This makes opening any position mathematically impossible regardless of the EA's code.

Questions:

1. Is this a known limitation of the EURUSD,M1 validation scenario?

2. How do other published trade-execution/panel EAs pass this same check?

3. Any way to request manual review for this specific case?

Full validation report:

test on EURUSD,H1 (netting)

strategy tester report 1 total trades

test on XAUUSD,D1 (netting)

strategy tester report 1 total trades

test on GBPUSD,M30 (netting)

strategy tester report 1 total trades

test on EURUSD,M1 (netting)

2024.04.01 00:00:30   current account state: Balance: 1.00, Credit: 0.00, Commission: 0.00, Accumulated: 0.00, Assets: 0.00, Liabilities: 0.00, Equity 1.00, Margin: 0.00, FreeMargin: 1.00

2024.04.01 00:00:30   calculated account state: Assets: 0.00, Liabilities: 0.00, Equity 1.00, Margin: 215.78, FreeMargin: -214.78

2024.04.01 00:00:30   not enough money [market buy 0.2 EURUSD]

2024.04.01 00:00:30   failed market buy 0.2 EURUSD [No money]

there are no trading operations

Thanks for any guidance.

[Sergey Golubev]

Look at this part of the article:
https://www.mql5.com/en/articles/2555#insufficient_funds_to_perform_trade_operation 

and about this blog-post for "no trading operations" for example: 
Solving Automatic Validation Problems Arising During Product Submission in MQL5 Market

[Milos Vukomanovic]

Thanks Sergey! That confirms it - the 1 USD deposit is intentional to test graceful handling of insufficient funds, not a bug on my end. In the meantime I found that switching the product category from "Experts" to "Utilities" (Common tab) bypasses this automated trading-operations check entirely and goes to manual review instead - published successfully that way. Leaving this here in case it helps someone else with the same issue.

[Ryan L Johnson]

Milos Vukomanovic #:
I found that switching the product category from "Experts" to "Utilities" (Common tab) bypasses this automated trading-operations check entirely...

That strikes me as a miscategorization of a trading EA. I'm not so sure that it would be wise to publicize that here.

The whole purpose of the Expert validator is to establish a minimum code standard for the benefit customers who "blindly" download compiled (ex5/4) trading EA's.

[Victor Paul Hamilton]

Milos Vukomanovic #:
Thanks Sergey! That confirms it - the 1 USD deposit is intentional to test graceful handling of insufficient funds, not a bug on my end. In the meantime I found that switching the product category from "Experts" to "Utilities" (Common tab) bypasses this automated trading-operations check entirely and goes to manual review instead - published successfully that way. Leaving this here in case it helps someone else with the same issue.

Let's just the validator is temperamental to say the least and the more complicated your EA as in robust etc then the more problems you face .I mean if you have a silly little 20 lines of code dressed up as machine learning and labelled  the profit chaser 5000 and stick a few zeros on the price you'll be fine !! . 

[Milos Vukomanovic]

Ryan L Johnson #:

That strikes me as a miscategorization of a trading EA. I'm not so sure that it would be wise to publicize that here.

The whole purpose of the Expert validator is to establish a minimum code standard for the benefit customers who "blindly" download compiled (ex5/4) trading EA's.

Fair point, and I agree that would be a problem for a genuine autonomous strategy. To be clear though - this isn't an autonomous EA and doesn't trade "on its own" in the Martingale/Grid/Trend sense those Expert checkboxes describe. It only executes a trade when the user manually drags Entry/SL/TP lines and clicks a button - there's no independent decision-making or strategy logic running unattended. That's exactly what the "Order management / Risk management / Panels" Utility types describe, so it felt like the accurate category rather than a workaround. Appreciate the pushback though - wouldn't want this read as "use Utilities to dodge validation" for anyone with a real automated strategy.