tradebanzai,
The IB papertrading platform is really bad. When I tried it, I had many problems as the ones you had.
The point is, this will not happen to you in real trading.
I just stoped papertrading with it.
Hope this helps.
if you need historical data then you can't rely on IB. How accurate the historical data you need must be ( tick, minutes) ?
Besides, I think IB has a limitation of 100 stocks, not esignal if you pay enough.