Major IB TWS Bug...

G

ght

Yesterday, the standalone TWS wouldn't come up. I hadn't done an upgrade so something had changed at IB upstream. Lots of exception spew but basically the classloader can't find something. I grabed the latest vesion andI tried it on a number of workstations (ubuntu 8.10) but no luck. So, this is is a major screwup, not some wierd memory leak thing.

Interestingly, launching TWS from Java Web Start worked which was strange but was able to muddle through.

This morning there is a new version for download at IB. I figured they got hammered yesterday and fixed it... No such luck... same problem.

I'm also hearing the Mac version is having similar problems but haven't investigated.

IB has always been very scary when it comes to software. As most long time IB users know, there is virtually no client application testing and the underlying design is dismal. But IB is one of the few with a full API and have been able to survive what would normally be fatal in a competitive software market.

I've been building distributed system software for 20 years and have long been concerned that IB was gonna eventually tip over (turns out that testing is pretty important). I "think" IB may be unstable in many of their core systems as well (certainly data distribution) but it wouldn't be a stretch to assume execution management isn't much better.

An example from a few months ago: IB had unstable feeds for ES and some other CME products... they apologized profusely (typical) and it came down to a single computer that they couldn't get parts for and blamed a vendor.. blah blah.

System redundancy isn't bleeding edge and it "appears" as though they don't do that part either.

I suggest IB may be close to a meltdown. They're certainly due for some serious competition. Fortunately, it looks like reasonable alternatives are appearing.

-glenn
 
Quote from ght:

Yesterday, the standalone TWS wouldn't come up. I hadn't done an upgrade so something had changed at IB upstream. Lots of exception spew but basically the classloader can't find something. I grabed the latest vesion andI tried it on a number of workstations (ubuntu 8.10) but no luck. So, this is is a major screwup, not some wierd memory leak thing.

Interestingly, launching TWS from Java Web Start worked which was strange but was able to muddle through.

This morning there is a new version for download at IB. I figured they got hammered yesterday and fixed it... No such luck... same problem.

I'm also hearing the Mac version is having similar problems but haven't investigated.

IB has always been very scary when it comes to software. As most long time IB users know, there is virtually no client application testing and the underlying design is dismal. But IB is one of the few with a full API and have been able to survive what would normally be fatal in a competitive software market.

I've been building distributed system software for 20 years and have long been concerned that IB was gonna eventually tip over (turns out that testing is pretty important). I "think" IB may be unstable in many of their core systems as well (certainly data distribution) but it wouldn't be a stretch to assume execution management isn't much better.

An example from a few months ago: IB had unstable feeds for ES and some other CME products... they apologized profusely (typical) and it came down to a single computer that they couldn't get parts for and blamed a vendor.. blah blah.

System redundancy isn't bleeding edge and it "appears" as though they don't do that part either.

I suggest IB may be close to a meltdown. They're certainly due for some serious competition. Fortunately, it looks like reasonable alternatives are appearing.

-glenn
More...


1st ET post is IB bash. Who just "happens" to know of some "reasonable alternatives". Ya whatever. Brokers aren't perfect. Get used to it.
 
What's the odds of someone legitimate registering on 2007 and making their first post a wild rant against IB?

Long.


You claim you are a developer. Then you know that bugs of one kind or another are inevitable. The more complex the system the more inevitable they become.

IB could freeze development and do nothing but squash bugs for the next 6 months. Apparently that's not the plan.
 
Mine has been very stable lately.

I've had IB for years and years. I'd say about 99% of any (serious) problems I've had are the result of a crappy ISP (satellite), or my own screwups. Yeah, most of us would be very happy to only have to upgrade once a year, if at all. Probably the biggest gripe against IB is that they try to do too much too soon with TWS upgrades. I use the harddrive version and don't upgrade unless I have to. This helps me avoid introduced bugs.

No broker is perfect and the combo of many many markets, very low commish, open and easy to use API, features, etc, etc makes IB damn hard to beat IMHO.

Good trading to all. :cool:
 
What happened to the FutureTrade integration that was supposed to happen 1 year ago?

How old is TWS? Probably 15 years yet it still can't accurately display simple things like P/L and trades accurately. And charts still don't work properly.

If it wasn't for ButtonTrader and Quotetracker, I would not use IB.

IB has basically outsourced testing and quality assurance to professional API-software vendors - who inform IB what all the bugs are in each release, because the vendors do their own (more rigorous) testing.
 
In an ideal world you'd pick apart the best out of everything and build what in your view would be perfection.

In the real world good comes with some bad, you just have to pick your poison.

IB TWS is a royal piece of Junk (the bad), unfortunately it is bundled with very low commissions in pretty much all tradeable markets plus basic data at no additional cost(the good).

You can also shop around and deal with three different vendors for data, platform, broker (might be good); however it comes with the individual nuances, plus the additional effort of getting them to work together (the bad).

again, you just have to pick your poison.

BI
 
I've got to say that my TWS has been running perfectly too. And Sierra Chart is feeding from it and controlling it like magic.

I do wonder why one would go to a latest version when one was running linux though. Its weird that the older version stopped running and nothing had happened. I often wonder when someone says that whether they are aware of alpha particles and other ways a perfectly good computer that worked yesterday can get a random enhancement that stops it working today. It doesn't have to be at IB OP.

Lets get real here. If I download a version and then wait two weeks, with windows there is a good chance that someone will find any issues. If I wait 4 I can be really confident.

Also, if I thought something might have gone wrong and nothing fixed it I could drop my last image back onto the PC just in case their was a naughty alpha particle or some other quantum mystery involved.

So thats what I do, I download the last of each new revision (its the "download last version" you see on the download page) and then I just save it. Later on, if I need to then I can install it. And I regularly save an image of my system partition.

But currently 890.6 on java 1.6.0.12 is running just perfectly. Windows XP 32 may not be the most beautiful OS out there but its a robust trading environment - I turn it off once a week but other than that it just hums away :)
 
i an currently getting incorrect future totals on ym,es,nq...tried to re-login-no effect. Usually have 2 such problems every late night trading asia, usually re-logging solves problem-just a pain.
 
In fact TWS is becoming less reliable with the most recent versions.

Starting a few weeks ago my first API order of the day is simply ignored - it does not pop up in the TWS, no entry in the log files, nothing. I have not been able to reproduce this error, as it happens about once in two weeks.

Today TWS did not send any execDetails(), although orders have been filled. Even TWS did not show any open positions. A restart fixed the problem, but never the less very annoying.

I hope IB is going to eliminate these bugs again, as I have not had this problems last year.
 
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