My experience with IB (in Australia) is customer service is painfully slow to queries posted on the TWS Message Centre. It can take anything from 4 days to a couple of weeks before a reply comes in. Hence I'm posting here as I am awaiting a response which is again taking a long time. I have been using IB TWS approx 6 months and have been running a Sim account on SierraCharts which had been linked to IB for data. Last week I placed my first auto trade with IB which immediately failed as in the Order Presets window Start time was 00:00 which IB customer service responded after a few days should have nothing in that box. Fine, so I then got my first trade long in a week later and shortly after got a short signal which then failed on IB. Question: I'm wishing to trade 1 futures SPI contract long or short. When I'm long or short and wish to reverse, I want to go instantly from long to short and vice versa. In the contract size window, what should this be set to? 2 x contracts and 2 x Increments or 1 x Contract and 1 x Increment? I presently have it set to 2 & 2, this may be the reason for the short position failure. Going long to short, is this 2 contracts or is it still regarded as 1 x contract and 1 x Increment size? Thanks
Why won't you post this on the native Sierra forums ("support board"). If the problem is specific to SPI then Sierra has a few users from Australia who might be able to sort this out. http://www.sierrachart.com/supportboard/forumdisplay.php?f=94
It's not "IB platform" issue, it's IB TWS API issue. When you use SierraChart spreadsheet for order entry, the orders are transmitted to IB using API. This API has some bugs and you often need to know how to go around them. Here is API forum that you might find helpful: https://www.interactivebrokers.com/smf/index.php?board=2.0 Relying on the native IB support is the least efficient method to resolve any problem. IB's business model is to get everything automated and run by computers, avoid direct interaction with customers, and if a customer insists that there is a problem, deny it for as long as possible.
You are right, i noticed this also. Ever since IB started the new customer chat (real time communication with IB's customer service), the service time in IB's older message centre (asynchronous communication) has deteriorated. Sometimes my questions sat there for weeks without ever being picked up. Previously they had a policy to pick up a question within 24 hrs or so at least. The conclusion is, sadly, to no longer use the well-built and well-intended message centre and go for the chat immediately, even for issues that are not time critical and thus would be ideal for message centre.
I really think that when using the TWS API your default settings in TWS are not part of the picture... I use the ACSIL facility and never, ever, have had to worry about TWS settings. Like the other posters said, go with the SC support board. SC's support is really good most of the time.
On 2nd August I posted a question on TWS Message Centre re setup query on TWS. It's now 9th August, still no reply even though Status is "In Progress". Incredible!!!