I'm an IB fan, but IB needs 2 versions of TWS: a basic/reliable one (then leave it alone), and also a version with all the bells and whistles. All of this dicking around making (so-called) improvements is reducing the reliability. Sign me up for the basic (reliable) one please. TWS has been a PITA for the last month.
Not to be a nitpicker Wayne, but the javaplatform PrimeTrader from the Norwegian broker Netfonds has been flawless for several years now, without any other problems than those caused by dataproblems from the exchange or when the exchange has been down altogether. It is possible to build stable systems, and to do proper QA before releasing a new version. However, to be fair to IB: Their TWS is far more complicated, and needs to support far more advanced functions because of the complexities of both the markets it supports and the trading strategies it supports on these products.
IB is really making me angry as well. My problem is always the same. I get into a trade in any futures and then when I sell the first part of the order the quotes freeze. This has been happening on all the HKD futures (HSI MHI) for weeks and now on the YM's the last 2 days. good thing I have Esignal to know where the prices are. but using that for all my IB trades takes up valuable space. MM
yup, the new version sux. yup, they should do better qa. first, my charts gave no real-time data ( MUCH NEEDED FOR FUTURES TRADING!) then, the cs guy said to downgrade to the older version (865.4?), so i did. that was ok for a few days. then today, no futures chart data (!!!!!) on the plus side, when i logged into cs today, he was able to help in under five minutes and get me back on before 0830 trading....
well, i am not really that pissed, infact more or less i dont give a flying f*k, since my trading has not not been affected by these issues but yeah it is irritating and we have to let them know.
I'm glad to hear this. Anybody else have a commercial trading workstation that had NO problems all year? This may not be completely fair, since some problems could be at the exchanges and absolutely out of IB's control. I believe this happened several times this year and it just adds grist for the mill. But it muddies the water for IB terribly, and adds to the discord and suspicion, when we get so many new versions of TWS cranked out. :-/ If certain other platforms always experience few to no problems, perhaps IB could model their software QA, CM, Build and Release processes, etc after them. Just a thought. It should be said, though, that the old build I used (forget the number, but it was from Jan 06) was very solid all year for me. Best regards to all.
Not sure if this fits your description, but I've only had two problems with X-Trader (been using it for nearly 3 years) that I can remember unless the entire exchange was down, but I'm only connected to one exchange at a time (usually the eCBOT).
I have a MFC/C++ client that uses the TWS API. Forced upgrades mean a weekend of trying to find details on what has changed and why. The API docs on their site doesn't document changes and a search of their site also doesn't show changes. No documentation in the release notes as well. By drilling down into the example code I will get it working I have no doubt. If I was producing a commercial product with this crap it would be very difficult to provide commercial level quality. I doubt that IB cares about quality or their API, as long as they do not have a close competitor. They have reached a size where they can ignore such issues. I would pay more for a better technology and would never base a commercial product on this drek. I wonder if even inside IB if their applications folks are aware of the changes made by the API core guys. Clearly quality control is not picking up major flaws... Back to the code....