NT7 Beta 18 hangs and idles for several minutes connecting to Zen-fire on Windows 7

[stefan_777]

Big problem for me trying to connect on startup to Zen-fire with a clean install NT7 Beta 18 on a clean newly installed and updated Windows 7 Pro x32.

It takes three minutes for me to connect, as opposed to three seconds with my previous install of the NT 7 beta 18 with XP on the same machine.

After starting NT7, the splash screen appears and the connected ring sounds, but the splash screen disappears and NT7 hangs for several minutes using zero CPU in the task manager. Sitting there and doing nothing. When I disable connect on startup, Ninja loads fine but upon connecting to Zen manually, it still locks and idles for several minutes before loading. When it finally starts up and connects, loading various charts randomly sends it into a lock-up. So at that point it's unstable for me also.

I found two workarounds that jump start it immediately and allow it to work normally for me (so far).

1. Run in compatibility mode for Windows 98/ME (Sounds like a joke, but XP mode does not fix it for me for some strange reason)

2. Manually raise the CPU priority in task manager to High, it will then open the NT window immediately showing a successful Zen-fire connection and everything works fine afterwards. This is temporary because Windows 7 doesn't save CPU priority settings for future startups so it would have to be done manually every time.

Doing either of those makes it work instantly and returns it to how it was when I was using XP, back when it was flawless.

The problem is that I don't want to have to tweak the thing in silly compatibility mode or CPU priority.
I tried NT 6.5, and it works fine on this machine, but that's obsolete to me. And so is XP as far as I'm concerned.

I hope it's only my machine, but I'm afraid not since I also tested this on another comparable machine running Vista in my house, and the same problem occurred. It still took forever to connect to Zen-fire.
I think this might be limited to Ninja Zen-fire connection for me, because if I connect on startup to Yahoo it works without a problem, a few seconds to connect at most. Only starting the Zen connection has the thing hanging for minutes doing nothing.

I can reproduce this problem anytime by disabling the compatibility mode, or running it with normal CPU priority. My system is average, 1.8GHz, 2.5gb of ram. This should not be happening.

Thanks

[NinjaTrader_Bertrand]

Hi stefan_777, welcome to our forums and thanks for the report. So if you would not autoConnect on startup but connect regularly to ZenFire with NT 7 B18 it would work as expected?

Can you please zip up your NinjaTrader trace / log folders (MyDocuments > NinjaTrader 7 > trace / log) and send the resulting file via a service like www.sendspace.com to our support email (support at ninjatrader dot com).

Thanks for the support.

[stefan_777]

Hello Bertrand,

Any time I try to connect to Zenfire, whether it be using either auto connect on startup or regular manual connecting, it idles without responding for several minutes before loading.

I have zipped the folders and sent them to the Ninja support email with this thread url in the subject line.

Thanks.

[NinjaTrader_Bertrand]

Ok, great thanks for the feedback and support in sorting this out, we'll take a look at the files and get back to you.

[stefan_777]

Problem solved

Hello Bertrand,

The problem is SOLVED.

I just upgraded my laptop processor to a dual core ATI Turion 64 X2 TL-60, which is on par with the Intel Core2 Duo described in Ninja's minimum system requirements. AND IT WORKED!

As you suspected in the prior emails, my older and weaker single-core processor was at fault.

It started very quickly and auto-connected without using my old compatibilty work-around settings.

It also runs faster than ever now. Thanks for your help!

Best regards,

Stefan