Starting up NinjaTrader Desktop 8.1 without typing username and password every time

[ntbone]

ntbone Thank you very much for your updated code to improve the NT8 login. It works better than the original timed version, especially during the period when Windows is in the booting process.

During testing, I did encounter some issues when I started Visual Studio, then followed by your program. Your program injected the password into my VS file, instead of the NT8 input screen. Of course, this can be easily avoid by just starting your program first and wait for completion.
Thank you again.

Can you give me more specific steps on how to reproduce this? It shouldn't find Visual Studio as the program to set focus too. Thanks

[kkc2015]

ntbone Thank you for your work and response.
This event happened shortly after I started Windows 11 and VS was just in the state of opening up a solution. When I started your program, NT8 dialog opened, but did not receive the PW. That is when I noticed a syntax error on the VS codes, which turned out to be the PW appended to the end of one line of code. This event is random and not easily repeatable.

On other occasions, immediately after I started your program and did a website search, the PW was appended to my search text. This also happened with PW appended to the notepad text. Thus, this events were not specific to VS. If I waited for your program to start NT8 without any other activities, there is no issue at all. It is a workable solution.

[QuantKey_Bruce]

This is a potential flaw with any scripting solution that pushes keystrokes into the buffer (no different than using SendKeys to send an F5 hopefully to the chart the indicator is running on but then the user clicks on something else before it can take effect so now there's an F5 on some other chart or on some other application) - to be safe it would have to send the events directly to the specific application it wants to receive them rather than simulating a keypress.

[kkc2015]

ntbone QuantKey_Bruce
Hi ntbone,
It appears that Quantkey_Bruce hits the issue on the nail. One way to test the program is to:
1. Open notepad
2. Start your NT8 script program.
3. Select notepad to start entering text.
The password will be appended to the text. As I said previously, it is not a critical issue, as I could always wait for your program completion prior to doing another task.

[QuantKey_Bruce]

Well, and, let's not forget the big picture here. This a problem that was created in NinjaTrader Desktop 8.1. The real fix is for NinjaTrader to add the "keep me signed in on this computer" checkbox - anything else is just a hack.

[timko]

it is a very wierd thing: customers are trying to solve a problem which is especially created to waste their time to solve...
why we have to suffer in such a way?!

[ntbone]

ntbone QuantKey_Bruce
Hi ntbone,
It appears that Quantkey_Bruce hits the issue on the nail. One way to test the program is to:
1. Open notepad
2. Start your NT8 script program.
3. Select notepad to start entering text.
The password will be appended to the text. As I said previously, it is not a critical issue, as I could always wait for your program completion prior to doing another task.

Ah. Upon launch of the app, you must wait for it to paste the password before you do any sort of additional input, with either mouse or keyboard. Otherwise you redirect the focus before it has a chance to tab over and paste the password. The original program would work similar except since it performs a mouse click to activate focus in the edit control, it would be possible for that mouse click to occur in a window that pops up over top of NinjaTrader window.

[Mindset]

Hello All,

Thank you again for all your Posts.

I will continue to provide your feedback to our Development team.

Thank you for your patience.

And here we are in a new year and the 10 minutes of coding to bring back the "keep me signed in" button STILL isn't there.
its frankly ridiculous and NT should be embarassed. They spend huge resources on web and phone applications but 10 minutes on this...... ?
I would love to see statistics on how much actual trading takes place on the web,mobile vs desktop.
If you were looking to go web there are vastly superior apps out there.

I love NT - what it's good at it's really good at but as a long term (15 years) user please look at Trading View and ask how long and how expensive it will take you to get to that stage on the web? You are slowly losing me with this constant dismissal of valid user concerns.

[bltdavid]

You are slowly losing me with this constant dismissal of valid user concerns.

Yep, I can totally 100% agree with this sentiment.

If Ray isn't feeling some sense of shame at what
his baby has grown into -- he certainly should.

I suspect too many people (esp upper mgmt,
including Ray, the former CEO) at NinjaTrader
are waiting for their personal payday when
corporate NinjaTrader finally IPOs.

Therefore, unless it affects the numbers that
affect the bottom line -- some basic code
changes sorely needed are constantly
denied.

It seems like NinjaTrader has grown into a
company where their decisions are no longer
about the customer -- they're all about the
money.

Changes to remove the mandatory password issue,
or changes needed to help combat OneDrive issues,
these changes are not splashy enough to affect the
bottom line, they don't draw new paying customers,
so they get a very low priority.

Security issue, my ass.

Mgmt sucks, er, I mean doesn't understand the user
experience, or better said, Mgmt chooses to ignore
problems with the user experience -- it's that simple.

Bummer.

[NinjaTrader_Dennis]

Hello All,

Thank you for your posts.

I understand that this has been an ongoing frustration and after more consideration, NinjaTrader has agreed to address this and is actively pursuing an implementation that will satisfy clients' needs.

Currently, we do not have an exact timeline for this implementation and I do know that it will not be in our next release. That being said I will continue to update this thread monthly with any updated information we have in regards to this implementation.

Thank you in advance for your patience while we continue to work on this item.

[QuantKey_Bruce]

Thank you NinjaTrader_Dennis.

[bltdavid]

NinjaTrader has agreed to address this and is actively pursuing an implementation that will satisfy clients' needs.

Finally!

Sanity prevails.

Hallelujah.

Currently, we do not have an exact timeline for this implementation and I do know that it will not be in our next release.

Damn, how hard can this be?

The 'Remember Me' checkbox idea solves the problem perfectly.

That being said I will continue to update this thread monthly with any updated information we have in regards to this implementation.

Excellent news!

Please note this is strictly a Desktop issue.

Your Mobile and Web offerings have not had time to
grow a user base impacted by this problem -- your
Desktop customers have 20 years of precedent without
a mandatory password, and that's why we've been
so vocal.

Please note, it is not the presence of the new password
protection that is the problem -- it is the presence of the
mandatory password entry for every execution of
normal product usage that is the problem.

Like I mentioned, a simple 'Remember Me' checkbox
to bypass further password entry seems to solve the
problem nicely.

Thank you for letting us know!

[QuantKey_Bruce]

To add to what bltdavid has said here, remember please, that if they WANT to be prompted for a password each time, all they have to do is check the box to do so on their connection (of after this change, uncheck "remember me and keep me signed in"). It is not necessary to double the connection prompt with an additional one when starting up the platform when they may not even desire to connect to their broker account - they could be running optimizations offline, or developing (which sometimes requires restarting a huge number of times per day), or any number of other situations in which being prompted each time is a negative.

[Mindset]

which sometimes requires restarting a huge number of times per day)

Yep,27 times today!
Worst issue yet, nothing in the trace file or the log file. Just literally freezes.
I ended up throwing all the code away and going back to 1+1 = 2 !!!
Gotta love development.

[eDanny]

Nothing like clicking the NT8 icon, walking away to the kitchen/bathroom/wherever, coming back to find the login staring at me. I do it all the time.