Discontinued support of IBKR Gateway?

[several]

Hello, I'm using IBKR gateway every day with NT for months and paying for the multubroker license. However I've just read now you've discontinued support for it?

"IB Gateway is not supported for connections with NinjaTrader Desktop."

https://support.ninjatrader.com/s/article/Connecting-to-Your-Interactive-Brokers-Account?language=en_US

Can you please please please address this? and continue to support for the gateway? I assume it uses the same exact API as the TWS and has worked for months.

It has been known for sometime that the version of the IBKR gateway that NT used was out of date, and IBKR would be discontinuing it support for this older version. As was pointed out on this forum. It's disappointing NT dev team haven't addressed this and just cancelled it at the last minute.

Certain IBKR users have to use the gateway and cannot use TWS for various reasons.

Thank You

[NinjaTrader_Clayton]

Hello Several,

Thank you for your message.

After careful evaluation, we have decided to focus our efforts on ensuring the best possible experience with Trader Workstation (TWS) rather than continuing support for IB Gateway. While we initially explored the possibility of supporting the latest IB Gateway version, we found that TWS provides the necessary functionality to meet the needs of our users. Given this, we determined that our development efforts are best directed toward maintaining and enhancing TWS support.

We understand that some users were anticipating support for the latest IB Gateway version, and we regret any frustration this may cause. If you are experiencing any issues with TWS, please reach out to our support team—we’re happy to assist with optimizing your setup to ensure smooth operation.

We appreciate your continued support and thank you for being a part of NinjaTrader.

[ntwong]

Hi Clayton,

I have raised a question in another post but no one answer me yet.

The issue I am experiencing with TWS is:

To meet Compliance requirements, users with an IB-HK account will not be able to disable the TWS 30-minute session timeout.

Note: For IBHK API users, it is commended to use IB Gateway instead of TWS. It is because all IBHK users cannot choose “Never Lock Trader Workstation” in TWS – Global Configuration – Lock and Exit. If there is inactivity, TWS will be locked and there will be API disconnection.

https://www.interactivebrokers.com/campus/ibkr-api-page/twsapi-doc/#tws-config-api

As a HK user with IB and NT, I cannot disable the 30-minute session timeout when I use TWS with NT, please tell me how should I optimize my setup now so I can have a smooth operation when use NT with TWS (but not ibgateway)?

I appreciate your prompt reply and continued support and I am thankful for being a part of NinjaTrader.

[ntwong]

Hi Clayton,

I cannot login to previous version of TWS and ibgateway now. I can login to the TWS 10.33.1b and connect it to NT. As I mentioned in previous post, I am a HK IB user and I don't have the "Never lock trader workstation" option in the TWS version 10.33.1b, can you please suggest a way for me to use NT with TWS 10.33.1b if the promised NT release that support ibgateway (which don't have the lock up issue) cannot come out at this moment. Looking forward to your reply.

[pnhep]

Hello,

Please forward this post to whomever needs to see it.

This is to object strongly to NT’s last-minute decision to discontinue the support of the IB Gateway.
Most of us do not want to use Interactive Broker’s full TWS while using Ninja.
That defeats the whole point of wanting to use NT8 as the primary trading interface.

The Gateway was nice and clean and light CPU load and worked flawlessly.
TWS is clunky, prone to errors when they do updates and obnoxious to have open when not in use as full interface.

C’mon, IBKR did not change the Gateway that much, the new version is almost identical to the old.
Surely it can’t cost you all that much to update the Gateway coding for NT to accommodate the new version?

I read on the support forum that “the decision was made to focus on the TWS version”
Well, who asked for that?
Certainly not the users.

Respectfully,

Paul

[NinjaTrader_Clayton]

Hello Everyone,

Thank you for the updates.

Your feedback has been sent to the Development Team so they may see your explanation as well.

Thank you for the insight.


Please let us know if you have any other questions.

[CDXTrader]

NinjaTrader_Clayton

I concur with multiple other posters in both this thread and other threads that the Gateway connection is preferred over TWS. Why would people running NinjaTrader as their primary trading interface (which is good for NinjaTrader) want to run the huge clunky TWS application that is a huge resource hog? (1.1GB+ memory use running idle?!) The TWS platform is one of the worst designed interfaces in the whole industry built on 1990s design standards. I'm also in agreement with one of the other posters who noticed a lag in order execution using the TWS connection. I'm noticing the same.

Even better yet, if NinjaTrader is going to support IBKR connection at all, why not discontinue connections through secondary applications altogether and focus all development going forward on direct connection from NT8 through the IBKR Web API (Rest)? This is the most sensible long-term solution, uses modern technology, lowest lag, and I suspect will result in the highest user satisfaction. Seems like a pretty good business decision as well given the fact that "protail" (retail-professional traders) will continue to love NinjaTrader but also continue to need All-In-One brokerage provided by Interactive Brokers (Equities, Futures, Currencies, Bonds, etc.). I suspect it will be quite some time before NinjaTrader/Kraken will be able to provide that.

When NinjaTrader uses language like "after careful consideration..." you're really eroding trust from your most loyal user base. It is clear to most of us that the decision is not based on what your users are asking for.

Thank you for reading and thank you for your consideration. All the best.

[andyb2000]

Hi Clayton,

I have raised a question in another post but no one answer me yet.

The issue I am experiencing with TWS is:

To meet Compliance requirements, users with an IB-HK account will not be able to disable the TWS 30-minute session timeout.

Note: For IBHK API users, it is commended to use IB Gateway instead of TWS. It is because all IBHK users cannot choose “Never Lock Trader Workstation” in TWS – Global Configuration – Lock and Exit. If there is inactivity, TWS will be locked and there will be API disconnection.

https://www.interactivebrokers.com/campus/ibkr-api-page/twsapi-doc/#tws-config-api

As a HK user with IB and NT, I cannot disable the 30-minute session timeout when I use TWS with NT, please tell me how should I optimize my setup now so I can have a smooth operation when use NT with TWS (but not ibgateway)?

I appreciate your prompt reply and continued support and I am thankful for being a part of NinjaTrader.

I agree with posts not happy about dropping IB Gateway. I'm finding it much less stable. But for the inactivity logout issue. There is a way you could deal with that. But if you do this be sure to test it well first. If you mess it up maybe it will put in an order you didn't want. You write an Autohotkey script that would click on or maybe just bring a window into focus every few mins so you appear to be there.

https://www.autohotkey.com/

[ntwong]

I agree with posts not happy about dropping IB Gateway. I'm finding it much less stable. But for the inactivity logout issue. There is a way you could deal with that. But if you do this be sure to test it well first. If you mess it up maybe it will put in an order you didn't want. You write an Autohotkey script that would click on or maybe just bring a window into focus every few mins so you appear to be there.
https://www.autohotkey.com/

Hi andyb2000, thanks for your advise. I already tried. I wrote AHK or powershell script (like simulate user activity by pressing F15), compile them into an exe and let them run in the task scheduler. They only work when I am using the PC, which means when you lock the session, it will stop.

I used to run NT in AWS EC2 to ensure stable internet connectivity, but like I just mentioned above, whenever I logout to the session / minimized the RDP windows, these tasks won't work anymore as they are belongs to "session 1". I also try to nssm and make them as a service and run in the background ("session 0") and hope it can run no matter I am logging in to the session or not. Unfortunately, it didn't work as windows seems prohibit service in the background to make control of the Keyboard and mouse (i.e. session 0 and session 1 cannot communicate easily).

Even I don't logout to the session all days, this trick sometimes fail to work as expected and the TWS will still be locked.

I hope NT development team will soon publish the promised update release that support ibgateway, where I can use it without concern the 30 minutes locked up issue and it is much more suitable than TWS for algo trading.

[ntwong]

I agree with posts not happy about dropping IB Gateway. I'm finding it much less stable. But for the inactivity logout issue. There is a way you could deal with that. But if you do this be sure to test it well first. If you mess it up maybe it will put in an order you didn't want. You write an Autohotkey script that would click on or maybe just bring a window into focus every few mins so you appear to be there.
https://www.autohotkey.com/

Hi andyb2000, thanks for your advise. I already tried. I wrote AHK or powershell script (like simulate user activity by pressing F15), compile them into an exe and let them run in the task scheduler. They only work when I am using the PC, which means when you lock the session, it will stop.

I used to run NT in AWS EC2 to ensure stable internet connectivity, but like I just mentioned above, whenever I logout to the session / minimized the RDP windows, these tasks won't work anymore as they are belongs to "session 1". I also try to nssm and make them as a service and run in the background ("session 0") and hope it can run no matter I am logging in to the session or not. Unfortunately, it didn't work as windows seems prohibit service in the background to make control of the Keyboard and mouse (i.e. session 0 and session 1 cannot communicate easily).

Even I don't logout to the session all days, this trick sometimes fail to work as expected and the TWS will still be locked.

I hope NT development team will soon publish the promised update release that support ibgateway, where I can use it without concern the 30 minutes locked up issue and it is much more suitable than TWS for algo trading.

[ntwong]

Hello Everyone,

Thank you for the updates.

Your feedback has been sent to the Development Team so they may see your explanation as well.

Thank you for the insight.


Please let us know if you have any other questions.

Hi Clayton,

So, will the development team publish a release that support ibgateway in near future? If not, I have to move to other platform like Multicharts that support ibgateway as I don't have good solution to use NT with TWS.

[timko]

Hi Clayton,

So, will the development team publish a release that support ibgateway in near future? If not, I have to move to other platform like Multicharts that support ibgateway as I don't have good solution to use NT with TWS.

they will be extremely happy to see you move to other platforms! I guarantee you that they don't really care!!

[ntwong]

I am a NT user since NT6.5, and I have encountered different technical issues in the past 10 years+, the NT CS and development team always assist me properly and can provide a solution to me most of the time. I believe they will soon publish a release that can support ibgateway (as they promised this in the last few month) as this is a request from numerous NT users like me.

[timko]

On contrary, I switched to NT8 after it claimed to be 64bit and there was no single time the NT CS or developement team could help out.
Their behaviors were quite consistent, asking for a log submission via email, adding a vote to a bug-fix item or feature request, offering mechanical answers, ignoring questions on features that only provide difficulties to a user and after then, no follow ups, no updates.
They wouldn't care about rhetorics like switching to TradingView or MultiCharts coz they know, if you can, you could have already moved.
Afterall, you've paid the license and once they've decided they no longer need to attract potential Windows users, they piss you off. This is understandable as you can feel the sourness when seeing the success of Robinhood....

Anyway, if they couldn't provide further supports, we can only ask for their kindness, such as, on making that connector code open source. That's how I see it...

[andyb2000]

Hi andyb2000, thanks for your advise. I already tried. I wrote AHK or powershell script (like simulate user activity by pressing F15), compile them into an exe and let them run in the task scheduler. They only work when I am using the PC, which means when you lock the session, it will stop.

I used to run NT in AWS EC2 to ensure stable internet connectivity, but like I just mentioned above, whenever I logout to the session / minimized the RDP windows, these tasks won't work anymore as they are belongs to "session 1". I also try to nssm and make them as a service and run in the background ("session 0") and hope it can run no matter I am logging in to the session or not. Unfortunately, it didn't work as windows seems prohibit service in the background to make control of the Keyboard and mouse (i.e. session 0 and session 1 cannot communicate easily).

Even I don't logout to the session all days, this trick sometimes fail to work as expected and the TWS will still be locked.

I hope NT development team will soon publish the promised update release that support ibgateway, where I can use it without concern the 30 minutes locked up issue and it is much more suitable than TWS for algo trading.

Yes I've now found that if your not logged it to your remote server many of the functions of Autohotkey won't work. But there is a work around. If you follow the instruction in the Youtube video linked below. You will be able to connect your remote server to more than one windows remote desktop connection at the same time. If you have 2 remote connection open at once, and open a program in one it will only open for that connection.

First Test that you can open 2 remote desktop connections at once maybe using Vmwhare for the 2nd if you don't have a spare computer. Or you could also test the 2nd on a Phone.

Once you know you can connect to 2 connections at once you can open a connection to the remote server on the remote server its self. And run every thing on the remote session opened within its self. If you do this Autohotkey should work even if you log out of the session linking the remote server to your local computer because it will still be connected to its self.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2nEB0gDPZ4&t=40s