Surely you have ever wanted to check how your expert advisor is working on MT4, and you have been surprised that this platform has been closed abruptly or has been hanging. Here we explain how to avoid this unpleasant and potentially dangerous situation, and how to make sure you keep your MT4 operations alive without unexpected surprises.
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MT4 is crashing, freezing or hanging: a familiar problem.

The next scene should be familiar to you. You get up in the morning, consult market prices, and note that these have moved in the direction you expected. Hopefully, you go to your computer and —oh surprise— the MT4 terminal has been closed abruptly. Thus, your automated trading strategy was interrupted at the wrong time and therefore all transactions closed in losses. Lesson learned. One more experience on the way to becoming a better trader. Sometimes these small details make the difference between making profits or losses, between being a beginner or a professional trader.
Of course, expert traders take measures to prevent the trading platform from crashing or suddenly ceasing to function. Some measures are to operate the platform from Virtual Private Servers (VPS) or install dedicated servers with backups, and other preventive measures. However, all these solutions involve additional costs that not all traders can afford. Here we will explain a very simple solution at zero cost.
Why is it important to prevent this situation?
It does not matter how good a trading strategy is. If the trading operations are not executed in a reliable manner, at the time and under the expected conditions, the trading strategy will fail.
In automated trading, the guarantee that operations are executed efficiently is based on several factors. Some of them are the following:
- The stability of the internet connection.
- The hardware and software conditions of the computer where the platform is installed.
- The quality in the programming of the indicator and the robot that executes the operations.
- The stability of the trading platform.
There is no doubt that each of the above points has a great impact on the result of trading operations. However, the stability of the trading platform usually goes unnoticed. Mostly, we pay attention to the quality of our Internet connection, to improve our computer, and we are awaiting the performance of our indicator or robot, but we neglect the operation of the MT4 terminal.
Now imagine that after so much effort and money invested in a robust trading strategy, you start to have losses as a result of your trading platform failing when you are not in front of the computer. Depending on when the interruption occurs, the consequences can be disastrous. You probably think there’s no solution for that unless you’re 24/5 monitoring the computer. It is not necessary. Below we explain an effective solution that will allow you to forget about this problem.
An effective and free solution.
The solution: a free tool that will watch over your MT4 platform.
MT4BAR is a 100% free program developed by FX1. This tool will not only keep monitoring your MT4 terminal but will also restart it if the terminal stops for any unforeseen reason, ensuring that the MT4 terminal will continue to operate uninterrupted while the computer remains on. For this, you just must install it and enable the Watchdog function.
We have used this tool practically since its launch and, since then, it has not only reduced the interruptions of the MT4 terminal to almost zero, but also facilitates all kinds of tasks related to MT4. For example, MT4BAR can install any Expert Advisor, Indicator, DLL, Wav, mqh, mq4, ex4 file automatically with Drag & Drop. Simply by dragging the file on to any of the listed Terminals with your mouse and dropping it to get installed. MT4BAR is even able to install from zip files. As easy as dragging & dropping zip files on to one of the terminals and it will install fully automatic.
Download the most recent stable version here.
More reasons to have MT4BAR. Additional features.
- Lotsize and Risk calculator to calculate positions size.
- WatchDog: Guard your terminals to avoid crashes or mistakenly closed terminals.
- Send notifications upon WatchDog Actions.
- Automatic Terminal Detection.
- Start / Stop Terminals, Start Metatrader directly from MT4BAR.
- Drag & Drop Installation of MQL related files.
- Drag & Drop Installation of MQL related files inside zip files.
- Detect & Open most important MT4 Directories.
Simo Cele
I’m using s9+ I have reinstalled the app but still not working
Barmenteros FX Staff
Hi. What do you mean by ‘s9+’? What app did you reinstall? Thanks