Connection diagnostic: six measured steps from gateway to first tick
The connection diagnostic walks a Rithmic connection one step at a time — gateway, system, route, authentication, subscription, first tick — and reports what each step measured. It never designates a cause as certain, and its copyable report contains no password.
Senzoukria · Documentation · Updated September 2026
Where to find it
- Where
- Broker Connections → Add or Edit connection → step 3 · Credentials, under the fields; button "Run the diagnostic" (never runs on its own)
- Probe contract
- The current front-month MNQ on CME, computed from the date — never a hard-coded symbol
- First-tick wait
- Between 10 and 30 s, derived from the system's heartbeat
- Gateway probe timeout
- 8 s
What it does
The subtitle states the contract: "Walks the connection one step at a time and reports what each step measured." Steps stream in as they finish; a step absent from the list means the chain stopped before it. The final block reads: "This diagnostic reports what it measured, and lists the possible causes by frequency. It never designates one as certain: refusals that look identical on screen have had different causes."
Two guards are applied before the broker is asked anything. The probe symbol is refreshed if it has expired, because a dead contract yields a subscription that is accepted and silent — the exact signature of an entitlement wall without being one. And the CME Globex calendar is checked, because a quiet feed and a broken feed look the same on screen.
The measurement is bound to its context: change the gateway, the system name, the username or the password and the displayed result is discarded, so the screen never shows a verdict about values that are no longer in the form.
Steps
| Step | Passed | Failed |
|---|---|---|
| Gateway reachable | The gateway answered. | The gateway did not answer. Check the URL, and that no firewall, VPN or proxy is blocking it. |
| System recognised | The gateway serves “{system}”. | “{system}” is not among the systems this gateway serves. Fetch the live list and pick the one your account lives on. |
| Gateway and system agree | Route correct — this gateway does serve that system, so a refusal below does not come from the route. | This gateway does not serve that system. The login would be refused whatever the credentials. |
| Authentication | The broker accepted the login. | The broker refused the login: {error} |
| Data subscription | The broker accepted the subscription to {symbol}. | The broker refused the subscription: {error} |
| First tick received | First tick received after {ms} ms. | No tick in {seconds} s. |
When everything is accepted and nothing arrives
If the chain reaches the last step and no tick comes, the panel shows "Everything was accepted, no data is arriving" with the measured facts, then possible causes ordered by frequency. Causes already eliminated by the measurement are removed rather than reordered: the closed-market cause appears only if the market is closed, the expired-contract cause only if the symbol had to be refreshed. Two causes always remain — another session open on the same login, and a login that may not be provisioned for this data, which only the broker can confirm.
The block ends with the sentence to send: "Ask your broker, in these words: is my login enabled for third-party API access, for which data, and under which system name?"
Copy, guide and limits
- "Copy the result" puts a plain-text report in the clipboard: gateway, system, symbol, each step with its outcome and detail, the systems served by the gateway, alerts, and the silent block. It never contains the password.
- A red step offers "Fetch live system list from gateway" or "Show me where to click", which opens the step-by-step guide on the matching step.
- The diagnostic is only available on Rithmic-backed connections. Bridge connections (NinjaTrader, Quantower) have no six-step chain; their status comes from the live bridge snapshot.
- A passed diagnostic proves a first tick on the probe contract at that moment; it does not certify entitlements on other instruments or the availability of history.
Related pages
This page in other languages
Frequently asked questions
- Does the diagnostic run automatically when I open the wizard?
- No. It opens its session only on click, and the password it uses is the one in the form, never re-read from the keychain.
- Why does it test MNQ and not my symbol?
- The wizard does not ask for a symbol. The probe uses the current front-month MNQ on CME, computed from the date, so an expired contract can never make the diagnostic measure the silence of a dead symbol.