Thanks MT4 for crashing (requiring reinstallation) and DELETING MY INDICATOR - source and compiled code

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I'm sorry to feel motivated to join this forum to issue a warning about / relate a bad experience with the MT4 system, which in this context includes the language editor and compiler.


I spent a good part of the day Sunday and a couple of hours today working on an indicator, after finding several that were similar to what I wanted but "not quite there" pre-programmed on the Web. I got it about half-completed; the part that was working was working very well and I was playing with it, changing some parameters, recompiling and seeing what the visual effect might be in MetaTrader 4. This sort of exercise should not cause problems, ever! It is *base functionality* of the software.

What eventually happened, for what I can certify was "no good reason whatsoever," was that MetaTrader 4 froze (stopped responding). I used Windows Task Manager to remove it from memory and tried to reload it. It loaded, according to Task Manager, but persistently refused to display its user interface. Eventually I reinstalled it and thereby fixed the problem. This sort of thing should never, ever happen.

However, much worse than the above, the source and compiled code for my indicator were ***selectively deleted**** from my hard disk. Those items resided in the standard "indicators" folder, into which the MetaTrader 4 installer places some files; but the installer does not erase any files that already exist in that folder. That statement is verified by the fact that a number of indicators that I had grabbed from the Internet were not disturbed when I reinstalled. What apparently happened was that some Evil Genie buried in the MetaTrader 4 system decided that MY indicator was causing trouble and zapped it.

Lesson for me and anyone else who wants to attempt to program MetaTrader 4 / MetaQuotes 4: assume the programs (platform, editor, compiler) are your enemies that want to destroy your work, and may indeed do so at any time. This is a thoroughly deplorable situation but apparently it is one that we must live with if we want to pursue EA development using this software. (In more general terms, "keep backups of your work," which has always been sage advice relating to software development.)


I have been working with MQ4 programming for a very short time. This is not an auspicious way to get started.

 

Adding some info:


Maybe my experience is correlated with running MT4 under Windows Vista. I moved my development efforts to my new laptop a few days ago. Before that, on my old computer running Windows XP, I had no such severe problems. I believe MT4 did freeze once after I recompiled my EA-in-development but it worked fine thereafter and did not "eat" my program!


Even after reinstalling MT4 on the laptop, I have found that sometimes MT4 does not launch properly. I have completely uninstalled it and will probably go back to the less comfortable process of developing on the old desktop machine.


If MT4 has issues running under Vista, surely they need to be addressed.


I also want to mention that I downloaded and ran the best free file recovery program that I could find and FAILED to recover the indicator file embodying several hours of my work.

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