msthunder1 wrote: Tue Mar 08, 2022 12:31 am Hi,

so i have noticed alot of incosistency when testing EA at different times on MT4. Let me elaborate:

Im having my EAs to use iCustom; for reading information from different indicators, based on which i decide if im gonna enter a position. The funny thing that happens here is, if i test said EA, lets say sometime in january, based on backtesting for 1 year, i get some results. I optimize the EA to give me the best results it can. Once it does, i approve the EA for forwardtesting.
Then if i test the said EA in march for the same period of time, with the same pair settings, same spread, the results are completely different. I should also say that, for any given pair, i create a template that consists of the indicators that the EA is using with the same values, and leave it with the window open. Obvisouly, i use only non-repaint indicators for this.

I could never find any relavant topic to address this wierd behavoour. Did anyone ever notice the same thing?

As said, the EA consists of different indicators. Each time i test an EA, the tester in visual mode draws the indicators on the chart after the backtesting is done, and you can read the entries manualy as well. If i try to test the individual indicators, i can sometimes notice something else thats quite strange - the indicator, when looked at trough the saved template i mentioned above, looks different then the one that is in the visual mode of the tester. It is a rare occurance, but after some passage of time, lets say a few months, i can almost always see the change in indicator values. The indicator thats most often the offender of this occurance is volatility-quality-indicator2. I will attach it.
It could be that the shift in the EA happens because of the shift in the indicator, but then again, why does the shift in the indicator even happen in the first place. I havent deleted my history or re-download it... I cant make any sense of it and hopefully someone can shed some light on the subject.

The third thing i have noticed is - i made a template and EA on 1 device, transferred it to another. only to see that the same indicator with the same input values are not the same on those two devices. Hurts me to say that the one indicator i have noticed this on was the highly valued Adaptive - jurik filter (mtf + alerts + fl's). So the green+red lines were different on the two devices; i had to change the values on the second device to make sure that the lines match. But thats not how it should be though, is it? What i cannot confirm is if the history for the pair where the indicator was used was the same. I did use the same method to fetch the history - open a chart, select the preferred timeframe, and scroll the chart back to desired time. But is the history really such a problem?

All this combined makes me feel a little unsure when making a strategy based on the history, if the EA is inconsistent or if the indicator is inconsistent. Its like, why make it if the indicator results will change with time, or if the history is going to be manipulated all the time. But maybe im just missing something that someone else already solved? Is it the history? Is the a MT4 only issue? Or is it broker dependant? What are your history settings?