Holes in Volume bar charts- when will this be fixed???

Questions about MultiCharts and user contributed studies.
vienna
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Holes in Volume bar charts- when will this be fixed???

Postby vienna » 08 Nov 2008

If you plot fixed Volume bar charts, going back several months (Swing charts) with an esignal data feed, Multicharts plots charts that sometimes are OK and sometimes have holes like a swiss cheese... missing weeks of data.

This has been posted here before and brought to the attention. It is not a new issue, it keeps coming back, and it renders MC all but unusable for Swing traders.

My questions are:
1. Will you be able to fix this ever, or is it somehow endemic to your program ( I mean this not sarcastically, I have no idea about programming). It seems to be very difficult to fix, so perhaps it is impossible? (in which case I will have to look for another sofware program, at least for Swing trading).
2. If you are able to fix it, WHEN will you finally fix it? Please don't answer with some BS like "the next release" unless you really mean it. This has been going on for months and months. It has cost me a ton of money in oportunity cost (trades not entered because the charts can not be trusted), and all we have been getting is lip service.
Give me a conservative estimate that you will actually hold. And don't ask me to send you my workspaces (I will of course, but this is getting old). Just open all the available futures months of any electronic grain, data going back a year or so, and plot a volume bar chart, such as 2000 V bar, See what you get.
3. I don't know if this is a MC- esignal problem. If so, please recommend another data provider that has comparable data to esignal, both intraday and historic, only if you are completely sure that the same problem does not exist there as well.

P.S. And I know of course that esignal data only go back 2 weeks. That is beside the point. The data holes I am talking about are for example in March 08 etc., and I always update my data weekly.

Thank you.[/b]

york timothy
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Postby york timothy » 08 Nov 2008

I, too, use volume bars and if we can't trust our charts then the rest is moot. I have tried not to be too critical of MC on this forum but unfortunately the software does not deliver on it's promises.
Aside from being cumbersome to use for stock traders after numerous suggestions on how to improve this, we can't use it for trading if we use volume charts. Repeatedly MC has indicated these things would be fixed and nothing seems to have been done to correct these problems. I am not willing to waste any more time so I will use other software and hope MC will correct these problems eventually.
Marina has been kind and diligent in her efforts to help all of us but unless/until the programmers remedy these major difficulties there is little she can do. Thank you Marina for your help.

Kindest regards,

Tim

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Postby Nick » 09 Nov 2008

My concern is that these things are not fixed in a timely fashion. I was looking forward to upgrading but guess I'll stick with v 3.0 for now.

Issuing hotfixes as opposed to rolling everything into the next version is a much better way of doing things. If you have a version + hotfix you have a stable version to use day to day. If you roll everything into the next beta then you have to worry about new bugs with the new version.

Regular small incremental changes are much better for the customer and also tends to be easier for the developer from a code management point of view.

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Postby momentum » 09 Nov 2008

I must agree with Nick. I'm on an eaqrlier stable version too until this data hole issue is resolved.

I would sure like to hear from you what the policy in this is.

vienna
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Which version is stable?

Postby vienna » 09 Nov 2008

Which version is stable??

As far as I know, there is no version that is immune from the data hole issue... version 3 has it too I think. Perhaps not as glaring as 4.0, but I still remember some holes.....

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Postby TJ » 09 Nov 2008

i am ok with v4 b1440

minor bugs. eg. the menu bar can duplicate. but it is not crashing, or affecting my indicators.

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Postby aljafp » 10 Nov 2008

I am on 2.1.999.999.

stable and reliable.

I don't need any of the bells and whistles from the later versions.

vienna
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Postby vienna » 10 Nov 2008

I am on 2.1.999.999.

stable and reliable.

I don't need any of the bells and whistles from the later versions.
- Does your 2.1 version plot Swing charts (charts going back for months) without data holes??

trader
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Postby trader » 11 Nov 2008

...

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Marina Pashkova
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Postby Marina Pashkova » 11 Nov 2008

To everybody who’s using Bill Schamp’s databases:

Several of Bill Schamp’s users have contacted us over the past two days. It turned out that all those users had exactly the same problem: the internal structure of database they were using was destroyed. The destructions were absolutely identical and occurred in the same places. According to those students of Bill Schamp’s, they received those bases from him.

The above means that Bill did something to the database that compromised its structure. He then supplied his students with it. What exactly he did to cause such disruptions or why he distributed corrupt databases to you is beyond our understanding.

In the e-mails addressed to his students, Bill said that he has a solution for the problem, a data lock. I am afraid this so-called solution only demonstrates Bill’s incompetence in the software development and the lack of understanding how databases are organized. If something is corrupted in their structure, no data locks will help.

We are now simulating different situations which might have resulted in database corruption. One of our assumptions, it that once the inner structure has been compromised, new, good data can disappear as well.

If you want to get rid of the gaps, you would need to export the data from your database, DELETE THE CURRUPT DATABASE from your computer, re-install MultiCharts, and then import the data back into the database. This will give you a new, properly working database with all the data that you had before.

Best regards.

vienna
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Postby vienna » 11 Nov 2008

I would be careful with calling Bill Schamp (your client) "incompetent", since he is not a software programmer. You, however are, and nobody has called you incompetent (yet), even though- as far as I can tell- you seem to have a hard time making your software reliable.

Regarding the data holes: what you say is incorrect. I reopen my charts every weekend. I have opened charts that were previously correct, and new data-holes appeared suddenly. Sometimes I reload and the hole is gone. Can you please explain that phenomenon to me?


So Multicharts now seems to argue that the fault is with Bill's databases.

1. It does not seem to make sense: Bill actually spent a hell of a lot of time trying to fix his database (with Jerry W) using data from other people that did not have holes in the areas he had them.
2. I was told that you were made aware of the issue and acknowledged it. Has he now changed his mind?

Do you really believe what you are saying ? Have you imported clean data and created/ loaded charts that go back months and years with volume bars, and can you tell me with absolute assurance that no problem exists?

I would love to hear that you are correct, and the problem is with our (Bill's) Data! That way I would have a solution...

Only problem is: Where do we now get enough data (for about 200 symbols) to redo all our charts, going back for years, with volume bars. Are you telling me now that I need to buy tick data and import them??? The last time I asked this was a substantial cost.

I would hate to incur that if it then turns out you are wrong. Agree?

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Postby trader » 11 Nov 2008

Vienna,
I have not experienced data holes with CVB charts. I have continuous contract data going back for years through Opentick.
Trader.

vienna
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Postby vienna » 11 Nov 2008

"I have not experienced data holes with CVB charts. I have continuous contract data going back for years through Opentick. "

Sounds good, will check it out- thanks.

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Marina Pashkova
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Postby Marina Pashkova » 11 Nov 2008

Let us think logically.

1. Many MultiCharts customers use volume bars, however, only Bill Schamp's students have these persistent and randomly appearing data holes. Why is it this particular group of MultiCharts customers that is experiencing the data hole problems?

2. As I mentioned in my previous post, a number of Bill’s students have contacted us within the past two days. The problem pattern has been absolutely identical. Once again: we have a certain group of people (Bill’s students) with a very obvious pattern. Why only them and why exactly the same problem?

3. In my previous post I wrote:
We are now simulating different situations which might have resulted in database corruption. One of our assumptions, is that once the inner structure has been compromised, new, good data can disappear as well.
Thus, I explained the phenomenon why the data that was there and then disappeared in my previous message.

4. You are saying:
I would be careful with calling Bill Schamp (your client) "incompetent", since he is not a software programmer.
This is exactly the point I made. Bill is not a software programmer. Still he gives us advice on how to solve the problem. If the solution were as trivial as a data lock, we would have already implemented it. This was explained to Bill on many occasions. However, his recent response was to ask us put him through to our engineers directly. The mere fact that the data that was there disappears proves that his idea is not workable. We have talked to him on many occasions and explained the situation. Now, we don’t have any other choice than to call a spade a spade. A person who doesn’t know how something works but gives advice is incompetent. I don’t know how else it can be called.

5. MultiCharts, the product that you are using, was created by our programmers, not by Bill. The answers I am posting are provided by the same programmers who have been working on the product from day one. If you trust these programmers enough to use the software, it would be logical to trust their expert opinion on this matter. Conversely, if you think that their answers posted by me on the forum are not reliable and than Bill Schamp knows best how it works, there is nothing more that I can say.

6. We are not saying that it wasn’t the program that caused data corruption. It might well have been. There can be scenarios under which such corruptions are possible. However, so far we haven’t been able to identify any such scenarios.

7. Bill Schamp’s databases have dozens or hundreds of millions of ticks on multiple symbol (which results in database files being over 1GB in size). Let us remember that most other programs simply don’t allow you to work with such amount of data. Those that do, like MultiCharts, demand clever data administering and maintenance. 1 GB is an enormous size for a database, it can’t be handled the way smaller databases are. Backup copies need to be created regularly, data records need to be monitored. In case there are new gaps, it is necessary to roll back to the previous versions etc. Obviously, this hasn’t been done in the case under discussion.

The bottom line is: the problem is already there no matter what caused it. We are trying to find out what might have happened to the database. However, we need your assistance. We cannot resolve your problem unless you provide us with sufficient information. So, if you want to work with us on this please come to LiveChat and our engineers will do everything they can to help you.

Also, we are developing a mechanism that would alert you to any corruptions of the database. Thus, it will be possible to investigate the problem right away.

proflogic
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Postby proflogic » 11 Nov 2008

To everybody who’s using Bill Schamp’s databases:

Several of Bill Schamp’s users have contacted us over the past two days. It turned out that all those users had exactly the same problem: the internal structure of database they were using was destroyed. The destructions were absolutely identical and occurred in the same places. According to those students of Bill Schamp’s, they received those bases from him.

The above means that Bill did something to the database that compromised its structure. He then supplied his students with it. What exactly he did to cause such disruptions or why he distributed corrupt databases to you is beyond our understanding.

In the e-mails addressed to his students, Bill said that he has a solution for the problem, a data lock. I am afraid this so-called solution only demonstrates Bill’s incompetence in the software development and the lack of understanding how databases are organized. If something is corrupted in their structure, no data locks will help.

We are now simulating different situations which might have resulted in database corruption. One of our assumptions, it that once the inner structure has been compromised, new, good data can disappear as well.

If you want to get rid of the gaps, you would need to export the data from your database, DELETE THE CURRUPT DATABASE from your computer, re-install MultiCharts, and then import the data back into the database. This will give you a new, properly working database with all the data that you had before.

Best regards.
Marina,

To begin with the original corruption was caused by a cache problem that MultiCharts caused in an earlier version. You confirmed this and I have the email that proves that this is what I was told. So Marina, are you lying? That's the only choices.

Individuals that I shared my data with aren't the only ones that have this problem so how did others using MultiCharts have there data corrupted?

If you think someone that trades for a living purposely corrupts their ability to earn a living then you need help?

I tried for almost a year to privately communiate with you so you could offer me a solution and he repeatly put me off. I know about creating a new Database. I'm the one that brought up to Dennis about recreating the database file from scratch. I've repeated asked Dennis for help in accomplishing this because the merge tool to do this is a tool inside your own program and created by your company. I offered to spend almost US$4000 to purchase new tick data to build a new database. Dennis has continually told me that he can't guarantee that if your company does this that they could do it correctly. I have emails to prove this conversation as well. Do you think I do not save these emails. Well, if you guys can't use your own tools correctly what makes you think we users and developers are going to any better at it????

The Data Lock is a solution to solve the occurance of recovery from any possible future corruption. God forbid your company do something to ward off future problems and bugs. You have a hard enought time fixing the ones you create in your released versions and betas. Do you think it would never happen again, especially since others, not my students or individuals that I shared my data with have had the same data problems.

As far as my incompetence in software development goes, I want you to know little girl that I was on the team that created the first cloning software that created the Computer Forensics field. And let me tell you that the exact software that we created IS the same software that is used today. We developed the software that created the computer law you are governed by today. That software was bug free when we released it and it is still bug free today.

You need to stop making excuses for your own mistakes, stop pointing fingers and work to solve them, everyone benefits.

Your organization is great for not offering solutions, just excuses. Eveything you mentioned in your post is what was already disgussed with your boss. So you decide to post your opinion publically to make me look like an unintelligent imbecile. Let me tell you that in this battle of words, we all lose. You for obvious reasons and your clients for getting no solutions.

Bill Schamp

proflogic
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Postby proflogic » 11 Nov 2008

Let us think logically.

1. Many MultiCharts customers use volume bars, however, only Bill Schamp's students have these persistent and randomly appearing data holes. Why is it this particular group of MultiCharts customers that is experiencing the data hole problems?

I teach logic, so yes let's start thinking logically. Others have contacted me that I haven't shared my database with, so why is their data corrupted?

2. As I mentioned in my previous post, a number of Bill’s students have contacted us within the past two days. The problem pattern has been absolutely identical. Once again: we have a certain group of people (Bill’s students) with a very obvious pattern. Why only them and why exactly the same problem?

You told me that the original problem was caused by an early version of MultiCharts and the way that the cache was implemented. Was he lying? I have the email to validate what I'm saying. Once we started sharing the data, we shared the same problem. That is a logical answer Marina.

3. In my previous post I wrote:
We are now simulating different situations which might have resulted in database corruption. One of our assumptions, is that once the inner structure has been compromised, new, good data can disappear as well.
Thus, I explained the phenomenon why the data that was there and then disappeared in my previous message.

Very good, this is the same thing Dennis and I discussed months ago. My solution was to build a new database but he couldn't guarantee anyone in your organization could successfully use your own merge tool. So if your people can't successfully use it how are your customers??????????

4. You are saying:
I would be careful with calling Bill Schamp (your client) "incompetent", since he is not a software programmer.
This is exactly the point I made. Bill is not a software programmer. Still he gives us advice on how to solve the problem. If the solution were as trivial as a data lock, we would have already implemented it. This was explained to Bill on many occasions. However, his recent response was to ask us put him through to our engineers directly. The mere fact that the data that was there disappears proves that his idea is not workable. We have talked to him on many occasions and explained the situation. Now, we don’t have any other choice than to call a spade a spade. A person who doesn’t know how something works but gives advice is incompetent. I don’t know how else it can be called.

Your making a statement that is incorrect. (In English we call that a lie). I was NEVER EVER EVER told by anyone in your organization either verbally or by email that the "Data Lock" wouldn't work. I've spoke to some of the top programmers at Los Alamos labs and their conclusion is that the "Data Lock" would be a perfect solution for the future recovery of corrupted data. I suppose those invdividuals that have multiple PhD's on their walls and probably forgot more than you know about programming are incompetent too. And for the incompetent comment, for all of you out there I was on the developmental team that created the first Computer Forensics Software. That software was bug free from the first release and is still used today . . . bug free. That software has only been updated to use in updated operating systems. That is only one project of many I was involved in. I know how the software environment works and have been in it for more years that you have Marina. Don't assume what you don't know to be a fact.

5. MultiCharts, the product that you are using, was created by our programmers, not by Bill. The answers I am posting are provided by the same programmers who have been working on the product from day one. If you trust these programmers enough to use the software, it would be logical to trust their expert opinion on this matter. Conversely, if you think that their answers posted by me on the forum are not reliable and than Bill Schamp knows best how it works, there is nothing more that I can say.

The problem is that these individuals that purchased your program are looking for a solution not excuses. We know how to solve the problem, both short term and long term. Short term, build a new database and long term, create a lock on the data so that this problem (however it occured) never happens again. Short term all we are asking is for help in using YOUR MERGE TOOL. We can't even seem to get anyone in your organization that is competent to use it. How about YOU?

6. We are not saying that it wasn’t the program that caused data corruption. It might well have been. There can be scenarios under which such corruptions are possible. However, so far we haven’t been able to identify any such scenarios.

Wow, admission of a possibility.

7. Bill Schamp’s databases have dozens or hundreds of millions of ticks on multiple symbol (which results in database files being over 1GB in size). Let us remember that most other programs simply don’t allow you to work with such amount of data. Those that do, like MultiCharts, demand clever data administering and maintenance. 1 GB is an enormous size for a database, it can’t be handled the way smaller databases are. Backup copies need to be created regularly, data records need to be monitored. In case there are new gaps, it is necessary to roll back to the previous versions etc. Obviously, this hasn’t been done in the case under discussion.

Professional charting software programs can easily manage large files. Reuters for one. Other institution programs do as well. Are you telling me that MultiCharts isn't a professional charting software tool. I also offered a solution to your data storage as well. This was by storing the symbol information in individual folders. This again was explained to me by one of those incompetent Los Alamos programmers. And to clarify another point for you so you no longer put out more misinformation, back-ups of my data were done daily. The integrety was proofed daily as well. The corruption still occured.

The bottom line is: the problem is already there no matter what caused it. We are trying to find out what might have happened to the database. However, we need your assistance. We cannot resolve your problem unless you provide us with sufficient information. So, if you want to work with us on this please come to LiveChat and our engineers will do everything they can to help you.

You have the solution, balls in your court. I'll pay for the data, I just want someone in your organization to show me how user-friendly your merge tool is . . . or obviously isn't?

Also, we are developing a mechanism that would alert you to any corruptions of the database. Thus, it will be possible to investigate the problem right away.

Thanks for that. That would be a nice feature but the "Data Lock" is more critical to users that actually trade for a living and use your program.[/quote]

proflogic
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Postby proflogic » 11 Nov 2008

Wow, now you are editing my posts. Is that how the free media works in Russia?

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Marina Pashkova
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Postby Marina Pashkova » 12 Nov 2008

We are responding to this post to give objective information to everybody who is predisposed to think logically.

As we have already said, Bill Schamp is incompetent. Let me explain why.

Bill Schamp absolutely seriously claims that he once almost became a Nobel Prize winner. He also proclaimed himself a professor of logic and a software developer. All at the same time.
Obviously, this can’t be true, but Bill has his own peculiar perception of reality. Therefore, he cannot objectively assess the situation and our arguments don’t mean anything to him. Apart from that, Bill misrepresents facts as is typical of him.

Those who are capable of thinking rationally will find the explanations below.

1. MultiCharts has both a tick storage (raw tick-by-tick) and cache. Cache is a special file storing the charts that have already been used. For example, if you plotted a 2401 volume chart, we save the bar-by-bar data into cache to speed up opening a chart with the same resolution next time.

Sometimes cache can contain holes. Therefore it is enough to clear cache in QuoteManager and the chart will be recreated from raw ticks, which will eliminate gaps. This is a minor problem that can be easily dealt with. Even so, we will try to eliminate this problem in future, if possible.


2. Bill refuses to understand that his is a completely different issue. His storage with raw ticks was corrupted. The cause of this corruption is unknown to us. We don’t know what caused it. It might have been a program error, hardware or SQL Firebird failure. For now, all the problems that we witnessed only manifested themselves in Bill’s databases. If we see that there are other databases that have been corrupted, we will make the conclusion that the problem is persistent. Until we see that, it is nothing but hypothesis.

3. Denis patiently kept working with Bill while the only information we had was his descriptions. He refused demonstrating the problem via remote connection.
We explained many times that the internal database structure was corrupted. Naturally, no software developer in their right mind would recommend a solution like Data Lock which exemplifies incompetence and is nothing more but a fantasy of a fuzzy logic professor. Originally, Data Lock was a potential solution to avoid data being over-written. This was a solution for the hypothetical cause of the problem. However, in the light of the new information about data corruption it became clear that the problem we were facing was of a different nature therefore Data Lock would not help. However, Bill has chosen to believe in this measure and keeps giving incompetent advice by imaginary experts.

4. Bill asked us to import the data for 200 futures into his database. We told him that we would do that for him for free as a courtesy. We also told him that data import would be performed by people which would mean that due to the possibility of human errors, the result might not be 100% perfect.

Bill misrepresented this information saying that we are not confident in the reliability of our program, while all we did was to let him know that there might be errors because human errors can never be completely avoided.

5. Denis told Bill that it would be necessary that his students should demonstrate similar issues – to allow our engineers find a pattern. Instead, Bill told his customers to contact us and tell that that it was UNACCEPTABLE. Such an act is nothing but an attempt to exert pressure. A totally meaningless attempt at that because this way customers do not provide us with any information that we could work with. Moreover, most of his students only know that there is a problem because Bill told them so. Most of them have not been able to demonstrate the issue. However, thanks to a few responsible customers who did come to the remote connection to show us what was going on we were discovered that they were all using Bill’s database, which helped to explain the problem.

The bottom line:

If you have problems and you want them resolved, please come to helpdesk. By now, we have developed a solution that will allow to fix the corrupt databases. Thus, if you have this issue just contact us and you will receive assistance. Further posts in this thread and posts on this topic elsewhere will be ignored because trying to rationally respond to emotion-driven statements does not make sense.

Finally, we do NOT edit posts by our customers. We have nothing to hide. If we wanted to hide anything we would simply delete the post and deny forum access to a particular customer. Any of you can write whatever you want and you’ll be heard.

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Postby TJ » 12 Nov 2008

I thought Denis was Bill's buddy?

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Postby Marina Pashkova » 12 Nov 2008

I thought Denis was Bill's buddy?
Denis thought so too.

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Postby proflogic » 12 Nov 2008

I thought Denis was Bill's buddy?
Denis thought so too.
Friendship tends to deteriate when you are lied to on a continuing basis.

Will respond to further lies you posted earlier in a few minutes.

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Postby proflogic » 12 Nov 2008

We are responding to this post to give objective information to everybody who is predisposed to think logically.

As we have already said, Bill Schamp is incompetent. Let me explain why.

Bill Schamp absolutely seriously claims that he once almost became a Nobel Prize winner. He also proclaimed himself a professor of logic and a software developer. All at the same time.
Obviously, this can’t be true, but Bill has his own peculiar perception of reality. Therefore, he cannot objectively assess the situation and our arguments don’t mean anything to him. Apart from that, Bill misrepresents facts as is typical of him.

"I was nominated by a Nobel committee in Switzerland in 2006 for my research in price movement as it realated to price bars and volume. That isn't the same as winning a Nobel but I wouldn't expect you to understand the difference. I taught logic and problem solving at a corporate level to programmers inside developmental environments. I worked on numerious software developmental teams over the last 30 years as well. I can document my experience and my achievements. I'm sorry you feel the necessity to belittle my accomplishments just to justify your position."

Those who are capable of thinking rationally will find the explanations below.

1. MultiCharts has both a tick storage (raw tick-by-tick) and cache. Cache is a special file storing the charts that have already been used. For example, if you plotted a 2401 volume chart, we save the bar-by-bar data into cache to speed up opening a chart with the same resolution next time.

Sometimes cache can contain holes. Therefore it is enough to clear cache in QuoteManager and the chart will be recreated from raw ticks, which will eliminate gaps. This is a minor problem that can be easily dealt with. Even so, we will try to eliminate this problem in future, if possible.

"Correct, this is what I was told over 6 months ago by Dennis and was told at that time that he would work quickly to fix this problem. When working with over 500 separate symbols it is near impossible to individually clear the cache on each daily use because the multiple clearing feature doesn't work. If this is such a minor problem why has it taken over 6 months to fix and it still hasn't been addressed??? This is one of my main reasons for the build up in my frustration. I've been constantly told that problems will be addressed and then they are repeatedly ignored"

2. Bill refuses to understand that his is a completely different issue. His storage with raw ticks was corrupted. The cause of this corruption is unknown to us. We don’t know what caused it. It might have been a program error, hardware or SQL Firebird failure. For now, all the problems that we witnessed only manifested themselves in Bill’s databases. If we see that there are other databases that have been corrupted, we will make the conclusion that the problem is persistent. Until we see that, it is nothing but hypothesis.

I completely understand that these are different issues. I have stated previously that I know my database is currently corrupted. I have ideas of why and how it became corrupted but for whatever reason that information was never given to the engineers to test. I expressed the reason was (on top of the cache problem) that opening multiple charts and then not getting a completed process had potentially corrupted the data. Example: Opening multiple charts and then the data lost signal. For whatever reason, data was lost and data wasn't filled in and the chart had to be prematurely closed either forced by MultiCharts, forced by the OS due to freezing up or manually shutting down the system without ample time to save the data. Dennis stated that MultiCharts tested opening and closing a few charts but never rigorously tested opening the charts as I or other traders do watching multiple markets. Now to clarify, I run a 3.0 mhz Quad Core trading computer with 8 gig of ram and Windows XP Pro 64 so there is plenty of power to drive most applications. Even with this powerhorse I still try not to abuse MultiCharts by being careful with the number of charts I open. Still errors do happen. Yes, everything up to this point is a hypothesis but that doesn't mean it should be ignored."

3. Denis patiently kept working with Bill while the only information we had was his descriptions. He refused demonstrating the problem via remote connection.
We explained many times that the internal database structure was corrupted. Naturally, no software developer in their right mind would recommend a solution like Data Lock which exemplifies incompetence and is nothing more but a fantasy of a fuzzy logic professor. Originally, Data Lock was a potential solution to avoid data being over-written. This was a solution for the hypothetical cause of the problem. However, in the light of the new information about data corruption it became clear that the problem we were facing was of a different nature therefore Data Lock would not help. However, Bill has chosen to believe in this measure and keeps giving incompetent advice by imaginary experts.

This is a lie. I connected remotely with support one time for this problem and then was told by Dennis to send him my database and workspaces so they could try to duplicate the problem there. I sent him my database and every one of my over 400 workspaces. After a week Dennis got back to me and told me the database was corrupt (something I already knew) and that they couldn't duplicate the creation of the holes. He explained to me that they opened some of the Swing Charts. I asked him how many and he said a few. I explained to him that he had to open multiple workspaces to try to simulate overtasking the system and force it to crash. Then close the system, reopen and look for the holes. THis is how we came up with the solution that potentially prematurely closing MultiCharts before the data is fully saved was casuing the gaps. Dennis stated (I have the email to verify this) that previously MultiCharts saved the data multiple times as it remained open but was later changed to only save the data upon exit. Since this information, regarding the way the data was saved, was never expressed to the users, it is totally understandable that my data became corrupted during the time this feature was changed. If one only opened some chart weekly and one figured that the data was being saved by the program on an ongoing basis when the program was open and then MultiCharts froze up, one wouldn't expect the data they were currently working with would be lost, unless the program changed to only save the data until it exited properly.

The "Data Lock" wasn't suggested as a solution to the data hole problem it was suggested as a solution to the potential of a reoccurance or continuing of the problem. The continued likelyhood of this problem happening still exists since the original "minor" problem of the cache still hasn't been fixed and as far as I've been told, the problem of saving the data only on exit hasn't been fixed either. Both or either potentially could be causing the data holes.


4. Bill asked us to import the data for 200 futures into his database. We told him that we would do that for him for free as a courtesy. We also told him that data import would be performed by people which would mean that due to the possibility of human errors, the result might not be 100% perfect.

"I asked Dennis if there was someone in his organization, experienced with using their own data merge tool, that was willing to rebuild my database if I purchased the data. I offered to pay the person but stated that it would have to be completed with in the update range of eSignal. He stated to me that he couldn't guarantee that it could be done successfully nor could it be done within that time frame. He thought I would have to purchase more data to fill in the gaps created by the lag in time to create the database. I completely understood and know human error exists as well but I would like to have at least some confidence that after spending US$4000 for new data that the job wouldn't be a waste of time. Dennis couldn't give me that confidence nor direct me to someone to speak to that was experienced in using the merge tool that could help me. That speaks volumes."

Bill misrepresented this information saying that we are not confident in the reliability of our program, while all we did was to let him know that there might be errors because human errors can never be completely avoided.

"I have no reason not to have confidence in MultiCharts . . . I use it to trade. I was told by Dennis that he didn't know of anyone in his organization that was proficient at using the merge tool. That pretty much speaks for itself."

5. Denis told Bill that it would be necessary that his students should demonstrate similar issues – to allow our engineers find a pattern. Instead, Bill told his customers to contact us and tell that that it was UNACCEPTABLE. Such an act is nothing but an attempt to exert pressure. A totally meaningless attempt at that because this way customers do not provide us with any information that we could work with. Moreover, most of his students only know that there is a problem because Bill told them so. Most of them have not been able to demonstrate the issue. However, thanks to a few responsible customers who did come to the remote connection to show us what was going on we were discovered that they were all using Bill’s database, which helped to explain the problem.

"In previous Newsletters over the last 6 months I asked my students to contact tech support when they experienced data holes or gaps to see if we could get a solution to it. I can't force them but have emails from some showing where they did contact support with no solution found. It wasn't until last week that I contacted my students again about the problem and stated the urgency of the problem that we finally got a reaction from you and your group. By your own words you have known about the problem with the cache and Dennis has been aware of it for months but it still wasn't fixed."

The bottom line:

If you have problems and you want them resolved, please come to helpdesk. By now, we have developed a solution that will allow to fix the corrupt databases. Thus, if you have this issue just contact us and you will receive assistance. Further posts in this thread and posts on this topic elsewhere will be ignored because trying to rationally respond to emotion-driven statements does not make sense.


Finally, we do NOT edit posts by our customers. We have nothing to hide. If we wanted to hide anything we would simply delete the post and deny forum access to a particular customer. Any of you can write whatever you want and you’ll be heard.

"This is a lie. I have the exact post as it was emailed to you before I posted it in this forum and you deleted Dennis' name and inserted a reference to yourself. An edit is an edit.

"Your clients simply want a solution to the problem and I am one of them. The time you have wasted in this forum calling me names could have been spent at fixing that minor problem you mentioned earlier or at least answering one of my original questions regarding rebuilding of a new database. There are about 200 individuals out there and they are all your clients, that could use a fresh database, specific instructions on how to maintain it (database management tools), a fix to the cache and "saving data on exit" problems potentially causing the data hole problem.

Your Clients Bottomline

Are you going to continue to ignore this problem and misdirect the focus toward me and continue to call me names or are you going to work toward fixing this problem and creating some better client relations???"

This has been sent in it's uneditied untirety to Marina, Dennis, Sergee and all of my students. Hopefully MultiCharts will begin to focus on correcting the problem regardless of its origin so we all can get back to focusing on our Swing Trading and begin again to ween ourselves from Intraday trading.

vienna
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Postby vienna » 12 Nov 2008

This is an unbelievably unprofessional post.



[quote]Obviously, this can’t be true, but Bill has his own peculiar perception of reality. Therefore, he cannot objectively assess the situation and our arguments don’t mean anything to him. Apart from that, Bill misrepresents facts as is typical of him.
quote]

fs

Postby fs » 13 Nov 2008

Obviously, this can’t be true, but Bill has his own peculiar perception of reality. Therefore, he cannot objectively assess the situation and our arguments don’t mean anything to him. Apart from that, Bill misrepresents facts as is typical of him.
This is an unbelievably unprofessional post.
I have to agree that this is very unprofessional and leave a very bad taste. Unfortunately, Marina has a habbit of calling customers incompetent. Even if Bill is wrong in this case, Marina's whole e-mail could have been summarized in a simple paragraph pointing out that he has done something to the structure of the database, that the issue was not caused by MC and to contact support to help them fix it. There was no need for this lengthy personal attack on him and this "he said/she said" dialogue serves no purpose other than showcasing how unprofessional TSSupport is.

The amusing part of all this is when I reported issues with volume charts in this post: http://forum.tssupport.com/viewtopic.php?t=5533 , Marina has e-mailed me and claimed that volume charts are working correctly and her justification for that was that Bill said there are no issues with it. And now she goes to great lengths to discredit him.

TSSupport don't realize how much they are hurting themselves. Prospective customers only have to be referred to this thread to see how TSSupport interact with their customers to help them decide if this is really something they want to buy. Who in their right mind will pay $1500 for a product when customers are getting treated like this in public?

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Marina Pashkova
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Postby Marina Pashkova » 13 Nov 2008

Fanus,

1. I would suggest making statements based on facts and not on opinions. If you knew what preceded the current conflict, you would not have written here. Unfortunately, we have to join the discussion because the freedom of speech on our forum means that different points of view can be expressed. Of course, we could follow suit of the majority of our colleagues and simply delete the posts of the people who make unfavorable comments.

Please remember that when we were wrong about drawdowns be apologized and publicly admitted the problem. We still deeply regret that we had not been able to see it until you placed your post on EliteTrader, but that was a useful experience.

Regarding the current discussion. I simply don’t have the right to remain silent because otherwise users will not have a chance to see arguments from either side. Do you agree with that? If you do, why are you calling my statements unprofessional? If we did not care what our customers say we would simply moderate the forum.

Talking about Bill and your comments.

Bill is not simply our customer, he is our partner. Many of the features implemented in MultiCharts have been developed on his requests.

My post was a response to his aggressive e-mail campaign. In his e-mails he was peevishly urging his students to contact us and tell us that he had a problem.

We gave our assessment of what is going on and explained why we think that way. If we don’t do this, then we’ll witness exactly what can be seen in your post: you are referring to wrong bars, but that is a completely different issue. Bill considers bars to be correct, but is complaining that there are holes in data. You, however, mix it all together.

Customers simply cannot understand what is going on and make far-fetching conclusions.


What is happening on the forum might look unprofessional but I don’t see another way to tell everybody the truth.

Finally. You are one of our customers who are constantly criticizing us but still keep using our product. Could you please answer why? Do you like the process of criticizing or do you want to make MultiCharts a better product?

The bottom line is: we want to work on real problems and not fight against subjective opinions and compromise the reputation of our platform. Therefore, if you are really concerned with what the platform will look like in the nearest future, give us facts and we’ll be providing solutions.

If you intend to criticize us without any constructive goal, it will be easier for us to do what most of our colleagues do: allow only posts that are favourable for us. I am sure that both we and you will lose a lot as a result.

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TJ
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Postby TJ » 13 Nov 2008

...Now to clarify, I run a 3.0 mhz Quad Core trading computer with 8 gig of ram and Windows XP Pro 64
The Win XP 64 does not help. I am not sure if the 8 GB is a benefit...
These might even be the beginning of the problem.

First, MC is a 32 bit application (pls correct me if I am wrong).
MC can run on 64 bit OS, including XP/VISTA 64, but fundamentally it is still a program compiled in a 32 bit environment.

i.e. MC is operating within the confines of a 32 bit program. Although it runs on a 64 bit OS, it is not addressing the memory as a native 64 bit program.

The XP pro 64 has always been an enigma... it is named XP, but internally has little to do with the 32 bit XP. I found it has more incompatibilities and quarks than the Vista.


Whatever the causes... I just hope this gets resolved soon.

fs

Postby fs » 13 Nov 2008

Fanus,

1. I would suggest making statements based on facts and not on opinions. If you knew what preceded the current conflict, you would not have written here. Unfortunately, we have to join the discussion because the freedom of speech on our forum means that different points of view can be expressed. Of course, we could follow suit of the majority of our colleagues and simply delete the posts of the people who make unfavorable comments.

Please remember that when we were wrong about drawdowns be apologized and publicly admitted the problem. We still deeply regret that we had not been able to see it until you placed your post on EliteTrader, but that was a useful experience.

Regarding the current discussion. I simply don’t have the right to remain silent because otherwise users will not have a chance to see arguments from either side. Do you agree with that? If you do, why are you calling my statements unprofessional? If we did not care what our customers say we would simply moderate the forum.

Talking about Bill and your comments.

Bill is not simply our customer, he is our partner. Many of the features implemented in MultiCharts have been developed on his requests.

My post was a response to his aggressive e-mail campaign. In his e-mails he was peevishly urging his students to contact us and tell us that he had a problem.

We gave our assessment of what is going on and explained why we think that way. If we don’t do this, then we’ll witness exactly what can be seen in your post: you are referring to wrong bars, but that is a completely different issue. Bill considers bars to be correct, but is complaining that there are holes in data. You, however, mix it all together.

Customers simply cannot understand what is going on and make far-fetching conclusions.


What is happening on the forum might look unprofessional but I don’t see another way to tell everybody the truth.

Finally. You are one of our customers who are constantly criticizing us but still keep using our product. Could you please answer why? Do you like the process of criticizing or do you want to make MultiCharts a better product?

The bottom line is: we want to work on real problems and not fight against subjective opinions and compromise the reputation of our platform. Therefore, if you are really concerned with what the platform will look like in the nearest future, give us facts and we’ll be providing solutions.

If you intend to criticize us without any constructive goal, it will be easier for us to do what most of our colleagues do: allow only posts that are favourable for us. I am sure that both we and you will lose a lot as a result.
Marina

I was not critizing MC in this post and haven't for a while and did not bring up any of the things in the past. We talked about it and this is in the past. Unfortunately this appears that you cannot get over it. Just let it go.

My comments were based purely on what happened in THIS thread. All I am saying is to take a look at your posts from the viewpoint of a prospective customer and ask yourself the question, that if you were a prospective customer and see your posts on here, would you purchase Multicharts?

I fully agree that you have the right to defend your product. But there are different ways to do that. Insulting and questioning customers background is not the best option. The mere fact that customers already call you out as being unprofessional and needing to calm down, means TSSupport is already losing. If you cannot understand how acting this unprofessionally, regardless of the reason, are hurting TSSupport, then think about the impact a link to this thread will have when included in a review of Multicharts in a trading magazine. Do you think this will help or hurt the review?

We both know that TSSupport will be the big loser if you only limit the forum to postive postings. This will force customers to go to more public forums to report and get issues resolved which will make all the issues much more visible where now it is still more contained to a limited audience.

You can go on and on about facts and not to have opinions, but my first reaction to this thread was "wow, Marina has completely lost it this time". I am willing to bet I am not the only one with this reaction. Regardless of how you feel about it, opinions and impressions IS important in any business. Especially if you are in a business heavily dependant on new sales.

proflogic
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Postby proflogic » 13 Nov 2008

The problems have been resolved.

I personally feel that MC is the best charting software package out there.

I'm resolving the issues with my database internally and have come up with a way to insure the corruption never happens again. This is all I care about because those of us that trade for a living need to have confidence in the environment we are trading inside. No confidence . . . no profit.

Thank you.
Bill Schamp

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Postby jek » 13 Nov 2008

Name calling is never a good idea.
Let's please concentrate on making things better.

In that spirit, we desperately need some help managing our environment defined by MC.

When you say "export all your data and re-import it into a new database" you are telling us to do a huge amount of work that is error prone.

It feels like Microsoft saying "reinstall the operating system and all the applications" whenever they don't know what is wrong.

It sounds to me that we need:
* A tool to check the database for corruption.
* The ability to list all of the symbols/data in the database.
* The ability to export all or large parts of the database.
* The ability to import large amounts of data into the database.

I mentioned one idea for import/export here:
http://forum.tssupport.com/viewtopic.php?t=4471

It would be ok if this takes a day (on the weekend) to run.
We shouldn't have to do it often (I hope).

Bill mentioned a "merge tool". Is there something being worked on to help with the data management problem?

Data is the life blood of trading.

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Postby jek » 13 Nov 2008

I'm resolving the issues with my database internally and have come up with a way to insure the corruption never happens again.
Please tell us what you use to insure no corruption and what you are doing to resolve the issues? Is there a fix or tool from MC?

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Postby TJ » 13 Nov 2008

The problems have been resolved.
I personally feel that MC is the best charting software package out there.
I'm resolving the issues with my database internally and have come up with a way to insure the corruption never happens again. This is all I care about because those of us that trade for a living need to have confidence in the environment we are trading inside. No confidence . . . no profit.
Thank you.
Bill Schamp
Thanks for the good news.

May I propose that TSSupport, with the consent of all parties concerned... remove the "side-tracked" posts from this forum.

Let's get back to business.

TIA

ed roche
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Postby ed roche » 13 Nov 2008

I'm resolving the issues with my database internally and have come up with a way to insure the corruption never happens again.
Please tell us what you use to insure no corruption and what you are doing to resolve the issues? Is there a fix or tool from MC?
Yes indeed please tell us.

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Postby jek » 14 Nov 2008

It sounds to me that we need:
* A tool to check the database for corruption.
* The ability to list all of the symbols/data in the database.
* The ability to export all or large parts of the database.
* The ability to import large amounts of data into the database.
Would this tool be useful to check for corruption?
http://www.topshareware.com/IBFirstAID- ... -12877.htm

fs

Postby fs » 14 Nov 2008

The problems have been resolved.
I personally feel that MC is the best charting software package out there.
I'm resolving the issues with my database internally and have come up with a way to insure the corruption never happens again. This is all I care about because those of us that trade for a living need to have confidence in the environment we are trading inside. No confidence . . . no profit.
Thank you.
Bill Schamp
Thanks for the good news.

May I propose that TSSupport, with the consent of all parties concerned... remove the "side-tracked" posts from this forum.

Let's get back to business.

TIA
No posts should be removed. If TSSupport feels they have acted appropriately professional, there is no reason to hide anything. I think this is important that potential customers see for themselves what kind of support to expect from TSSupport and make up their own mind. If I refer someone to review this thread to decide for themselves if MC and TSSupport is the right fit for them, I cannot be accused of theoretical speculations.

aljafp
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Postby aljafp » 15 Nov 2008

So at the end of the day, is this a problem with Multicharts ?

Or a problem with an incompentent user blowing up over his own mistakes ?

vienna
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Postby vienna » 15 Nov 2008

So at the end of the day, is this a problem with Multicharts ?

Or a problem with an incompentent user blowing up over his own mistakes ?


I have contacted people (not posting on this forum) who confirmed to me that they had problems with Data Holes and werenot sharing a database with Bill, so that should answer your question.

Having said that, all I am interested in is in finding a solution and in moving on, the rest is inefficient.
MC is a good program if these kinks are ironed out.

aljafp
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Postby aljafp » 15 Nov 2008

So at the end of the day, is this a problem with Multicharts ?

Or a problem with an incompentent user blowing up over his own mistakes ?


I have contacted people (not posting on this forum) who confirmed to me that they had problems with Data Holes and werenot sharing a database with Bill, so that should answer your question.

Having said that, all I am interested in is in finding a solution and in moving on, the rest is inefficient.
MC is a good program if these kinks are ironed out.
If that's the case, then those people who is not sharing the database must contact multicharts with their problem.
Multicharts can you confirm you received complains from such people ?
BTW are there people swing trading with volume charts with no such problem ?


Either its a fault with Multicharts or its a problem with the stupid user.

If its a problem with Multicharts then Tssupport must apologise and the program must be fixed.
If its a problem witht the user, then he should apologise for making a fuss.

We cannot just let the problem go quietly.

So which is which ?


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