Login returns "Invalid account".
The login, password or server do not match, or the account is a demo that has expired.
The account number, password and server are checked as a set. The server you selected receives the request, and it can only validate accounts that live on it, so a perfectly correct number and password will still be rejected if the account belongs to a different server, such as a live account being sent to a demo server. The platform does not say which of the three was wrong, which is why the message feels unhelpful.
Expired demos are a specific MT4 habit worth knowing. Brokers commonly set demo accounts to expire after a period of inactivity or a fixed term, and once expired the account no longer exists on the server, so a login that worked last month fails today with nothing having changed at your end. The other recurring cause is the investor password, which is read-only and is not the password the platform wants for a trading login.
After logging in, the account line at the top of the Navigator should show your account number and the server you chose. Open the Journal tab and check the newest entries for this session, which record the login attempt and its result. If the New Order button works rather than being greyed out, you are on the trader password rather than the investor one.
Copy credentials from the broker email rather than retyping them, and watch for trailing spaces when pasting. If you keep a demo for practice, log in to it periodically so it does not lapse, or simply expect to open a fresh one. Label your demo and live saved logins distinctly, since server confusion causes most of these failures.
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