No connection in MetaTrader 4

What is causing it

Usually a wrong server or login, or no route to the broker.

Why this happens

MetaTrader 4 maintains a live socket to one specific trade server, chosen by the server name you selected at login. If that name does not correspond to a reachable server the terminal has nothing to connect to, and it reports no connection rather than a bad server name, because it never got as far as being answered. Brokers commonly run several servers with near-identical names, so picking the wrong one from a list is easy and produces exactly this result.

The identical status appears when the route is blocked rather than absent. Firewalls, VPNs, some antivirus products and many corporate or public networks filter the outbound connection MT4 needs, so the terminal retries endlessly against a server it cannot reach. That is why the same credentials can connect instantly on a mobile hotspot and fail on an office network.

The fix, step by step

1. Check your internet is working.
2. Go to File, Login to Trade Account.
3. Confirm the Server exactly matches your broker email, as brokers list several.
4. Re-enter the login number and password carefully.
5. Right-click the connection status and Rescan Servers.
6. Contact your broker if the account may be inactive.

How to confirm it is fixed

The bottom right should show a data centre name with a signal bar and a live traffic figure that keeps increasing. In Market Watch, the bid and ask on a major pair should tick during market hours. Frozen prices with a healthy status bar mean the connection is fine and something else is wrong.

Stopping it happening again

Keep the exact server name from your broker welcome email, and install MT4 from your own broker so their server list is present and current. If you regularly trade on a network you do not control, have a phone hotspot available, because network-level blocking is not something you can fix from inside the platform.