No connection in MetaTrader 5

What is causing it

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

Why this happens

MetaTrader does not hold a permanent open line to your broker in the way a website stays loaded in a tab. It keeps a live socket to a specific trade server, identified by the server name you picked at login, and it re-authenticates every time that socket drops. If the server name is wrong, the terminal has nowhere valid to connect to and simply reports no connection rather than telling you the name was invalid, because from its point of view it never got far enough to be rejected.

The same status also appears when the route to the broker is blocked rather than wrong. Corporate networks, some public wifi, VPNs and occasionally antivirus software filter the outbound connection the terminal needs, so the terminal keeps retrying against a server that is unreachable rather than absent. That is why the same login can work perfectly on a phone hotspot and fail on an office network, and why swapping data centre sometimes fixes it instantly.

The fix, step by step

1. Check your internet connection is working.
2. Open File, then Login to Trade Account.
3. Confirm the Server matches the one in your broker email exactly. Brokers often list several, such as BrokerName-Live and BrokerName-Demo.
4. Re-enter your account number and password, watching for caps lock.
5. Right-click the connection status and choose Rescan Servers or a different data centre.
6. If it still fails, contact your broker to confirm the account is active and not in maintenance.

How to confirm it is fixed

Look at the bottom right of the terminal. A working connection shows the data centre name with a green or amber signal bar and a live figure in kilobytes, and that figure keeps ticking upward as quotes arrive. Then watch Market Watch: the bid and ask on a major pair should change within a few seconds during market hours. If the numbers are frozen but the status bar looks healthy, the connection is fine and you have a different problem.

Stopping it happening again

Save the exact server name from your broker welcome email somewhere you can find it, because a broker may run several servers with almost identical names and the wrong one fails silently. Install MetaTrader from your own broker rather than a generic download, so their server list stays up to date. If you trade on a network you do not control, expect blocks and have a phone hotspot ready as a fallback.