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WebTrader Problems and Fixes
Most brokers and nearly every prop firm now hand out a browser-based platform rather than a desktop install. That removes installation problems and introduces browser ones: cookies, extensions, sleeping tabs and short sessions. This guide covers the faults that are genuinely yours to fix, and the ones that are actually account or rule settings your provider controls.
Login loop: signed out immediately after signing in
Symptom: Your details are accepted, the platform starts to load, and you are returned to the login screen.
Cause: The browser is not keeping the session. Blocked cookies, a privacy tool clearing them, or a stale stored session are the usual reasons.
- Allow cookies for the platform's address rather than loosening your settings everywhere.
- Clear the stored site data for that address specifically, then log in again. A corrupted stored session causes exactly this loop.
- Test in a private window with extensions off, which isolates whether stored data or an extension is at fault.
- Turn off strict tracking protection or privacy shields for this site.
- Check your device clock, time zone and date are correct, as a badly wrong clock can make a fresh session appear expired.
- Try a different browser to confirm whether the behaviour follows the browser or the account.
Full walkthrough, how to verify it worked, and how to stop it happening again →Third-party cookies blocked
Symptom: Login, a payment step or an embedded part of the platform fails, while the rest of the site works normally.
Cause: Your browser is blocking cookies from addresses other than the one in the address bar, and part of the platform is served from a second address.
- Add an exception for the platform's address in your browser's cookie or tracking settings rather than turning protection off globally.
- If your browser offers a shield or protection toggle in the address bar, switch it off for this site and reload.
- Test in a private window, remembering that many browsers block third-party cookies there by default, so failure in private and success normally points at this setting.
- If your provider names a second address for sign-in, allow cookies for that address too.
- Try a different browser to confirm the behaviour, since defaults differ between browsers and change between versions.
- Ask your provider whether their platform requires third-party cookies before changing more settings than you need to.
Full walkthrough, how to verify it worked, and how to stop it happening again →Extensions breaking the platform
Symptom: Buttons do nothing, parts of the interface are missing, charts do not draw, or the page behaves oddly in one browser only.
Cause: An extension is blocking or rewriting the page. Ad blockers, privacy tools, script blockers, VPN extensions and coupon tools are the common offenders.
- Open the platform in a private window with extensions disabled. If it works, an extension is responsible.
- Re-enable extensions one at a time, reloading between each, until the problem returns. That identifies the culprit without disabling your protection permanently.
- Add the platform's address to the allow list of the offending extension rather than removing the extension.
- Pay particular attention to script blockers, which can silently stop the code that draws charts and sends orders.
- Keep a separate browser profile with no extensions for trading and use it for nothing else.
- Recheck after any extension update, as an update can reintroduce a block you had already allowed.
Full walkthrough, how to verify it worked, and how to stop it happening again →Charts tear, flicker or render wrongly
Symptom: The chart draws with visible artefacts, flickers, leaves smears when scrolling, or the page goes black in places.
Cause: A graphics acceleration problem between your browser and your graphics driver, rather than a fault in the platform.
- Restart the browser first, as this alone clears many rendering glitches.
- Turn off hardware or graphics acceleration in your browser's system settings, restart the browser and test again.
- If disabling it fixes the drawing but makes the platform sluggish, turn it back on and update your graphics driver instead.
- Test in another browser. If only one browser is affected, the setting or driver combination in that browser is the issue.
- On a laptop with two graphics chips, make sure the browser is not being forced onto an unusual one by a power-saving profile.
- Reduce the number of charts on screen, as heavy pages make rendering faults more visible.
Full walkthrough, how to verify it worked, and how to stop it happening again →Tab went to sleep and prices are stale
Symptom: After the platform sat in a background tab, prices, positions or the chart show old values, then suddenly jump.
Cause: The browser suspended or throttled the tab to save power, so no updates arrived while it was hidden.
- Never act on a price that has not ticked since you returned to the tab. Wait for movement first.
- Reload the page after any long spell in the background instead of trusting what is drawn.
- Keep the platform in its own window and leave it visible rather than buried in a stack of tabs.
- Turn off memory or energy saving for this site if your browser allows a per-site exception.
- Stop the computer sleeping while you have positions open, using your operating system's power settings.
- Use resting stop and limit orders for anything critical, so nothing depends on the screen being live.
- Consider your provider's mobile app as a second view when you must be away from the machine.
Full walkthrough, how to verify it worked, and how to stop it happening again →Session times out mid-trade
Symptom: You are dropped back to the login screen without warning, sometimes with a position open.
Cause: A deliberate idle timeout, a login from another device, or a dropped connection. Your account keeps running either way.
- Log back in and check open positions first. They are held on the provider's servers and continue regardless of your session.
- Confirm stops and targets are still attached at the levels you set.
- Check whether the same account is open on a phone or in another browser, as a new session can end the old one.
- Ask your provider what the idle timeout is. Short timeouts are common on funded and prop accounts as a security measure.
- If it happens every few minutes, test on another network to rule out a dropping connection or a firewall closing idle connections.
- Never use being logged in as your risk control. Place resting stop orders instead.
Full walkthrough, how to verify it worked, and how to stop it happening again →Orders rejected: this is often a rule, not a bug
Symptom: Every attempt to open a position is refused instantly, though prices update and the rest of the platform works.
Cause: On a prop or funded account the provider's risk rules are enforced inside the platform, and an order that breaks one is refused before it goes anywhere.
- Try to close or reduce an existing position. If closing works and opening does not, that is a rule, not a fault.
- Check your provider's dashboard for remaining daily loss, remaining drawdown, size limits and open position limits.
- Check the clock against any restrictions on news events, the weekend close and permitted trading hours.
- Try a much smaller size, and then a different instrument, to narrow down whether the block is about size, that instrument, or the account as a whole.
- Treat it as technical only if prices are stale, a connection warning is showing, or closing fails too. Then reload and check the provider's status page.
- Contact the provider with the account number and the time of the rejection and ask which rule fired, as they can see the reason and you cannot.
Full walkthrough, how to verify it worked, and how to stop it happening again →Account read-only, closed or gone
Symptom: The platform loads and shows history, but trading controls are missing, or the account has vanished from the list.
Cause: The account has been breached, expired, suspended or closed by the provider, and trading permission has been removed.
- Check the account status on the provider's dashboard, which answers the question faster than anything in the platform.
- Check your email including spam for an automated notice explaining which rule was broken and when.
- If the account had a time limit, check whether it simply expired rather than breached.
- If you recently changed stage, check whether a new account with new credentials has been issued and the old one retired.
- Log out fully, close the browser and log back in before reporting, in case the platform is holding an old state.
- If the dashboard and the platform still disagree, contact the provider with the account number and what each shows.
Full walkthrough, how to verify it worked, and how to stop it happening again →Instruments or charts missing
Symptom: A market you expect is absent from the list, or present but refusing orders.
Cause: Providers enable only a subset of instruments per account type, and closed sessions make visible instruments untradeable.
- Search by part of the market name rather than an exact symbol string.
- Read the provider's published instrument list for your account type and stage.
- Check the market's trading session, since indices, commodities and shares follow exchange hours.
- Check any other watchlists or instrument groups before deciding it is missing.
- Ask the provider whether it is enabled for your account, because nothing you do in the platform can add it.
Full walkthrough, how to verify it worked, and how to stop it happening again →Symbol names differ from MetaTrader
Symptom: A plan, alert or journal written for MetaTrader refers to symbols that do not exist here, or that match a different contract.
Cause: Naming is set by the provider, so the same market can be named differently on every platform and may not even be the same contract.
- Search for the underlying market by name rather than by the symbol you are used to.
- Look closely at suffixes and separators, which often distinguish account types, spread groups or cash versus futures-based contracts.
- Open the instrument's details and confirm contract size, value per point and currency before trading it.
- Be especially careful with indices and metals, where naming and contract sizes vary most between providers.
- Rewrite watchlists and alerts in this platform's names rather than translating them mentally each session.
- Where two similar entries exist, ask the provider which one your account should trade.
Full walkthrough, how to verify it worked, and how to stop it happening again →Platform open in several tabs causing conflicts
Symptom: One tab shows different data from another, actions taken in one tab do not appear in the other, or one tab logs the other out.
Cause: Each tab holds its own copy of the interface but they share one session, so they can disagree or interfere with one another.
- Close every copy of the platform except one, then reload the one you keep.
- Use a single tab for trading and a separate tab for your provider's dashboard, rather than several copies of the platform.
- If you must watch two accounts, ask the provider whether they support it and consider separate browser profiles rather than separate tabs.
- After closing duplicates, confirm your positions and orders in the remaining tab before doing anything else.
- Do not send the same order from two tabs when one appears unresponsive, as both may go through.
Full walkthrough, how to verify it worked, and how to stop it happening again →Mobile browser and app behave differently
Symptom: The platform is cramped, missing controls, or unstable in a phone browser, and the app shows different information.
Cause: Browser platforms are built for a desktop screen, and the mobile app is a separate client with different features and refresh behaviour.
- Use the provider's mobile app on a phone where one exists, rather than the browser platform.
- Refresh or reopen the app before comparing figures, since phones suspend background apps.
- Confirm both are on the same account number, which is easy to get wrong with demo and live accounts.
- Treat the desktop browser platform as the authority for anything that matters.
- Expect some order types, chart tools and reports to be missing on mobile, which is normal rather than a fault.
- Confirm with your provider that the app is supported for your account and that you have downloaded their app rather than a similarly named one.
Full walkthrough, how to verify it worked, and how to stop it happening again →Platform blocked on a work, school or public network
Symptom: The platform works at home but not on another network, or it loads and then never receives prices.
Cause: A network filter or firewall is blocking the platform's address or the persistent connection it uses for live prices.
- Test on a phone hotspot. If it works there, the network is the problem, not the platform.
- Do not attempt to work around a workplace filter. Ask whether the address can be permitted, or trade on your own connection.
- If you use a VPN, turn it off and retest, as some providers restrict access by region and a VPN can put you outside it.
- If you must use a VPN, ask your provider whether it is permitted, since some prop firms treat unexplained location changes as a rule issue.
- Check whether security software on your own machine is filtering connections, and add an exception for the platform if it is.
- If it fails on two networks and two browsers, contact the provider rather than continuing to change your own settings.
Full walkthrough, how to verify it worked, and how to stop it happening again →Trade with clarity once MetaTrader is running
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