the most expensive algo failure isn't a bad trade. it's the algo that quietly stopped days ago and you didn't notice — no trades, no error, nothing. you find out when you open your account and the last fill is a week old.
the fix is a 60-second check you run on a schedule. here's exactly what to look at.
why this check exists
edgeful algos execute on market orders triggered by TradingView alerts, and entries, stop losses, and take profits all travel the same path. TradingView sends each of those webhooks once and doesn't retry, so a delivery that times out is simply lost.
for an entry, that means a trade you expected never opened — annoying, but self-evident. the case worth understanding is the other one: if the webhook that fails is an exit, your stop loss or take profit, the position can stay open when it was meant to be closed.
the risk is low. in practice this has only shown up around TradingView latency spikes and CME trading halts, not in normal conditions. but it's the reason a running algo still deserves a periodic look rather than being left completely unattended — let the automation do the heavy lifting, check in to confirm it's doing what you expect, and only intervene when it isn't.
to confirm whether a specific alert was actually delivered, see no notification in edgeful — webhook troubleshooting.
when to run this
build the habit around these moments:
once a week — a quick Monday check that everything's still live
after every futures contract rollover — the #1 reason an algo silently stops, about every 3 months
after any settings change — a new setup means new alerts, and old alerts don't update themselves
any day you expected a trade and didn't get one
none of it takes long once you know where to look. the 5 checks below are the whole routine.
the 60-second check
go through these in order. the first one that fails is the thing to fix.
the strategy is active on the algo dashboard — broker connected, strategy not paused. if you paused it and forgot, this is where you'll catch it.
your TradingView alerts are still running — open the alerts panel in TradingView and confirm your entry, TP, and SL alerts are active, not stopped or expired. an alert that's switched off fires nothing.
you're on the right contract (the current front-month on Tradovate or NinjaTrader, the continuous symbol on ProjectX) — if a rollover happened, your alert is pointed at an expired contract and nothing will fire. this is the single most common silent stop.
recent alerts actually reached the broker — open the trade log (algos → trade log) and confirm that when an alert fired, a matching trade shows up and went through to your broker. an alert with no corresponding fill means the chain broke somewhere.
your fills line up with what you expected — spot-check a couple of recent trades. entry, TP or SL, and size should match the setup you're running.
all 5 green? you're live and firing. leave it alone.
the rollover callout
worth repeating, because it catches the most people. futures contracts expire roughly every 3 months, and when they roll, an alert pointed at the old contract just stops firing — silently. TradingView still shows the alert as active. there's no error anywhere.
put a recurring reminder on your calendar for rollover weeks, and make step 3 the first thing you check. the full walkthrough is in contract rollover: why your algo silently stopped trading.
if a check fails
each failure maps to the article that fixes it:
strategy paused or broker disconnected → using the algo dashboard
alert stopped or expired → TradingView alert didn't fire
wrong or expired contract → contract rollover: why your algo silently stopped trading
alert fired but no fill reached the broker → my algo didn't trade — start here
fills don't match your setup → TradingView to broker execution mismatch guide
fix the one that failed, then re-run the check to confirm the whole chain is live end-to-end.