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.
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 current front-month contract — 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 notification log and confirm that when an alert fired, a matching order hit 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.