How to check ping to your broker’s server from MT4 or MT5

Ping gives you a starting point, not your order time.

Ping sends a small piece of test data to an address and times the reply (Microsoft’s ping reference). That is the time there and back. Do not halve it and call the result your order time.

Ping uses a different kind of data from the data your platform trades with. A server can answer it slowly, or not at all, while trading works. Use it as a starting point, not as a score.

It still tells you two useful things. It shows how far your broker is from you in time, and whether that changes with the hour.

You need your broker’s server address before you can test.

You need an address, not the server name in your login window. Any one of these four ways will do.

Thirty pings and a trace show how your connection behaves.

Your highest readings and lost replies matter more than the average.

Compare your busy-hour numbers with your quiet-hour numbers. A big gap means busy hours, not distance, are adding to your delay.

Look at the highest reading and any lost replies, not the average alone. When a piece of data is lost, your platform waits, then sends it again. Everything behind it waits too.

So lost replies hint that data on that path goes missing, which is what can hold up price updates and orders.

There is no pass mark here. A number is good or bad only against your own targets. How much latency matters for scalping shows the sum.

One more check, your lowest reading can never be below the minimum that distance allows. The panel works out that minimum for any two of our cities. If your lowest reading is close to it, distance is most of your delay.

MetaTrader shows its own ping, but treat it as a rough guide.

In MetaTrader 4, the server list under File → Open an Account shows a ping for each server (MT4 help). A Scan button refreshes it. MetaTrader 5 gained ping values in its list of access points in build 1010, in October 2014 (release notes).

The help pages do not say how the platform measures those pings, so they may not match a command-line ping. Use the command-line test as your baseline.

The Journal tab logs the terminal’s own events, warnings and errors. It is not a ping log, and the help does not say it lists the server’s address. Look there when the platform reports an error.

In MetaTrader 4, open it from View → Terminal (Ctrl+T). In MetaTrader 5, it sits in the Toolbox window (Ctrl+T).

A ping test reads the same with or without Traders Proxy.

Only the trading app you set up uses Traders Proxy. Everything else stays on your normal internet, so a ping test reads the same with or without us. To see what we change, time your platform itself, without us and then with us.

Each platform’s maker decides which of its connections use its proxy setting. The ping figures your platform shows are its own measurement, and we make no promise about them.

Our server in your broker’s city opens a separate local connection to your broker. If data drops on that link, our server recovers it inside that city.

Your order waits on that short local link instead of the whole way. Trading ports go first when a server is busy, and broker addresses stay warm in memory.

A backtest runs on your own machine, so no internet link can lose a piece of data during a news release. In live trading, one lost piece holds up every price update and order behind it. Everything waits while your computer sends it again across the world.

You cannot paste four values into your platform while your chart is already frozen in a live trade. Set it up today while the market is calm. Then time it on your own screen during the next release.

We don’t promise lower ping. Distance sets the minimum. If our server in your broker’s city is unreachable, your platform shows an error and your dashboard asks before using another city. If your broker prohibits proxies, don’t use one.