Prerequisites
- Read this page before enabling a live follower profile.
- Know how to inspect positions and working orders directly in every connected broker account.
- Use simulation accounts to verify your profile, sizing, protection, and risk settings first.
Copying and broker execution
| Limitation and trigger | What you see | Copying or protection effect | What you should do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Existing positions when a profile starts | Leader and follower positions can begin unmatched. | Copilink copies new supported leader activity; it does not synchronize positions that already existed. | Begin flat. If not flat, manage the existing positions at the broker and wait for them to close before expecting matched positions. |
| Whole-contract sizing | A follower quantity is floor(leader quantity × ratio); small values can become zero. | A zero result produces no follower order for that event. | Calculate representative order sizes before enabling and confirm the ratio shown in the profile. |
| Different broker fills, slippage, liquidity, and timing | Accounts can fill at different prices, times, quantities, or not at all. | Followers can become temporarily or persistently out of sync. | Use protection delays deliberately and verify abnormal positions at the broker. |
| Broker rejection or unavailable route | Activity, profile, or account warnings can show a failed request. | The intended order, change, cancellation, or close-out may not occur. | Do not repeatedly resubmit an uncertain action. Check working orders and positions at the broker first. |
| Cross Order mapping | A supported standard/micro symbol can map to its paired contract; unsupported symbols remain unchanged. | The ratio remains a contract-count multiplier, not a notional-value equalizer. | Confirm the mapped symbol and calculated quantity in simulation before live use. |
Follower protection and account risk
| Trigger | What you see | What continues or is reduced | Required response |
|---|---|---|---|
| More than one open instrument on the leader or follower | Follower position protection becomes unavailable for that relationship. | Copying can continue, but the net-position comparison cannot safely protect a multi-instrument state. | Monitor at the broker, reduce to one intended instrument, and do not rely on follower flatten/disengage protection meanwhile. |
| Connection loss | Disconnected, paused, Issue, waiting, or unavailable states can appear. | New copying and account-state monitoring can pause or become incomplete. Existing broker positions remain open unless a confirmed action closes them. | Stop new leader activity and inspect every account and working order at the broker. |
| Missing, stale, or partial market data or P&L | Waiting, Reduced protection, Partial, or Unavailable appears. | Order copying may continue when its broker route is healthy, while P&L-based risk protection is delayed, reduced, or unavailable. | Restore broker connection and data access; do not treat stale values as current protection. |
| Follower out of sync or opposite after its delay | Flattening and then disengagement can appear. | Copilink sends a close request; a failed request can leave exposure and the follower remains disengaged until you re-enable it. | Verify the broker before re-enabling. Resolve the cause and return accounts to the intended state. |
| An actionable account limit triggers | Limit hit, flattening, disengagement, or Locked can appear. | Copilink blocks or stops copying according to account role and the configured rule, but close-out is not guaranteed. | Stop trading, verify broker exposure, and follow the displayed reset or recovery state. |
| Broker-side risk controls | The broker may reject or close activity independently of Copilink. | Copilink rules and broker rules do not replace or guarantee one another. | Configure and monitor both systems independently and treat the broker as the execution authority. |
Local history, broker snapshots, and cloud sync
| Condition | Result | Copying effect | What you should do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Copilink is closed or does not receive an event | Local history can be missing or incomplete and Copilink cannot reconstruct detail it never received or stored. | No desktop copying runs while the app is closed. | Use broker records as the source for events outside the stored Copilink history. |
| A live session is reconstructed from stored events or a broker snapshot | The dashboard can label or summarize reconstructed data with less detail than a fully observed session. | The snapshot helps monitoring but does not create missing event history. | Compare the session with broker records when precision matters. |
| Cloud sync is disabled or delayed | Web links can be unavailable or waiting and newer local history may not appear online. | Copying continues independently when broker and profile prerequisites are healthy. | Use the local Trade log; re-enable or retry sync only when desired. |
| Local storage fails | History or journal storage warnings can appear and later cloud reconstruction may be incomplete. | Do not assume every event is durably recorded; use the visible profile and storage warnings to decide whether to stop. | Make exposure safe, preserve the data folder, and contact support rather than repeatedly editing files. |
| Broker or API request limits | Requests can be delayed, rejected, or represented by connection/activity warnings. | Rapid repeated actions can worsen uncertainty and exposure. | Stop retries, inspect the broker, and allow the connection to recover before testing again. |
Shutdown, restart, and updates
- Disabling a profile, signing out, closing Copilink, or restarting for an update does not guarantee that open positions are flat.
- Copilink attempts cleanup of copied working orders it owns, but disconnections, rejects, and broker state can prevent cleanup.
- Manual orders and broker orders not owned by Copilink are not automatically removed.
- An update restart is blocked while a profile is active. Make positions and working orders safe, disable the profile, and verify the broker before restart.
- After restart, connections and copying do not become safe merely because the app window reopened. Review all account, market-data, Live P&L, and profile states first.
Safe operating practice
Start flat
Confirm the leader and every follower have no unintended positions or working orders.
Test in simulation
Use a small supported order to verify route, ratio, symbol mapping, Activity, protection, and Trade log behavior.
Watch visible states
Treat paused, Issue, Reduced protection, Limit hit, Locked, Partial, and Unavailable as distinct conditions with different actions.
Keep broker access open
Use the broker platform as the authority for positions, working orders, fills, and acceptance.
Stop when state is uncertain
Avoid new leader activity until account and protection state are understood and verified.
What success looks like
- You can explain which protections depend on connection, market data, Live P&L, and a single open instrument.
- You know that copied requests and close-out attempts require broker verification.
- You operate from flat accounts, verify in simulation, and stop when state is uncertain.
Troubleshooting
- If the app and broker disagree, trust the broker for current positions and working orders, then capture the Copilink status for support.
- If protection is reduced, do not compensate with repeated manual or copied orders until account state is verified.
- If history is incomplete, use broker records; Copilink cannot recreate events it never received or stored.
Still stuck? Open the full troubleshooting guide or email support@copilink.com.