Below is a screenshot of an EA's stats. I'm trying to make sense of the numbers circled in red. In particular:

Q1) How can the "Max Daily Loss" be larger than the "Max Drawdown"?

Thanks!

The EA Studio "Data Import" tab states that we can upload "up to 200,000 bars" but if I attempt to upload more than that it seems to work fine. Does loading more than 200,000 bars actually work fine, or will it cause problems later?

Thanks!

I want to use Randomize Indicator Parameter Only in Monte Carlo, is this setting correct?

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
;; Monte Carlo                      ;;
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

enable_monte_carlo            = true
count_of_tests                =  500
valid_tests_percent           =  80

spread_max                    =  0

; Execution problems
slippage_max                  =   0
skip_entries_percent          =   0
skip_exits_percent            =   0
rand_close_percent            =   0

; Strategy variations
ind_params_change_probability = 100
ind_params_max_change_percent =  20
ind_params_min_delta_steps    =   5
rand_first_bar_percent        =   0

Sometimes I got request timeout when importing slightly large data, could you please increase timeout limit a little bit for importing process?

My upload speed is not very fast

Does anyone know why I'm getting a NaN start date when I import data (see screenshot below).

Data file attached if you want to try it yourself.

Thanks!

I am running EA Studio inside the Chrome browser on Windows 11. If I set an optimisation running then switch to another tab in the browser, or switch to another virtual desktop (which I use a lot so I can multi-task several projects at once) the optimisation in EA Studio pauses indefinitely. It remains paused forever, until I return to the desktop with Chrome on it and select the EA Studio tab.

Is this a known issue? Is there any way to get EA Studio to keep running regardless of the active browser tab or active desktop?

Thanks!

So I asked ChatGPT to create an EA for me to execute in MT5 to do exactly that. After much back & forth (about ten hours and 73 versions so far) this is what we came up with:

These charts are for gold (XAUUSD) on IC Markets, and are based on the spread information that's embedded in the M15 OHLC data. As you can see, the spreads are all integers. The blue numbers are the 50th percentile numbers ("P50", which is the Median). Orange are the 90th percentile ("P90") and Green are the 95th percentile ("P95").

For most of 2021 and 2022 the Median is zero, indicating that a lot of the spreads are claimed to be negligible. That seems unlikely, but might just be rounding-down. However, I have seen speculation online that the spreads embedded in OHLC data are actually the low of the spread for that candle, not the mean or median, which is why I wrote "MT5 Minimum Bar Spread" at the top of the chart.

Since it's unclear whether we can trust the spreads embedded in the OHLC data, I thought it might be interesting to recalculate these charts based on tick data. Unfortunately IC Markets only provide a few months of tick data so the time period will be limited, but the comparison should be interesting. I'll send that in another message.

For now, attached is the code of the EA that produced these charts. If you want to make changes just upload the code to ChatGPT and ask ChatGPT to do it for you. There are lots of input options for this EA. Check the code for comments that might help you figure out what each one does. Or ask me.

Another question from me (sorry). I have exported an EA as MT5 (actually it's an "EA Plus" version so it includes the grid options). The EA seems to work great, except that the Daily Protections and Account Protections don't appear to do anything in the MT5 backtests. When I set them to something tiny (which should cut the profit down to near-zero) the profit is unchanged. Is that a known problem or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks!

I'm running an optimisation in EA Studio. It finds a better strategy and the "Accept" button turns green. But when I press the Accept button nothing happens (except that the button goes from light green to dark green). The new strategy is not accepted and it is not saved to the collection. This only happens on rare occasions, but in those circumstances when it does happen there appears to be nothing I can do to fix it.

Has anyone else had this problem? Why does it happen? Is there a solution or a work-around?

Thanks!

This might have been asked before but I couldn't find any info when I searched the forum. In the "Collection" tab I see the balance chart on the left of the image above (Premium data, XAUUSD, M5, 200k bars). But when I open that EA in the Editor ("Strategy" tab) I see the balance chart on the right of the image above. Why did it change?

I've attached the EA in case you want to test it yourself.

Thanks!

Quick question: In EA Studio we can optimise by "Balance Line" and "System Quality"... How do we do that in Express Generator? The only options mentioned for optimize_by in the gen.settings.ini file are:

NetBalance, Profit, ProfitFactor, ReturnToDrawdown, RSquared, Stagnation, WinLossRatio

Thanks!

I’ve noticed a recurring pattern, both from personal experience and various discussions in this forum. We all know how easy it is to generate a strategy with a visually perfect equity curve in Expert Advisor Studio (EAS). We go out of our way to use Out of Sample (OOS), Walk Forward Analysis (WFA), and various strict filters within the software.

However, the main issue often remains the same: Not all strategies that pass these filters and make it into the Collection manage to survive (print a positive profit) when actually tested on a Demo or Live account.

Many people suggest testing the strategy on a Demo account for 3 months (as an example timeframe) before moving to a real account. But let's be more pragmatic: Why should we waste 3 months of real-world time purely just to wait for Demo results?

Wouldn't it be much more efficient if we "extend" the historical data and simulate the forward test instantly using a method I call "Blind Holdout" ?

The Critical Difference: EAS Built-in OOS vs. Blind Holdout

Many of us fail because we assume the OOS in EAS is the final test. In reality, when we enable the OOS feature (e.g., 30%), EAS still uses that OOS data as a selection criterion. If a strategy fails in the OOS zone, the engine discards it. This means the strategies in the Collection have indirectly been "optimized" to coincidentally fit that specific OOS data (Data Snooping Bias).

To overcome this, we need Blind Holdout Data—a segment of data that we completely hide and entirely exclude from EAS during the generation process.

The 3-Stage Master Plan:

Here is the logic on how we can use a Blind Holdout not just to find strategies, but to validate the EAS Settings themselves. Let’s assume today is July 1, 2026, and we have data from January 2025 to June 2026.

Stage 1 (Inside EAS - Finding the Logic): We restrict the data loaded into EAS only up to March 31, 2026.
- In-Sample: Jan 1, 2025 – Dec 31, 2025 (The engine builds the logic).
- EAS OOS: Jan 1, 2026 – Mar 31, 2026 (The engine filters passing strategies).

(Note: In Stage 1, you can fully utilize the Reactor with all its analysis tools like Multi Market, WFA, etc.).

Stage 2 (Blind Holdout - Validating the Settings): April 2026 – June 2026 (3 months).
- We manually re-backtest the Stage 1 strategies over this last 3-month range (data the engine has never seen) by adjusting the Data Horizon and using the Recalculate button in EAS. If the strategy breaks down, we change our EAS Generator Settings and repeat Stage 1. We keep doing this until we find the EAS Settings that consistently produce strategies capable of surviving this Stage 2 Blind Holdout.

Stage 3 (The Ultimate Goal - Live Deployment):
- Once we find those "Golden Settings", we no longer need the Blind Holdout. We simply run EAS using these proven settings on the forward-shifted dataset (April 2025 up to yesterday, June 30, 2026).
- Assumption: Because the settings themselves have been rigorously validated through the Stage 1 & 2 holdout process, we can confidently assume that any strategy generated today will print positive profits for the next 3 months on a Live Account.

The Goal of This Discussion:

Based on this premise, I want to open a discussion:
"We need to figure out what kind of EAS Settings ensure that when the engine generates a strategy, that strategy consistently prints a positive profit when exposed to a Blind Holdout period."

My question focuses purely on EAS Settings. For those of you who have successfully formulated a robust engine setup—where your generated strategies rarely break down during forward testing—I truly hope you’d be willing to share them. Specifically regarding:

- What Acceptance Criteria do you use?
- What Timeframe do you use?
- How many Data Bars or what Date Range do you use?
- What preset indicators do you allow the engine to use initially?
- What specific "Strategy Properties" or "Generator Settings" do you use?
(Or you can directly upload your EAS Settings .json file).

Hopefully, by sharing these settings, we can formulate the "Meta Settings" for EAS that are truly reliable and massively save our research time.

after generating 10 EAs on Dukascopy data for XAUUSD and exporting the mt5 portfolio to metatrader, the results are always the same of Eastudio while backtesting on Dukascopy-demo-mt5-1 with the following modes:

1) Open Price,
2) OHCL 1 minute
3) Every tick

considering that there's a MAX SPREAD filter to 100 points, already used in EaStudio.

But backtesting in Real Ticks mode, generates just 15 trades and mainly in loss.

Here's the difference:

By removing the 100 Max Spread filter and putting it to 0, opens much more trades in real ticks but it's a very negative backtest...

So, the spread works "good" in selecting the trades to open, but:
1) EAstudio Dukascopy data should not have the same Spreads of a Dukascopy account?
2) Is this portfolio useful at least for accounts with very Low Spread XAUUSD accounts if any? Darwinex, Blackbull and all others broker on EA studio perform very bad.
3) Can you add data of an additional broker/prof_firm on EaStudio with real very low spread on Gold?
4) What's the peculiarity of Dukascopy broker data compared to other ones available on EaStudio? Because usally results are similar when running the EAs (in general) on sames instrument of different brokers. Here instead, they are all negatives with the other ones and they're in profit only with Dukascopy... actually it's only a low spread the issue here or is something else?
I'm wondering which broker has similar data to Dukascopy but with the much lower spread, if any...

PLease consider that Indicators used in my portfolio are 3 max 4 in total, among Opening and Close conditions.

Mainly are these ones:

• Candle Color,
  Williams' Percent Range,
  MACD,
  MACD Signal,
  DeMarker,
  Momentum,
  Stocastic Signal
  ADX
  Awesome Oscillator

the only randomic issue I found at the moment is that the MultiMarket test (not always)  remains "blocked" i.e at a random percentage as if EA studio is not able to recover/process data for the additional pair.

But strategy generation is really impressive in speed: around 4-5 times faster on average compared to Chrome

This is on H1..Same settings of course, same data interval, same bars, timeframe, acceptance criteria, same everything.

But sometimes on M15 or M30 also 4.5 or 5 times faster!

The browser is one of my favourites: DuckDuckGo.

Question 1: why such huge difference?
Question 2: do you know of additional browsers with even better speed? ;-)

Anyway, for those who did not know it, enjoy the discover