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Operations and updates

Stopping and restarts

  • Stopping: docker compose stop, or docker stop meta-trade-browser. MetaTrader gets a close request, as File → Exit sends, and saves its charts and settings; this usually takes about a second. The quick start's 30 s (stop_grace_period, --stop-timeout) gives it the time.
  • At every stop with a saved login, the log says the account file was put back: "put back Config/accounts.dat from before the close". Under Wine, the copy of accounts.dat that MetaTrader writes while closing doesn't survive a container restart. At the next start MetaTrader would log "Accounts deleted due security reason" and not log in. So the copy from before the close is kept.
  • If MetaTrader closes or crashes, the desktop starts it again within seconds.

Health check

docker ps shows healthy when MetaTrader is running and the desktop answers.

  • It doesn't show whether MetaTrader is connected to the broker, or whether an EA is running. MetaTrader's status bar and its Journal show that.
  • docker inspect --format '{{range .State.Health.Log}}{{.Output}}{{end}}' meta-trade-browser shows why a check failed.
  • The first start has 5 minutes before failed checks count.

Stopping trading in a hurry

From mildest to strongest:

  1. Click Algo Trading in the terminal. No EA can trade, and positions stay open.
  2. docker stop meta-trade-browser. The terminal stops. Open positions keep their stop-loss and take-profit on the broker's server.
  3. Close positions by hand, on the desktop or in your broker's app, then stop.

Updating the image

  • Tags:
    • latest follows every new build;
    • a date tag, such as 20261019.1, stays on one build. A second build that day gets 20261019.2. Every date tag has this form, so update tools that compare tags, such as WUD, offer each newer one;
    • sha-<commit> names the first build of that source commit.
  • New builds come with every change to the image, including updates of the base image it's built on, which also bring Debian's fixes.
  • Going back: use the previous date tag in place of latest, the same way.

To update:

docker compose pull && docker compose up -d

docker pull ghcr.io/blunan/meta-trade-browser:latest
docker stop meta-trade-browser && docker rm meta-trade-browser

Then the same docker run as in the quick start.

Updates inside the container

Two things update themselves, whatever the image:

  • MetaTrader, through LiveUpdate.
    • When Welcome to LiveUpdate says updates have been downloaded, click Restart at a quiet moment. Later installs them at the next start.
    • MetaQuotes says LiveUpdate can't be turned off. It also brings MetaQuotes' machine-learning and AI components.
    • A new MetaTrader build could misbehave under Wine. Keep backups of /config to go back to.
  • WebView2, through Edge Update, which keeps running in the background.