Confirm the connection

The last part of step 4 of the setup. You now have two places that answer the same question, and they answer it differently on purpose.

Your own machine tells you what the Bridge sees: is Trader Workstation there, does the account report, may orders be sent. On Windows and on a Linux desktop that is the Cockpit window; on a Linux server it is the log and systemctl status. The Broker tab (opens in a new tab) on t1.ordertune.com tells you what Ordertune has heard from your Bridge. If the second one is silent, no order can be sent — regardless of what the first one says.

On the Broker tab

Reload Settings → Broker (opens in a new tab). Three things change at once when the Bridge got through:

The status badge flips to Active.
Last heartbeat shows a timestamp instead of a dash.
Bridge version shows the version running on your machine.

A heartbeat arrives every 60 seconds. If the badge still says Waiting for handshake a minute after starting the Bridge, it never reached us — go to Troubleshooting.

What the status words mean

Badge	What it says
Not set up	No token has been issued. Nothing to connect with yet.
Waiting for handshake	A token exists, and we have never heard from your Bridge. Normal for the first minute after setup; a problem after that.
Active	Your Bridge reported in, recently. This is the working state.
Never seen	The connection is authorised, but your Bridge has never reported in at all.
Not reporting	The connection is authorised and your Bridge has reported in before, but not for over 90 seconds. No order can be sent until it does.
Suspended	The connection was paused.
Revoked	The token was made invalid. Set the Bridge up again to reconnect.

⚠️

Authorised and alive are two different questions. A connection can be perfectly authorised while the Bridge is switched off. That is why Not reporting exists as its own state rather than being folded into Active — it looks healthy from the permissions side and sends nothing.

The fields next to the badge

Field	What it is for
Token prefix	The first characters of your token. Lets you tell two `bridge.env` files apart without opening them.
Registered IP	The address your Bridge reported from. If it changes unexpectedly, something else is using your token.
Last heartbeat	The exact time in UTC, with a relative reading next to it. UTC because that is what the Bridge log uses — you are meant to be able to compare the two without doing arithmetic.
Bridge version	Which version is running on your machine.
Bridge terms	Which version of the terms you accepted, and when.

Two things that can still block an order

The connection can be green and an order can still fail to size. Both show up on the Broker tab as their own warning:

The account is not denominated in USD. Position sizes are computed against USD prices and Ordertune does not convert. The account value arrives, is displayed, and is refused for sizing. Fix it by setting the base currency to USD on your main account, or by switching position sizing to a fixed base amount in USD.

The account value is zero. A release stops with no_equity_snapshot. Check the account window in Trader Workstation: if Net Liquidation Value is not zero there, tell us. If it really is zero, fund the account.

Does Trader Workstation write where the Bridge reads?

This is the one thing on this page that the Broker tab cannot answer for you, and it is the one most likely to be quietly wrong.

You picked a folder in Trader Workstation in Prepare TWS. If it does not match what the Bridge reads, nothing will look broken: Trader Workstation creates whatever folder it was given and exports into it happily, orders keep going out, fills keep being booked. What is missing is the safety net — a fill that happens while the Bridge is off can no longer be recovered afterwards. You find out on the day it matters.

So check it rather than assume it:

In the folder that holds the executable:

.\ordertune-bridge-ibkr.exe --check-reports

cd ~/ordertune-bridge && ./ordertune-bridge-ibkr --check-reports

cd /opt/ordertune-bridge && sudo runuser -u ordertune-bridge -- \
  env HOME=/home/ordertune-bridge ./ordertune-bridge-ibkr --check-reports

As the service user, because that is who has to be able to read the folder.

It needs neither a running Trader Workstation nor a connection — the question is about what is on disk. It prints which folder it reads, what it found, and what to do if that is not what you expected.

It says	What it means	What to do
`ok`	The Bridge reads what Trader Workstation writes.	Nothing.
`not_configured`	`TWS_EXPORT_DIR` is not in `bridge.env`.	Add it, or use the default folder.
`no_dir`	The folder does not exist.	Usually a typo in the Trader Workstation dialog. Compare both sides character by character.
`unreadable`	The folder is there and the Bridge may not read it.	Trader Workstation and the Bridge are running as different users.
`no_file`	The folder is there and empty.	Normal right after setup. Trader Workstation exports trades — with none yet, there is nothing to write, and the interval does not change that. Run this again after your first fill.
`fixed_name`	The files carry no date.	The Export filename field has a name in it. Clear it.
`stale`	The newest file is over four days old.	Trader Workstation has not been running, or the export was switched off again.

no_file right after setup is expected and needs no action. Trader Workstation writes trade reports, and with no trades there is nothing to report — the one-minute interval does not produce empty files.

no_file after something has filled is a different matter: then Trader Workstation is writing to a folder the Bridge is not reading. That is the failure this whole check exists for, because nothing else about it looks wrong.

Next: strategies and your first order

Nothing has been sent yet, and nothing will be until you release it. Before the first release, choose your strategies and position size: every strategy starts switched off, so Order Management shows its signals greyed out until you do.

Then release a single signal and watch it in three places:

The Bridge picks it up within five seconds during US market hours.
The Cockpit shows it under Orders, with the same states Order Management uses. On a Linux server the same states go to the log.
Order Management shows the result once the broker reports back.

Do this once in your paper account before you do it with real money.

Done. If something is not right, Troubleshooting is sorted by what you see.

Start it and pair it Troubleshooting