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I am fetching some historical data from Interactive Brokers with their API. But I got a bit of annoying their HongKong history data server ('hkhdm' in the connection status window) get disconnected almost every Saturday. Even the TWS app cannot let me login last Saturday (I wonder I won't be able login hours later today). So my question is:

Is there someway to tell InteractiveBrokers TWS/Gateway app to use America or Europe server?

I have tried to set location to America or Europe in the login window, no luck. I also used a New York VPN, and that didn't work. BTW, I live in Sydney now, and my account was setup with a Chinese residential address. Thanks for any help or hint.

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    $\begingroup$ This saturday, after less than 1hour outage, I can connect now. Weird $\endgroup$
    – kcome
    Commented Jan 24, 2015 at 8:24
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    $\begingroup$ a) Attempting to connect to a different server via jts.ini will not change anything. IB will route you back to the server they have set for you on their server side. You need to request a server change and only then will your system connect to the changed sever address. b) IB does not provide full access throughout the weekend for historical software design reasons. It works for them and most every client which is why I do not expect this to change any time soon. The daily reset is actually more inconvenient to handle and again this originates from their original software design. $\endgroup$
    – Matt Wolf
    Commented Jan 26, 2015 at 4:48
  • $\begingroup$ you're sol. ib is down every night at midnight est and saturday. not sure how they can stay in business like that. $\endgroup$
    – thang
    Commented Aug 20, 2021 at 4:36

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Reset to default
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Answer to question of IB Gateway using other server

IB Gateway reads a "jts.ini" file to determine which server it should connect to. There is a "[communication]" section under which a "peer=" value is set. When I download IB Gateway from the IB US website the provided default jts.ini file contains:

[communication]
peer=gw1.ibllc.com:4000

Depending on whether you are installing on Windows or Mac a "jts.ini" file can be found in the wherever IB Gateway gets installed.

There are potentially other settings in your jts.ini file in use which might point to other servers. You can try also changing those addition setting if present or you can try and replace your existing jts.ini file with a completely new one contain only the above example (for the US server).

These instructions should also apply to TWS (however I'm using and testing with IB Gateway).

I'm guessing that if you download IB Gateway from the Europe IB website the provided default jts.ini file will point to the Europe server.

However, you can't avoid the weekly reset

However, in the end, I don't think changing the server will work around your issue. IB says "During the Friday evening reset period, all services will be unavailable in all regions for the duration of the reset." on the IB System Status Page. My guess is you are observing this New York Friday evening reset which is Saturday in your timezone and is going to happen at the same time in all regions.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the answer :) Actually this Saturday I didn't have the outage problem. But last Saturday, on the system status page, it told me service outage(cannot login) for certain users connecting to HongKong server, from 14:00 Sat to 10:00 Sun local time. Actually I did have the login+everything_else outage from 14:30 Sat until 12:00 next day. $\endgroup$
    – kcome
    Commented Jan 26, 2015 at 0:26

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