Error 4109 — Trade Is Not Allowed — is a very common error when working with expert advisors in MetaTrader 4. The error is, more often than not, the result of one setting value in the MT4 options and can be easily fixed in this case.
What Is Error 4109 — Trade Is Not Allowed?
Error 4109, or translated into English, Trade Is Not Allowed, is the error code MetaTrader 4 gives when an expert advisor is not allowed to trade.
When you load an expert advisor (EA) onto your chart, and it tries to submit orders automatically, MT4 checks if the operation is allowed.
The operations are related to the functions to submit, modify, close, and delete orders: OrderSend(), OrderModify(), OrderClose(), and OrderDelete().
If the option is disabled, then the EA cannot submit orders or do perform any other trading actions, and the error 4109 gets triggered.
Error 4109 is just one of the many error codes in MetaTrader, for which "Trade is not allowed" is the corresponding translation.
You can find the full list of error codes on the official website for MQL4 language.
Why Trade Is Not Allowed?
This is a security measure to prevent automated trading.
Automated trading can be risky, so MT4 has options to completely disable it.
In rare cases, this might be due to the broker disabling trading for specific trading accounts or account types.
How to Check If Trading Is Allowed?
When you load an expert advisor you can easily see if MetaTrader allows automated trading or not.
Next to the name of the expert advisor, you can see a face. If the face is sad, it means that the EA cannot trade.
In this case, if the EA tries to submit any order it will receive the error 4109 "Trade Is Not Allowed" response from the server.
You can also check for this error in the Experts tab of the Terminal panel.
How to Fix Error 4109?
Fixing Error 4109 - Trade Is Not Allowed - is very simple and only requires to change two options.
Firstly, enable Allow automated trading in the MT4 Options under the Expert Advisors tab.
Once this is done, you need to check in the EA's properties whether the Allow live trading checkbox is enabled or not.
When the two options above are properly enabled, the result is the smiling face next to the EA name on the chart.
Hopefully, now your EA will be able to submit, update, close, and delete orders automatically.
In case your broker doesn't allow EA trading, you will continue receiving error 4109 when your expert advisors attempts any trading operation. Unfortunately, this cannot be solved using options available in MetaTrader platform — you would need to contact your broker about this issue.
Conclusion
Error 4109 is a common error when using expert advisors in MT4 and it means that "Trade is not allowed". Basically, the EA cannot submit orders or make any changes to orders.
To fix this error, you need to enable automated trading in the MT4 options and enable live trading in the EA's properties.
