NinjaTrader 8.1 Release Came Out…

A number of critical showstopper issues were fixed in 8.1.1.1 and a lot of 3rd party indicators are now working. It seems they are also saving the username in the login - but still no option to save the password or bypass that login screen all together. You might want to consider subscribing to our newsletter in the footer of this page where we will update you on our own solution to that problem. In the mean time it should be pretty safe to upgrade to 8.1 now that it's been fixed.

It still seems like this whole release could have been much better planned out by letting vendors test it regardless of the sensitivity issues. I can't imagine what that would be to give us at least a week to test things out before it gets released to their general audience. Even if that means delaying things a week - it would have been a much smoother process for everyone. Hopefully we'll see that happen in the future.

NinjaTrader released 8.1.1.0 over the weekend which is the first major update to the NT8 build. They spent the last 6 years since the initial release of 8.0 releasing builds all the way up to 8.0.27.1 which saw less and less bug fixes and minor ones. Then on March 4th 2023 they released 8.1.1.0 and so the problems begin.

NinjaTrader got rid of their existing licenses and moved into a system where you need to login to the platform. From the very start we reported an error where logging in with your Google account wasn't even a possibility. This was an issue because you have to first create your account on their new website before you can login to their platform. Eventually this looks to be resolved in a hotfix that didn't have a version change ... but is very messy trying to get it to work.

Users are also finding frustrations with the login box which apparently NinjaTrader is looking to resolve in the next issue. Usernames and passwords have to be typed in every time which is very annoying at this point so I'm glad to see this is going to be resolved.

From posts on the NinjaTrader forum we can see that some code just didn't compile. Others like ours are getting errors... and at this point we are still waiting for NT's comment on these issues. Running 8.0.27.1 will resolve any issues that you have so we're recommending people stay on the previous release and not upgrade to 8.1.1.0. You will now want to upgrade to at least 8.1.1.1.

So vendors were not allowed to test out the software according to a statement made by the project manager on the NinjaTrader Forums. It seems they have learnt from this mistake and see the need for partners to test this out in advance. But what I do not understand is why it had to be kept as a "secret" release? The rebranding efforts were made public on December 5, 2022 when they filed their trademark application and it was published. So I'm not sure why they felt they needed to keep this hush hush. Maybe one day we'll find out - or maybe we never will.

The first hotfix that seemed to have been done has to do with login issues and some code breaking changes for vendors that used a machine id

Best practices have version numbers with the format major.minor.patch. and sometimes hotfix. So in NinjaTrader's latest release 8.1.1.0 the major number is version 8, the minor is 8.1 and the patch is 8.1.1 and any hotfixes would be increased from 8.1.1.0 to 8.1.1.1 etc. The whole point of this numbering is to provide a clear and consistent way to identify different version of a software package making it easier for every one. Developers, users and anyone else to keep track of changes and understand the implications of different releases.

So far NinjaTrader is not releasing any version updates for the hotfixes they are releasing. NinjaTrader support team has responded to this saying "I will follow up with our development team in regards to the hotfix and version number not changing as I can understand how this may be confusing and make troubleshooting difficult." and development as then responded saying "Currently, they did 'development' let me know that the version number will not be changing". I only have one question - why try to hide a hotfix? You can see it has really made some people quite angry so we hope this is an issue that will be resolved in the future.

Go into your Add and Remove Programs -> Uninstall NinjaTrader 8. Then download the previous version from logging in to your account at ninjatrader.com and install it again. Do not edit anything in your Documents/NinjaTrader 8.

Yes, I strongly believe that they will. Just like with each new release of NT8, the bugs got less important as major issues got resolved. This is also a good reason of why you shouldn't be a new release upgrader. Don't get caught up by the shiny object syndrome where you have to be the first to try it - because you will also be the first to have a lot of issues. But this is going to take some time. My guess from past releases that we should wait to get the next few releases out the door before jumping onboard - but stay in touch with us on our youtube channel to get the latest release summary notes.