MT5 requotes and rejected orders: where the failures are recorded

Find out why orders fail, what the common messages mean and how to record failed attempts that never reach your trade history.

Not every order you send in MetaTrader 5 becomes a trade. Some are refused, some come back with a new price, and some are filled somewhere other than where you clicked. None of these leave a clean entry in the trade history, because only executed deals are recorded there. If you want to understand why a trade did not happen, you have to look at the Journal tab of the terminal. This page explains requotes, rejected orders and the usual messages, and shows how to keep the useful information in your own records.

Where failed orders are recorded

The history lists orders and deals that were accepted and executed. A refused request is a message in the Journal tab of the toolbox, shown with a time and a short text such as a failed request followed by a reason. Which reasons you see depends on the broker’s server and the execution mode of the symbol. The page on the Journal tab shows how to read it, and Experts tab versus Journal tab explains why an automated strategy’s own messages are in a different place.

Requotes and execution modes

A requote happens when the price changed between your request and the broker’s answer, and the broker offers a new price instead of filling the old one. Whether this can happen depends on the execution mode of the symbol: with market execution the order is filled at the available price, so a requote is not normally offered, while with other modes a requote or a deviation setting may apply. The details are in execution modes and filling policies. Check the symbol specification in your terminal rather than assume.

Common reasons an order is refused

The wording of these messages differs between servers, so treat the table as a guide to the type of problem rather than an exact list of strings.

A worked example (hypothetical)

A trader tries to buy 0.05 lots of an invented symbol with a stop 3 points from the price. The request fails with a message about invalid stops. The trader moves the stop to 20 points away and tries again, but the Journal now says there is not enough money, because the free margin was low after another open position. Neither failed attempt appears in the history. Only the third try, with a smaller size, becomes a deal. If the trader writes down the sequence, the journal entry for that trade shows that the setup needed three attempts and that size was limited by margin, which is something the history alone would never reveal. The case is invented.

Slippage, deviation and partial fills

Two further effects sit between a clean fill and a refusal. The first is deviation, a setting in the order window or in an automated strategy that tells the terminal how far from the requested price a fill may be accepted. A wide deviation makes refusals rarer but allows larger differences between the price you saw and the price you got. The second is a partial fill, where only part of the requested volume is executed at first because the market could not supply the rest at that moment. Both can appear as several deals for one order in the history, and neither is an error in the platform.

When you review a trade that did not go as planned, ask three simple questions. Was the order refused, and why? Was it filled at a different price than expected, and by how much? Was it filled in pieces? The answers separate execution problems from decision problems, so that you do not blame your strategy for something the market or the broker caused, and do not blame the broker for something your own stop placement caused.

Keeping the lesson without a perfect log

• Copy the Journal tab lines for a refused order into the notes of the related entry, with the time, when the failure matters to the story of the trade.
• Tag trades where execution was an issue, for example with a short label such as execution problem, so you can filter them later.
• Review how often refusals come from the same cause; repeated invalid-stops messages point to a habit, not bad luck.
• If the platform filled you at a different price than you expected, compare the fill with the request as shown on spread and slippage in history.

What the journal app does and does not do

AI Trading Journal, a Windows app for MetaTrader 5 only, reads closed trades on your PC and keeps one entry per closed position. It is read-only: it never places, modifies or closes a trade, and it does not read the Journal tab, refused orders or intended prices. That is why the notes field matters. You can type the lines you want to keep, add a tag and attach a screenshot, and the entry keeps everything in a file in your own Documents folder; Notion is an optional extra copy.

Limits and cautions

• Message text and available execution modes depend on the broker; verify in your terminal.
• The Journal tab can be cleared or rotate by day, so copy what you need soon.
• This is educational, not trading advice, and the example is hypothetical.

Frequently asked questions

Related guides

• A local trading journal for MT5
• P&L calendar for MT5
• Trade notes, ratings and screenshots
• Trading progress and goals
• Back up your journal and move it to a new PC
• An offline trading journal for Windows
• How to set monthly trading goals
• Import your whole MT5 history
• How to tag trades
• Trade screenshots for your journal
• All trading journal comparisons