Troubleshooting

When something on the chart looks wrong, the first question worth asking is not "is this tool broken?" It is "is this the tool operating as documented, or did I configure something unexpected?" Most of the time, on mo...

Written By Axiom Admin

Last updated 22 days ago

Troubleshooting

Before you diagnose

Two habits save an enormous amount of time in a diagnostic session:

Read the indicator's status bar. TradingView surfaces runtime errors in a small strip below the chart. If the chart goes blank and that strip has a red message, the message is usually the fastest path to the fix.
Reset to defaults, then change one thing at a time. If you cannot name the configuration that produced the unexpected behaviour, it is very hard to reason about which knob caused it. Reset, reproduce, and change one input to isolate the cause.

With those in hand, the table below walks the most common symptoms.

Symptom to cause to fix

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix	See also
Chart is blank; red error in the status bar naming a slot (for example "BB 01 timeframe cannot be lower than the chart timeframe.").	A slot's `TimeFrame:` is below the chart timeframe. The guard refuses this configuration.	Raise the slot's `TimeFrame:` to at or above the chart timeframe.	MTF and Repainting — the guard
Higher-timeframe slot lines visibly drift on my chart during a live higher-timeframe bar; past chart bars are moving.	`On Bar Close?` is OFF. Every slot is reading the live higher-timeframe bar.	If you want confirmed values only, flip `On Bar Close?` to ON. Read the tradeoff before you decide.	MTF and Repainting
Blended band is moving and I cannot see what is moving it.	A hidden slot is still contributing. `Hide BB 0N Plot` is cosmetic — the slot still steers the blend at its `Blended Weight:`.	Unhide the slot to confirm; then either zero its weight (visible but silent) or disable it (excluded from everything).	Visuals and Logic — the hidden-plot trap
Blended band looks frozen while individual slot bands are clearly active.	Weighted contributions are cancelling. One slot's movement is being offset by another slot moving the other way under the weights you set.	Not a bug. Read the slots directly; the blend is honestly reporting a weighted stand-off. Adjust weights deliberately if you want a different composite.	Visuals and Logic — agreement versus cancellation
Alignment alert did not fire when two slots clearly agreed on direction.	Alignment requires every enabled slot with a non-na basis to agree. Partial agreement is not alignment.	Either confirm the third enabled slot disagrees (read its basis-trend state), or disable the slot you did not mean to include.	Alerts — alignment
Alignment alert is always silent even though the chart looks aligned most of the time.	One or more hidden slots are disagreeing. Hidden-plot slots still count in the alignment check.	Unhide the slots and confirm which one is breaking alignment. If that slot should not be in the alignment check, disable it with `Enable BB 0N`.	Visuals and Logic; Alerts
Per-slot basis-trend alert keeps flickering every few bars.	`Basis Trend Length:` is very short (for example `1` or `2`). The trend state is effectively a bar-to-bar comparison.	Increase `Basis Trend Length:` to a value that matches how quickly you actually want the trend read to flip.	Settings — length versus basis trend length
A slot or the blended band looks pinned near zero at the start of chart history, then behaves normally later.	The slot's BB values may still be `na` during warm-up, and the script plots/pushes `nz(...)` values for those early bars.	Treat the warm-up section as not ready for reading. If the zero-looking behaviour remains later in the chart, check for invalid lengths, disabled slots, or a nonpositive blend-weight total.	Visuals and Logic — early bars
Blended basis-trend alert reports uptrend while the blended basis curve looks near-flat.	The blended basis-trend is a weight-majority vote across slot basis states, not a read of the blended curve's slope. Ties count as uptrend.	Check the per-slot basis-trend states. If the uptrend-voting slots carry more weight than the downtrend-voting slots, the alert is reporting the vote honestly.	For the Geeks — the blend rule
A slot's bands do not match a stock Bollinger indicator configured with the same `Length:` and `StdDev Mult:`.	`Type:` is set to a moving-average other than `SMA`, or the slot's `TimeFrame:` is above the chart timeframe. Axiom's moving-average library may also differ from platform implementations of non-SMA / non-EMA types.	Set `Type:` to `SMA` and `TimeFrame:` equal to the chart timeframe to reproduce a native Bollinger. Any remaining difference is a moving-average-type difference, not a bug.	Settings; Axiom MA Library (Lite)
The inputs dialog does not show a moving-average parameter I expected (for example, Jurik phase, KAMA length controls, ALMA offset).	The Base trim is bound to the Axiom MA Library Lite. Per-moving-average power-user parameters live in the Pro library, which is not used on this trim.	If you need those parameters, you are asking for the CTX trim, not this one.	Limitations and Trust Boundaries
I cannot find an `Optional Ticker` input or any cross-symbol setting.	The Base trim has no cross-ticker bands. Every slot is computed on the chart symbol.	If you need cross-ticker behaviour, use the CTX trim. Not available on the Base trim at all.	Limitations and Trust Boundaries
Blended BB lines and fill are gone but per-slot alerts are still firing.	`Hide Blended BB Plot` is cosmetic; `Enable Blended BB` is still on. The blend math (and its alerts) are still active.	If you want the blend off entirely — math and alerts — set `Enable Blended BB` to `false`.	Settings
Alert fired but the higher-timeframe bar underneath a slot had not yet closed.	`On Bar Close?` is OFF. The alert gate is chart bar close, not higher-timeframe bar close.	If you want alerts gated on confirmed higher-timeframe values, keep `On Bar Close?` ON.	MTF and Repainting; Alerts

Errors, limits, and misreads — three categories

When you are in a diagnostic moment, it helps to know which of three categories your symptom belongs to:

1. Configuration errors

The indicator is refusing a configuration that would otherwise quietly produce a wrong answer. There is exactly one of these on the Base trim today: the slot-timeframe guard.

Surface. Runtime error in the TradingView status bar naming the slot. Chart does not render.
Cause. TimeFrame: set below the chart timeframe on a slot.
Fix. Raise that slot's TimeFrame:.

This is never a bug in the indicator. It is the indicator protecting you from a misconfiguration. Treat the error as a prompt, fix the input, and move on.

2. The tool operating as documented

The chart is doing what the documentation says it should do, but the behaviour is unexpected because an input or interaction was forgotten. This is the largest category by volume and includes:

The blended band shifting under a hidden but enabled slot.
Alignment alerts not firing during partial agreement.
A slot's lines stepping only at higher-timeframe bar close under On Bar Close? ON.
A slot's lines drifting during a live higher-timeframe bar under On Bar Close? OFF.
A per-slot basis-trend alert flickering under a very short Basis Trend Length:.
Early chart bars with zero-looking slot or blend values because warm-up na values are converted with nz(...).

None of these are defects. They are the documented behaviour of inputs the reader either forgot about or did not realise applied in this situation. The fix is rarely mechanical; the fix is usually to re-read the section of the manual that covers the setting involved.

3. Real limits of the Base trim

The reader wants a feature the Base trim does not ship. The three largest cases:

Cross-ticker bands. Not available on this trim at all; the CTX trim exposes them.
Per-slot repaint control. Global-only on this trim; per-slot on CTX.
Pro-library moving-average parameters. Not exposed on this trim; Pro library is used by CTX.

These are not troubleshooting problems. They are scope boundaries. If one of these is what you need, the correct move is to switch trims, not to work the Base trim harder.

A short diagnostic sequence you can run

When a chart looks wrong and you cannot immediately name why:

Check the status bar for a runtime error. If there is one, read the slot name in the message and check that slot's TimeFrame:.
Note the current state of On Bar Close?. If you are seeing live redraw on past chart bars, flip it to ON and watch the behaviour change.
Look at the Hide BB 0N Plot toggles for every slot. If any is on, consider whether that hidden slot is what is moving the blend or silencing alignment.
Look at Blended Weight: for every enabled slot. Zero-weight slots are visible but do not steer the blend. Non-zero-weight slots do.
Look at Basis Trend Length: on each slot where the trend state matters to the question you are asking. A very short value on a slow timeframe will flicker.
If you still cannot reproduce the expected behaviour, reset to shipped defaults and re-introduce your changes one at a time.

If after that sequence the chart still looks wrong, and you can name the configuration that produces the behaviour, the next step is the support channel rather than the input dialog. A placeholder support destination for this pack will be filled in before publication; until then, the behaviour you are seeing is almost certainly covered by one of the sections above.

A note on diagnostic fluency

The symptoms that feel most urgent on the first encounter — the chart going blank, a line visibly drifting on a past bar, an alert that appears to have missed the obvious — stop feeling urgent once you have seen each of them on purpose. That is why the verification drills in Quick Start, MTF and Repainting, and For the Geeks are written as something to do, not just as something to read. Fluency with a tool is largely the memory of having watched it behave exactly as documented in a case you triggered yourself. The reader who has watched On Bar Close? flip live once is a reader who will not mistake a repaint behaviour for a bug at two in the morning. The reader who has run the blend-rule verification once will not be convinced by a colleague who claims the composite is "smoothed" or "optimised" — neither of those is what the rule does, and the reader has seen that firsthand. Every minute spent in deliberate verification is minutes saved in panic diagnosis later.