Troubleshooting

This page is organized by symptom. Find what you are seeing, check the likely cause, and apply the fix. Most issues are configuration problems, not bugs.

Written By Axiom Admin

Last updated About 1 month ago

Troubleshooting

This page is organized by symptom. Find what you are seeing, check the likely cause, and apply the fix. Most issues are configuration problems, not bugs.

Symptom-to-cause table

Symptom	Likely cause	Fix
Runtime error mentioning "timeframe" immediately after adding the indicator or changing a slot	A slot's timeframe is set below the chart's timeframe. Most common when adding the indicator to a daily or hourly chart with default 5m/15m slots.	Raise the offending slot's timeframe to be equal to or higher than the chart timeframe, or disable that slot. The error message names the slot that caused the conflict.
Only three channels visible when expecting more	Slots 04-10 are disabled by default. This is intentional, not a loading error.	Enable additional slots in the settings. Each slot you enable appears immediately if its timeframe is at or above the chart timeframe.
Channels look like staircases, not smooth lines	On Bar Close is ON (default, correct behavior)	This is not a problem. The staircase means you are seeing confirmed HTF values. See MTF and Repainting
Blended channel does not match visible individual channels	A hidden slot with non-zero weight is pulling the blend, or a negative weight is pushing the average outside the range you expected	Open settings, check all enabled slots' weights — including hidden ones. Set the hidden slot's weight to 0 to exclude it, unhide it to see its contribution, and remove any negative weights unless you intentionally want inverted blend behavior
Blended channel sits very close to one individual channel	That slot has much higher weight than the others	Check the weight distribution. If one slot has 80% weight and the others have small fractions, the blend is essentially that one slot
Channel lines at zero or flat-lined at an incorrect level	A slot is enabled but its security request returned no data (invalid ticker, no data for that timeframe)	Check the ticker symbol in the Optional Ticker field. Check that the timeframe has available data for that instrument. The indicator wraps empty values with `nz()`, which defaults to zero
Cross-ticker channel drifting away from price over time	The ratio between chart symbol and alternate ticker is changing as the instruments diverge	This is inherent to ratio-based scaling, not a bug. The scaling works well when instruments trend together and degrades when they diverge. See For the Geeks
Channels not updating after market close	On Bar Close is ON and the HTF bar has not yet closed	Expected behavior. The channel waits for the HTF bar to confirm before updating. On extended timeframes (daily, weekly), the wait can be long
Alerts not firing when expected	Price crossed the level during the bar but closed back on the other side before the bar confirmed	All alerts fire on confirmed bar closes only. If the cross did not hold through the close, the alert correctly does not fire. This is protective, not a gap — it prevents false triggers from intrabar noise.
Alert firing at a price level that seems wrong	Blended alerts depend on weights; if you changed weights recently, the blended basis shifted. Hidden slots with weight also affect blended levels.	Review all contributing slot weights, including hidden ones. Compare the blended basis in the data window to what you expected. If the alert fired at the correct blended basis but the blended basis is not where you thought it was, the issue is in your weight configuration, not in the alert logic.
Changing the MA type has no effect on the basis line	You are still on the default `SMA + Basis MA Length = 1` combination, or you switched to another length-aware MA that also collapses to the midpoint at length 1	Try increasing Basis MA Length above 1. If you want a visible change at length 1, remember the library is not uniform: modes like SWMA or Laguerre can still alter the basis there

Deeper diagnosis

"The blend moved but none of my channels moved"

Most likely: A hidden slot has weight and its HTF bar just confirmed, shifting the blend.

How to check: Open the settings and look at every enabled slot. Pay attention to the Hide Plot toggle and the weight. A slot with Hide = ON and weight > 0 is influencing the blend from behind the scenes.

If that is not it: Check whether a slot's On Bar Close is OFF. That slot may be updating intrabar while the others hold steady. The blend recomputes whenever any contributing slot changes, so a single building-bar slot can make the blend appear to move when the confirmed-bar slots have not.

"The chart looks different in history than it does live"

Most likely: On Bar Close is OFF for one or more slots.

When On Bar Close is off, the channels update using the current building HTF bar. In real time, you see intermediate values. In history, TradingView shows only the final values. The chart rewrites itself after the fact. The tricky part: the rewritten chart often looks better than what you saw live — breakouts appear cleaner, transitions appear smoother. The chart is not showing you errors; it is showing you a flattering edit of what actually happened.

How to confirm: Switch to replay mode and step through bars in the area that looks different. With On Bar Close ON, the values should be stable as you step forward. With it OFF, you are seeing the final snapshot, not the real-time experience. If you can find a spot where a channel seems to show a clean breakout in history but would have been ambiguous mid-bar, you are seeing the repainting at work.

Fix: Turn On Bar Close ON for any slot you want to analyze historically. See MTF and Repainting.

"I enabled a slot and the blend jumped to a weird level"

Most likely: The newly enabled slot has a non-zero weight and its channel values are far from the existing blend because it is on a very different timeframe or uses a different instrument.

How to check: Look at the new slot's upper, basis, and lower values relative to the other slots. If the values are drastically different (common with wide-timeframe slots or cross-ticker slots), the blend will jump to accommodate them.

Fix: If you want the slot visible but not in the blend, set its weight to 0. If you want it in the blend, adjust weights across all contributing slots so the new one's influence is proportionate to what you intend.

"My cross-ticker channel is at completely wrong price levels"

Most likely: The alternate ticker's price is in a very different range than the chart symbol, and the ratio-based scaling is producing values that technically scale but sit at levels that feel wrong relative to recent price action.

How to check: The scaling uses close/close as the ratio. If the chart symbol is at 5000 and the alternate ticker is at 500, the scaling multiplier is roughly 10x. If the alternate ticker's Donchian upper is at 520, the scaled upper would be roughly 5200. Check whether this math holds.

If the ratio seems off: The ratio updates each bar. If you are looking at historical data, the ratio at that point in time may have been different from the current ratio. This is the drift behavior described in For the Geeks.

If the channel is at zero: The security request for the alternate ticker may have returned no data. Check the ticker symbol for typos and confirm the instrument has data at the requested timeframe.

"Alerts are triggering too frequently"

Most likely for per-slot alerts: The slot's timeframe is close to the chart timeframe, and price is oscillating around the basis. Every cross fires a basis-change alert. This is especially common when a slot's timeframe matches the chart timeframe — the channel updates every bar, and the basis shifts frequently.

Most likely for alignment alerts: Too few slots are enabled. With one or two slots, the "all slots agree" condition fires almost every bar that closes on one side of the basis. The alert is doing exactly what it is supposed to — but the condition it describes is trivially easy to meet.

Fix: For per-slot alerts on noisy basis crosses, consider whether a higher timeframe for that slot would reduce the noise, or whether you actually need basis-change alerts on a short-timeframe slot. For alignment alerts, make sure enough slots at diverse timeframes are enabled to make "all agree" a genuinely infrequent and meaningful condition. As a rule of thumb, if an alignment alert fires more than a few times per session, either the slot count is too low or the timeframes are too similar.