Check sequence

Six checks, always in this order · Nigeria

Faults get solved by elimination, not by inspiration. This sequence runs the cheap causes first, so that by step six you are either finished or holding a report worth sending. It works the same whether the screen refused a sign-in, a transfer or an order.

Run the steps in order and stop at the first one that explains the symptom. Skipping ahead is how an afternoon disappears: plenty of what arrives at support as «the platform is broken» is answered at step one or step four.

Why the order matters more than the steps

Each step is cheaper than the one after it and rules out a wider group of causes. Reading a message costs seconds and eliminates whole categories. Opening a second device costs a minute and splits «my account» from «my machine». Sending a report costs a day of waiting, so it comes last, and only with the answers to the first five attached.

Step 1

Read the message exactly as written

Screens refuse in specific words, and the words are the diagnosis. «Market closed» is a calendar problem. «Not enough money» is a margin problem. «Invalid volume» is a size problem. «Invalid account» is a credentials problem. Four different messages, four different pages, and nothing in common except the feeling of being stopped.

What it rules in: a named cause you can look up directly. What it rules out: everything the message does not mention. Next: the message decoder holds the wordings one by one.

Step 2

Confirm which door you are standing at

There are two sign-ins, and they are not interchangeable. The Personal Area takes the email address and password you registered with, and it is where accounts, transfers and platform passwords are managed. MT4 and MT5 take a trading-account number, a separate platform password, and a server picked from a list. A perfectly correct Personal Area password is still wrong on the platform screen.

If two-factor authentication was switched on, the login also needs the device that approves it. That device, not the password, is often what actually went missing.

What it rules in: credentials entered on the wrong screen. What it rules out: a blocked or deleted account, which produces different wording. Next: refused sign-ups and returned documents.

Step 3

Repeat the action somewhere else

The same account is reachable from the Exness Trade app, from the browser terminal, and from the desktop MT4 or MT5 build. Doing the identical thing in a second place splits a fault in half in about a minute.

Succeeds elsewhere: the account is healthy and the problem lives on the first machine — its connection, its version, its settings. Fails everywhere: the cause is on the account or on the instrument, and no amount of reinstalling will move it.

What it rules in: a local device or network fault. What it rules out: an account-level block. Next: whose side each fault sits on.

Step 4

Look at the clock before blaming the software

Currencies trade around the clock on weekdays and stop for the weekend. Metals, indices and share CFDs keep narrower hours of their own. There is also a short break as the trading day rolls over, when quotes thin out and spreads widen. During any of those windows, an order that will not go through and a chart that will not move are both correct behaviour.

The terminal shows the session for each instrument in its specification. Compare that to the clock on the platform, not to the clock on your wall — the two are often in different time zones.

What it rules in: a calendar cause with no fix and no fault. What it rules out: a broken platform. Next: closed, not broken.

Step 5

Read the state of the account, not the balance

Three numbers decide the refusals on this step, and none of them is the big figure at the top. Equity is the balance adjusted for open positions. Margin is the part of it held aside to keep those positions open. Free margin is what remains, and it is the number a new order is measured against.

An account with money in it can still refuse an order, refuse a withdrawal, and close a position on its own — all because free margin ran out while the balance still looked healthy. Which of the three moves first depends on the account type you are on.

What it rules in: margin and account-type causes. What it rules out: a pricing error. Next: protection that did not protect and wrong account, not a bug.

Step 6

Write the report, then send it once

If five steps did not close it, the fault needs someone who can see the account — and that is the broker’s own support, reachable around the clock through live chat, email and a help centre. What decides how fast that goes is the first message, not the second.

Attach the exact wording, the timestamp with its time zone, the trading-account number, the instrument, the size, and which of the five steps you already ran. A report that says «it does not work» buys a day of questions; a report that says «this message, at this minute, on this account, and it also fails in the app» is answerable in one reply.

Next: how to report a fault so it gets fixed the first time.

Three symptoms this sequence will not close

The steps are for things that refuse you. Some complaints are shaped like faults and are not:

«The trade went against me.» A filled order that lost money did what it was told. Nothing in the sequence applies, and no check will find a culprit.
«The price is different from the site I read.» Quotes differ between providers and between moments. That is a comparison, not a defect.
«It is slow today.» Without a timestamp and a second device, «slow» cannot be separated from a busy minute. Step three turns it into evidence or into nothing.

Where to run the sequence for free

Rehearse the refusals

Every message in step one can be triggered deliberately on a practice account with virtual money.

Practice account faults

Check the arithmetic

When a charge or a loss looks wrong, recompute it before reporting it.

Recheck a number

Quick answers

The same faults sorted by how urgent they are rather than by screen.

Sorted by urgency

Run all six on an account where mistakes are free

A demo account uses play money, needs no documents, and refuses orders with exactly the same wording as a funded one. The button opens the official exness.com sign-up through a partner link.

Open a free demo at Exness