Follower Position Doesn't Match the Leader

You glance at the Cockpit and a follower account is showing a different position than the leader — different quantity, the wrong side, or a position where the leader is flat. This is unsettling to see, but it almost always has one of a small number of causes, and MimikTrader already has a built-in safety net for the most common case. This article walks through what to check and the safe way to fix it.

What This Means

A follower's position is supposed to track the leader's position, scaled by that follower's sizing multiplier. When it drifts out of line, the underlying cause is one of four things:

1. The follower was disconnected when the leader traded

This is the most common cause. If a follower's broker connection was offline while the leader placed a trade, that trade is not queued up and replayed once the connection comes back. Missed trades are deliberately not replayed on reconnect — MimikTrader does not try to guess what a disconnected follower "should" have done while it was offline and force it to catch up. The follower simply stays where it was, which can now differ from the leader's current position.

2. Someone traded manually on the follower account

If you or anyone else placed an order directly at the broker on a follower account — outside of MimikTrader — that changes the follower's position independently of the leader. MimikTrader does not detect or prevent manual trades on a follower; it only reacts to the leader's activity.

3. An order was declined

A copy attempt can be rejected before it ever reaches the broker — for example, a risk limit, an account lock, or an offline connection. When that happens, the follower simply doesn't receive that trade, which leaves it out of step with the leader. See Understanding Rejected Orders for the full list of reasons a copy can be declined.

4. A risk lock capped a flip to flat

When the leader reverses a position (long to short or short to long) and the follower is locked, in closing-only mode, outside the symbol whitelist, or otherwise restricted, the follower's reversal is capped at flat instead of carrying through to the new side. The closing portion of the flip always goes through — only the new opening leg on the other side is held back. That follower will show flat while the leader shows a position on the new side, until the restriction clears.

5. A whitelist held back an opening order

If the copy group has a symbol whitelist and the leader trades a contract outside it, the follower's opening order for that contract is blocked. Reducing or closing an existing position on that same contract is still allowed — only new opens on a non-whitelisted symbol are held back.

What the Reconciler Does Automatically

MimikTrader runs an automatic position reconciler that watches for one specific pattern: a follower holding more position than it should relative to the leader. If the leader is flat (or has reduced) and a follower still shows an open position that no longer has anything to track, the reconciler trims that excess follower position back down to match.

When this happens, you'll see a “Follower brought back in line” notification. This is the reconciler doing its job — no action is needed on your part.

Safe Manual Fix

If you've confirmed the mismatch isn't something the reconciler will clean up on its own — for example, the follower is under-positioned rather than over-positioned — the safest correction is:

• Flatten the follower. Closing trades are never blocked by risk limits, account locks, or the symbol whitelist, so a flatten will always go through. Use the Flatten Group or Flatten All controls in the Cockpit, or close the position directly at the broker.
• Let copying resume with the next leader trade. Once the follower is flat and clean, the next trade the leader makes will copy normally at that follower's configured size. You don't need to manually re-open the leader's current position — doing so risks getting the size or side wrong and creates a new mismatch of its own.

This approach trades a short period of not being in the trade for certainty that your position is clean and correctly sized going forward.

When to Contact Support

Reach out if any of the following apply:

• The mismatch keeps recurring on the same follower even though the connection shows healthy and no manual trades were placed.
• You see a rejection reason in the Activity Log that you don't understand, even after checking Understanding Rejected Orders.
• You believe a symbol whitelist is holding back trades you expect to copy — whitelist changes are handled by support, not from the standard group form.
• You're not sure whether flattening and restarting is the right call for your specific situation.

See Contact Support for exactly what to include so we can look into it quickly.