Understanding Rejected Orders: Every Rejection Reason Explained

When a leader places a trade and a follower does not receive it, the order log will show a REJECTED status with a specific reason message. MimikTrader's risk manager evaluates every trade against multiple conditions before allowing it through, and each condition has a distinct rejection message. This article covers every possible rejection reason, what it means, and what you can do about it.

Group and Connection Rejections

These rejections occur before any risk evaluation happens. They indicate a fundamental configuration issue with the copy group or broker connection.

"Group is not active."

The copy group is either disabled or its status is not ACTIVE. This can happen when:

• You manually disabled the group in the Copy Groups page.
• The group status is PAUSED or LOCKED.

Fix: Go to the Copy Groups page, ensure the group is enabled, and verify its status is ACTIVE.

"Follower is disabled."

The specific follower account is disabled within the copy group, or the trading account's follow-enabled flag is turned off. This is a per-follower toggle that lets you temporarily stop a single account from receiving trades without affecting others in the group.

Fix: Check both the follower toggle in the Copy Groups page and the account's follow-enabled setting in Connections.

"Broker connection is offline."

The follower's broker connection is either disabled or not in a CONNECTED state. This means MimikTrader cannot communicate with the broker to place orders.

Fix: Go to the Connections page and verify the connection status is CONNECTED. If it shows DISCONNECTED, check your API credentials or re-authorize the OAuth connection.

Position Logic Rejections

These rejections are based on the relationship between the leader's and follower's current positions.

"Follower is flat and leader is closing — no new position."

The follower has no open position, and MimikTrader detected that the leader is closing or reducing an existing position rather than opening a new one. This guard prevents a flat follower from accidentally opening a new position when the leader's fill is actually a close.

Fix: No action needed. This is correct behavior. The follower should not open a position when the leader is closing one. If the follower was supposed to have a position, check the Cockpit for position discrepancies.

Symbol and Session Rejections

"Contract is outside the group whitelist."

The copy group has a symbol whitelist configured, and the leader traded a contract that is not on the list. The whitelist is a comma-separated list of allowed root symbols (e.g., "ES, NQ, CL").

Fix: Either add the contract to the whitelist in the Copy Groups settings, or leave the whitelist empty to allow all contracts.

"Outside session window (HH:MM-HH:MM CT)."

The copy group has a trading session window configured, and the current time (in Central Time) is outside that window. Session windows restrict when trades can be copied — for example, only during regular trading hours.

Fix: Wait until the session window opens, or adjust the session start and end times in the Copy Groups settings. Remove the session window entirely to allow 24-hour copying.

Risk Profile Rejections

"No risk profile configured."

The follower's trading account does not have a risk profile attached. Every account that participates in trade copying must have a risk profile — it defines the sizing mode, max contracts, and all risk limits.

Fix: Go to the Risk Management page and configure a risk profile for the account.

"Account is LOCKED — all trading disabled."

The account's risk status is LOCKED. This happens after a risk breach (daily loss, weekly loss, trailing drawdown, or profit target) or when you manually lock the account. In the locked state, all trades are blocked — both opening and closing.

Fix: Wait for the automatic unlock (daily reset at 5 PM CT for daily locks, Sunday 5 PM CT for weekly locks), or manually unlock the account from the Risk Management page after reviewing the breach.

"Account is in LIQUIDATE_ONLY mode — only closing trades allowed."

The account is in the intermediate LIQUIDATE_ONLY state after a risk breach. Closing trades are still allowed, but new opening trades are blocked. This state typically lasts only a few seconds while positions are being flattened, after which the account transitions to fully LOCKED.

Fix: Wait for the flatten to complete — the account will transition to LOCKED automatically. Then follow the unlock process described above.

P&L Limit Rejections

"Daily loss limit reached."

The follower's realized daily P&L has dropped to or below the negative of the configured daily loss limit. No new opening trades are allowed for the remainder of the trading day.

Fix: The daily limit resets at 5 PM CT. If you need to trade before then, adjust the daily loss limit on the Risk Management page. Note: if the account is also LOCKED, you will need to unlock it as well.

"Daily profit target already reached."

The follower's realized daily P&L has reached or exceeded the configured daily profit target. New opening trades are blocked to prevent overtrading after a strong day.

Fix: The daily limit resets at 5 PM CT. If you want to continue trading, adjust or disable the daily profit target.

"Weekly loss limit reached."

The follower's accumulated weekly P&L has dropped to or below the negative of the configured weekly loss limit. This limit aggregates across all trading days in the week.

Fix: The weekly limit resets on Sunday at 5 PM CT. If the limit is too aggressive, adjust the weekly loss limit value. Weekly locks are not cleared by daily resets.

"Weekly profit target already reached."

The follower's accumulated weekly P&L has reached or exceeded the configured weekly profit target. New opening trades are blocked for the remainder of the trading week.

Fix: The weekly limit resets on Sunday at 5 PM CT. Adjust or disable the weekly profit target if you want to continue trading.

Position Size Rejections

"Order size exceeds max contracts."

The calculated follower quantity (after applying the sizing mode) is greater than the max contracts limit. This rejection typically indicates a configuration issue because the normal flow should clamp the quantity to the max — this rejection fires as an additional safety check.

Fix: Increase the max contracts value on the Risk Management page, or reduce the multiplier so the calculated quantity stays within bounds.

Anti-Hedging Rejections

"Hedging prevention: order would flip position to opposite side."

The copy group has hedging prevention enabled (which is the default), and the incoming trade would flip the follower's position from long to short (or vice versa). This guard exists because most prop firms prohibit holding opposing positions simultaneously.

Fix: This is usually correct behavior. If you intentionally want to allow position flipping, disable the Prevent Hedging toggle on the copy group. See the Prevent Hedging article for details.

Trailing Drawdown Rejections

"Trailing max drawdown breached."

The follower's equity has dropped below the high-water mark by more than the configured trailing drawdown distance. This rejection blocks new trades at the risk evaluation stage (the real-time monitor handles the flatten separately).

Fix: A trailing drawdown breach on a prop firm account usually means the account is terminated. Check with your prop firm before attempting to unlock.

Trade Count Rejections

"Max daily trades limit reached."

The follower has reached the maximum number of trades allowed per day. This opt-in limit prevents overtrading and resets at 5 PM CT with the daily counters.

Fix: Wait for the daily reset, or increase the max daily trades value on the Risk Management page if the limit is too restrictive.

Broker and Infrastructure Rejections

"Broker adapter rejected the follower order."

The order passed all risk checks but the broker refused it. This can happen due to insufficient margin, position limits at the broker level, or an invalid contract symbol.

Fix: Check the activity log for the broker's specific error message. Common causes include insufficient account balance, expired contract symbols, or account restrictions on the broker side.

"Tradovate maintenance guard queued this automated order."

The order was blocked because it was submitted during Tradovate's daily maintenance window (4-5 PM CT Monday through Thursday). MimikTrader blocks automated orders during this period to prevent failures.

Fix: Wait for the maintenance window to end. This is a temporary block — normal operation resumes automatically when the maintenance window closes.