Exness Web Terminal in a Background Tab
What the browser terminal does while another window is in front — and how to tell the screen is older than the market.
Open Exness Account →A browser gives an inactive tab less of everything: fewer timer ticks, lower priority, and nothing at all once the machine sleeps. The account is unaffected — an order and the levels attached to it are held on the broker side, not in the tab — but the picture on the screen is. When the tab returns it rebuilds the price stream, requests the bars it missed and redraws before the figures settle, and the readings taken during those seconds are the ones worth distrusting.
A background tab is not a closed tab, and not a foreground one either
- A browser slows down what it cannot see: an inactive tab gets fewer timer ticks, and a machine that goes to sleep suspends the page outright.
- The account does not slow down with it — an order and the levels attached to it are held on the broker side, not in the tab.
- On return the tab has work to do: rebuild the price stream, request the bars it missed, redraw the chart, refresh the account figures — in that order, not instantly.
- The gap between the tab being back and the numbers being current is where wrong readings get taken.
- Every check that settles it is a clock check: the time on the newest bar against the terminal clock, never the look of the chart.
Reading whether the screen is still current
| Signal | What it looks like | What it usually means |
|---|---|---|
| Bar clock | Newest candle sits several intervals behind the terminal clock | The stream stopped — the chart is a photograph |
| Quotes stopped moving | Bid and ask hold the same figures | Ordinary in a thin hour, suspicious in a busy one |
| Spread frozen | The displayed figure never changes at all | A held reading rather than a live one |
| Chart moves, position figure does not | Candles update while the floating figure sits still | Two streams, only one of them back |
| One long candle on return | A single large bar appears the moment the tab is focused | Missed bars filled in at once — not one move |
| Reconnect notice | The terminal reports it is restoring the connection | Read nothing until it finishes |
What runs where while nothing is being watched
It helps to separate two things that a single window makes look like one. What is drawn — candles, the price scale, the figures beside an open position — is produced in the tab, and it stops when the tab is throttled. What is held — the position itself, the levels attached to it, an instruction waiting for a price — is held on the broker side and does not care which window has focus.
So a frozen screen is a reporting problem rather than an account problem. That is reassuring and slightly dangerous at the same time: reassuring because nothing was missed by not looking, dangerous because a stale figure looks exactly like a fresh one.
The rule that follows is short. Trust the account to keep running; do not trust the number in front of you until its clock has been read.
The clock is the only honest indicator
Every other sign can be argued with. A quiet quote is ordinary in a thin hour. A static spread is plausible on a calm instrument. A position figure that has not moved may simply belong to a price that has not moved. The time on the newest bar cannot be argued with: either it is within one interval of the terminal clock, or the chart has stopped being a chart and become a photograph of one.
That is why the check is worth turning into a reflex before any action taken after the tab has been away — one look at the right-hand edge, one at the clock. It takes a second and costs nothing when it passes.
When it fails, the cure is to make the terminal ask again rather than to reload everything: switching the timeframe away and back re-requests the history and usually brings the edge of the chart up to date without disturbing the rest of the screen.
A sleeping machine is a harder case than a background tab
A tab that lost focus was slowed down. A machine that slept was stopped, and the difference shows in how the screen behaves on return. The slowed tab tends to catch up quietly. The stopped one often arrives with an obvious artefact — a single long candle covering the whole missing stretch, or an edge that sits still for a few seconds while the connection is rebuilt underneath it.
A lid closed for an hour and a lid closed overnight look identical at the moment of opening, and the screen gives no hint of which one it was. The bar clock does, which is the point of reading it first.
None of this argues for keeping the window in front at all times. It argues for one small habit: after the screen wakes, give the terminal a few seconds, and read the edge of the chart before reading anything else on it.
After the tab comes back to the front
- Give it a few seconds before touching anything — the connection is rebuilt before the numbers settle.
- Read the time on the newest bar and compare it with the terminal clock.
- Within one bar interval, the chart is current. Several intervals behind, it is a photograph.
- Check whether the quote figures move at all, and judge that against the hour of the day rather than against expectation.
- If the edge is stale, switch the timeframe away and back so the terminal requests the history again.
- Read the figures beside an open position only once the chart edge is current: the two streams do not always return together.
- Only then act. A stale screen is a reporting delay, and it costs nothing until a decision is made on it.
Delays and slippage may occur. No guarantee of execution speed or precision.
What a break in the tab costs, by kind
| What happened | The account | The screen | First thing on return |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tab moved to the background | Unchanged | Updates slow down | Read the bar clock |
| Another window covered it | Unchanged | Usually keeps up | Read the bar clock anyway |
| Machine went to sleep | Unchanged | Stopped, then catches up in one jump | Wait for the reconnect, then read the clock |
| Connection dropped briefly | Unchanged | Figures freeze, then jump | Wait for the stream, then re-check the edge |
| Browser reloaded the page | Unchanged | Rebuilt from scratch | Wait for the chart, then read the clock |
An order and the levels attached to it are held on the broker side and are unaffected by what the screen is doing. Delays and slippage may occur.