Tradovate Simulation Account Reset Unexpectedly

You open the platform on a Monday and something's off. The sim account is back to a round default number. The trades you logged last week are gone. The ATM brackets you spent an evening dialing in have vanished, and your custom indicators didn't load on the charts. If you were tracking a practice run, that stings.

Here's the honest version most people don't tell you up front: a simulated Tradovate account is a practice sandbox, not a permanent record. It can be reset, and when it is, your balance and configuration can go with it. This guide walks through why it happens, how to get your setup back in about a minute, and how to make the next reset a non-event instead of a lost evening.

Short version: Treat sim balances and ATM settings as disposable. Keep a copy of your ATM strategy parameters somewhere outside the platform, use Modify Balance to restore your practice balance whenever you need to, and don't lean on sim P&L as a lasting record. Preparation beats prevention here, because you can't stop the shared sim environment from being refreshed.

What You'll Actually See

A sim reset doesn't announce itself. You usually notice it through one or more of these symptoms:

• Your balance snapped back to a default amount (often $50,000), and whatever custom size you were using is gone.
• Open sim positions and working orders have been cleared.
• ATM strategies and bracket profiles are empty or reverted to their default set.
• Custom indicators aren't loaded on your charts anymore.
• In some cases you can't log in to the demo at all, which is a different problem covered further down.

None of that means your machine broke or you clicked the wrong thing. It's the sim environment doing what a sim environment does.

Why a Sim Account Resets

There are a few different triggers, and lumping them together is what makes this confusing. They're not the same problem.

Periodic maintenance and sim refreshes

The simulation environment is a shared practice system that Tradovate maintains. Those maintenance windows tend to land on weekends, and sometimes they wipe sim state back to defaults. Because it's a platform-wide event rather than something tied to your account, there's usually no individual notice. You just log in afterward and find the slate wiped.

Crashes and instability

If the platform hits a hard crash, sim configuration that lives server-side can revert. A rough weekend for the servers can look exactly like a deliberate reset from where you're sitting.

Trial expiry (not a reset)

The free demo runs 14 days from registration. When that window lapses, you can't log in to place simulated trades anymore, and the trial can't be extended or reset. That's expiry, not a mid-run wipe. Your two options are to open and fund a live Tradovate account, which includes unlimited simulated trading, or start a fresh trial with a different email address.

Prop and evaluation accounts

If you're trading a funded evaluation, the account and its balance are controlled by your prop firm, not by you. Resets, end-of-day balance behavior, and the rules around them vary by firm and account size, so check your firm's current rules rather than assuming the platform misbehaved.

The takeaway across all four: for the shared sim environment, you can't prevent a reset from your side. So the real win is in how you prepare for one.

Restore Your Practice Balance in Under a Minute

Getting your practice balance back is quick. On the web platform:

The change reflects across every version of the platform you use, so once you set it on the web, desktop and mobile follow. Two things worth remembering: this settings dialog is a web-platform feature, and adjusting the balance is not the same as extending an expired trial. If the demo simply won't let you log in, that's the expiry situation from above, and no amount of balance-setting will bring it back.

Back Up Your ATM Strategies Before the Next Reset

This is the part that saves you real time. Because ATM strategies can disappear in a reset, keep a copy of their parameters somewhere the platform can't touch. Tradovate doesn't hand you a one-click export of ATM profiles, so the dependable backup is a plain written record or a screenshot. For each strategy you rely on, capture:

• The strategy name.
• Quantity per target.
• Stop-loss distance (in ticks, price, or dollars, whichever unit you set it in).
• Each take-profit target and its distance.
• Whether it auto-places as an OCO bracket.
• Any breakeven or trailing behavior you've configured.

Drop that into a note or a spreadsheet and keep it current whenever you tweak a bracket. Rebuilding a strategy from a clear list takes a couple of minutes. Rebuilding it from memory after a Monday wipe takes an evening and you'll second-guess every number.

Stop Relying on Sim Balance Persistence

The bigger shift is in how you think about the sim account. Once you stop treating it like a savings account, resets stop hurting.

• Treat the balance as a dial, not a score. Set it to your target size at the start of a session instead of watching it accumulate over weeks. That way a reset just means clicking Modify Balance again.
• Export or screenshot anything you're measuring. If you're tracking P&L or a win rate, pull your reports regularly and store them yourself. Don't trust the platform to carry that history through a reset.
• Keep your ATM backup fresh. Update the record every time you change a bracket, not just when you remember.
• Journal outside the platform. A trade journal or a third-party analytics tool survives a reset. The sim account doesn't, and it was never designed to.

Prop Firm and Funded Accounts

Funded and evaluation accounts play by different rules. There, the balance, the trailing drawdown, the end-of-day flattening, and any reset are set by the firm. If your eval balance changes out of nowhere or the account disappears entirely, that's a question for the firm, not a platform bug you can fix from settings. The specific numbers vary by firm and account size, so read your firm's current terms before you conclude something is broken.

One common overlap: if a demo or eval account gets switched off after a quiet stretch, that's usually an inactivity policy rather than a reset. The fix and the reasoning are different from the reset scenarios covered above.

When to Contact Support

Most sim resets don't need a support ticket. Reach out when:

• Your live, real-money account balance or positions look wrong. Never sit on this one.
• A sim reset hit mid-session and cost you an active practice setup you genuinely needed.
• The demo won't log in and you're still inside your 14-day trial window.

For prop evaluation issues, contact the firm first, since they own the account. For any live-money discrepancy, contact Tradovate right away and hold off on placing new orders until everything is reconciled.

Testing an automated strategy on the sim account? Keep the automation itself off the platform so a reset can't touch it. PickMyTrade routes your TradingView alerts to Tradovate from its own configuration, so when the sim environment refreshes, your trading logic and connection settings stay exactly where you left them.