MetaTrader 5 Heartbeat

A MetaTrader 5 Expert Advisor that sends a recurring heartbeat ping to healthchecks.io from directly inside the MT5 terminal. Attach it to any spare chart and it will confirm your terminal is alive every N minutes — no external Python process or scheduled task required.

---

What it does

• Sends a /start + success ping to healthchecks.io on every interval tick
• On any network failure or non-200 HTTP response, immediately sends an explicit /fail ping for active alerting
• Tracks consecutive fail streaks and total successful pings in the MT5 journal
• Logs a reminder to whitelist the URL in MT5 settings on the first failure
• Resets the interval timer only on successful pings — a failed ping retries on the next tick rather than silently waiting a full interval
• Prints a stop summary (total pings sent, last fail streak, stop reason) to the journal on deinit

---

Installation

1. In MetaTrader 5 open the MQL5 Editor (F4)
2. Copy MT5-HB-HC.mq5 into MQL5\Experts\
3. Press F7 to compile — confirm zero errors in the Errors tab
4. Back in MT5, open a separate spare chart (any symbol/timeframe — it does not trade)
5. Drag the EA from the Navigator onto that chart
6. In the Inputs tab set your PingURL (see Setup below)
7. Click OK — the EA starts immediately

Attach to a dedicated chart only. Do not attach it to a chart already running a trading EA.

---

Required: whitelist the ping URL in MT5

MT5 blocks all outbound HTTP by default. You must whitelist the domain before the EA can reach healthchecks.io:

1. Tools → Options → Expert Advisors
2. Check Allow WebRequest for listed URL
3. Click + and add: https://hc-ping.com
4. Click OK

If this step is skipped, every ping will fail with err: 4014 and the EA will print a reminder in the journal.

---

Setup

1. Get your healthchecks.io ping URL

1. Sign up or log in at healthchecks.io
2. Create a new check — set Period to match your IntervalMinutes (default: 5 minutes) and Grace to 1–2 minutes
3. Copy the ping URL — it looks like:

   https://hc-ping.com/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx
   

2. Set the PingURL input

In the EA Inputs dialog, replace YOUR-UUID-HERE with your actual UUID:

Before: https://hc-ping.com/YOUR-UUID-HERE
After:  https://hc-ping.com/xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx

The EA validates the URL on startup and will refuse to run (INIT_PARAMETERS_INCORRECT) if it does not contain hc-ping.com.

---

Inputs

Input	Default	Description
PingURL	https://hc-ping.com/YOUR-UUID-HERE	Required. Your full healthchecks.io ping URL
IntervalMinutes	5	Ping interval in minutes (minimum: 1)
PingOnStart	true	Send a ping immediately when the EA attaches

---

Journal output

2026.05.23 21:00:00  Heartbeat started | Interval: 5 min | URL: https://hc-ping.com/xxxx...
2026.05.23 21:00:00  Heartbeat OK | 2026.05.23 21:00 | Total: 1
2026.05.23 21:05:00  Heartbeat OK | 2026.05.23 21:05 | Total: 2
2026.05.23 21:10:00  Heartbeat FAILED | err: 4014 | streak: 1 | 2026.05.23 21:10
2026.05.23 21:10:00   >> Ensure 'https://hc-ping.com/xxxx...' is whitelisted: Tools > Options > Expert Advisors
2026.05.23 21:15:00  Heartbeat OK | 2026.05.23 21:15 | Total: 3
2026.05.23 21:15:00  Heartbeat stopped | Reason: EA removed | Total pings sent: 3 | Last fail streak: 1

The EA logs on the first ping and every 100th ping after that during normal operation to avoid flooding the journal.

---

How healthchecks.io alerting works

healthchecks.io monitors your check in two ways:

• Missed heartbeat — if no ping arrives within Period + Grace, the check goes Late then Down and triggers your configured alert (email, Telegram, PagerDuty, etc.)
• Explicit /fail ping — if the EA catches a network error or receives a non-200 response, it immediately hits https://hc-ping.com/<UUID>/fail, marking the check Down right away without waiting for the grace period to expire

The EA also sends a /start ping before each success ping. This lets healthchecks.io measure the duration of each ping cycle and alert you if a ping takes longer than expected — useful for detecting a hung or overloaded terminal.

---

License

Copyright (C) 2026 minn0x
Licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0