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u/shindigin 2 days ago Other/Meta

No fractional share via the shitty IB api?

This is a continuation to my series of rants regarding the crappiest piece shit software ever created by humans. So basically I'm getting the warning below: ERROR 8060554 2176 Warning: Your API version does not support fractional share size rules. Please upgrade to a minimum version 163. Trimmed value 100 to 1 So I download the goddamned new version from the archaic website which installs some app on my macbook which I have to examine its contents to reach the python source, instead of just putting a fucking release on github like any sane person would do, but why not waste everyone's time and have them install something they don't need in order to simply install a pip package. Now the new version is installed and the warning message is gone. Can you guess what I still can't do? Placing a fucking order with fractional shares, isn't this what "version 163" above is supposed to fix? Noooo ... ERROR 3 1791588103712 10244 Cash Quantity cannot be used for this order I thought maybe there's some quirk I won't bother to understand, let's just simply divide the cash quantity by the current price and pass that instead ... ERROR 5 1791588298638 10243 Fractional-sized order cannot be placed via API. Please use desktop version to place this order. Seriously? I mean they could've just disabled the option from the python package along with the stupid upgrade warning, but again, why not waste everyone's time. If any of the other broker options were available at the shit hole where I live, I would've switched without a millisecond of hesitation, but unfortunately it seems I'm stuck with this pain in the ass. I'll probably end up reverse engineering the authentication, this gateway crap and obtain the functionality via the web app, since it's available there.
5 comments held Reddit says 0 on reddit ↗
  1. u/Vivid-Intention-8927 1 2 days ago
    welcome to the interactive brokers experience where every step forward is just a new way to stub your toe
  2. u/QuanTradin 1 2 days ago
    ib_async, the community fork of ib_insync, speaks the socket protocol itself, so you never go near that installer. no idea whether it sends the fractional size field yet though, I'd check its issues before switching.
  3. u/greenmatrix86 1 2 days ago
    This specific limitation isn't something I've tested directly (never tried a fractional order), so I can't confirm or deny that one, but the broader pattern you're describing — the API quietly behaving more restrictively than the desktop UI, with error messages that don't actually tell you why — is very real and not just you. Hit the same category of thing with stop orders: the outsideRth flag is silently ignored on a plain stop-market order (works fine on stop-limit), with zero error telling you it's being ignored — you just discover it later when a stop that should've triggered after hours didn't. And there's a separate case where IBKR's own extended-hours price collar can outright cancel a resting stop order mid-update with no error surfaced to the API at all. Different specific bug, same genre of pain: things the desktop UI handles that the API either doesn't support or fails silently on instead of just saying so.
  4. u/SiThreePO 1 2 days ago
    Damn, I really hope this is not true. I'm just about to switch some of my systems over from Ninja Trader- IB to my own setup specifically because they only support full shares on Ninja Trader.
  5. u/[deleted] 1 2 days ago

    [removed] — already gone when the archive first saw it