MT5 chart not updating or "Waiting for Update"

Causes, most likely first

1. The terminal is disconnected

Charts keep displaying cached data when the connection drops, so a frozen chart looks like a rendering bug. The status indicator in the bottom right is the truth — see no connection to trade server.

2. The market is closed

Gold has a daily maintenance break and is shut all weekend. A chart that stopped at a plausible hour on a Friday is not frozen. See market closed and gold trading hours.

3. The symbol is not subscribed in Market Watch

A symbol removed from Market Watch may stop receiving ticks while its chart stays open. Re-adding it restores the stream.

4. The chart says "Waiting for Update"

That exact phrase means the terminal has no price history for the symbol yet — common on a fresh install or a newly opened chart. It normally clears within seconds of the first tick arriving. If it persists, the symbol is not streaming: check the connection status and that the symbol shows a live quote in Market Watch.

5. The terminal is overloaded

Many charts, heavy indicators or several EAs on a small VPS can starve the terminal enough that updates visibly lag. Close unused charts before assuming a fault.

Why this happens

An EA only runs on the tick event, so no ticks means no execution regardless of how correct the strategy is. A frozen chart is therefore a stopped bot, whatever the cause.

The order of checks is: connection status, then market hours, then Market Watch, then load. That resolves almost every case in under a minute and in that order, because each is cheaper to check than the next.