this thread is a gut punch but i needed it just realised my 'holy grail' was repainting the whole time. back to the drawing board but at least i know now instead of after blowing an account.

yes if you edit simultaneously you can get conflict copies. realistically you edit on one machine at a time so its rarely an issue, but the habit that saves you is: make changes in one place, let it sync, then open the others. treat one machine as the source of truth and the rest as read-only mirrors.

yes basically. with portable mode the terminal keeps everything in its own folder, so you zip that folder while the terminal is closed and you have a complete restore point including your EAs, settings and logins. label it with the build number so you know what youre rolling back to.

fresh install preferred. copy mql5 folder. recompile if build versions differ. check symbol naming conventions match.

forex dom shows broker book only, not full interbank. useful for real-time spread monitoring. not comparable to futures exchange dom.

2h most useful non-standard. stick to standard timeframes where market attention is concentrated unless your specific strategy benefits from the alternative view.

netting for discretionary trading - cleaner and cheaper. hedging only if ea specifically requires it.

monitoring and emergency close = fine. fast execution and new complex entries = desktop only. always use server-side stops.

this thread convinced me to finally start porting my indicators this weekend. been putting it off for a year out of pure laziness. wish me luck

vps fixed this for me, end of story.