How to Check If an MT5 Indicator Repaints in Ten Minutes, and Why Even Non-Repaint Stochastic Arrows Vanished 36% of the Time Mid-Bar

“Non repaint” is written on most MT5 indicator downloads, and almost nobody tells you how to verify it. You do not need code or a VPS. You need the indicator on a chart, about ten minutes and the steps below. I also give you the numbers from my own re-check of five indicators on EURUSD and gold, so you know what a normal result looks like. The measurement behind them is in non-repaint indicators for MT5, re-checked bar by bar.

If the indicator is not installed yet, start with how to add indicators to MT5.

What exactly are you checking?

The first and third rows are real repainting: the history you see is not the history you could have traded. That is what made fractals look like +2.13 pips a trade in hindsight and -0.32 pips when traded at the moment they appeared, in the repainting arrows test. The second row is not repainting in the strict sense, but it hits you in the same place if you trade from alerts or from what you see on screen.

How do I run the Strategy Tester test?

1. Open the tester: View → Strategy Tester, or press Ctrl+R.
2. In the Settings tab, open the drop-down where you normally pick an Expert Advisor. Indicators are listed there too, in the Indicators folder. Pick yours.
3. Choose the symbol and the timeframe you trade, and a date range of two or three weeks.
4. Set Modeling to Every tick based on real ticks. With “Open prices only” the tester only shows finished bars and hides the very thing you want to see.
5. Tick Visual mode and press Start. A chart opens and plays the market tick by tick.
6. Slow the speed slider down and watch the last bar. Every time an arrow appears, press pause and note the time. Play on until that bar closes and see if the arrow is still there.
7. After 20 arrows, count how many stayed. Then scroll back in the visual chart and compare: are the old arrows where you saw them appear, or did some move to earlier bars?

If you have been testing EAs, this is the same tester; the walk-through in how to back-test an EA in MT5 covers the settings in more detail. Tick data matters here for the same reason it matters for EAs: see tick data vs spread in a back-test.

How do I check with the Data Window and screenshots?

1. On a live chart press Ctrl+D to open the Data Window. Hover over the last closed bar and write down the indicator values it shows.
2. Right-click the chart, choose Save As Picture, and keep the screenshot.
3. Come back after 10 to 20 bars. Hover the same bar again and compare the values. Take a second screenshot and lay them side by side.

Any value on a closed bar that changed, or any arrow that is in one screenshot and not in the other, means the indicator repaints. It is slower than the tester but it shows your broker’s feed, which is what you actually trade.

How often should I expect a mid-bar arrow to vanish?

EURUSD and gold, M15 and H1, June 3 to August 26, 2026. The forming bar was looked at every 5 minutes; MT5 redraws on every tick, so on a live chart the share can only be higher.

So if your tester count is around 3 in 10 arrows vanishing before the close, the indicator is behaving like every normal one built on the current price. If arrows on closed bars move, it repaints, whatever the download page says. On H1 expect more, about 4 in 10: 39.3% on EURUSD and 39.4% on gold.

Which settings stop false arrows on bar 0?

• Signal bar = 1. Many arrow indicators have an input called SignalBar, Shift or “Alert on bar close”. Set it to 1, so the signal is read from the last closed bar.
• Alerts once per bar. If the alert fires on bar 0, you will get alerts for arrows that later vanish. One alert at the open of the next bar is what a back-test describes.
• In an EA, read buffer index 1, not 0. In MQL5 that means calling CopyBuffer with start position 1. An EA that reads bar 0 trades the ghost arrows.
• On M15 and below the delay is small. 53.9% of the arrows that survived were already on the chart 5 minutes into the bar; waiting for the close costs you at most 10 minutes on M15. Whether entering early pays is tested in bar close vs live signal.

Which indicators can never pass the closed-bar test?

• Fractals. A fractal needs two bars after it, so it is always drawn 2 bars in the past.
• ZigZag. The last leg moves until price turns far enough. Every ZigZag repaints by design.
• Anything centred or using future bars, like centred moving averages or some “non-lag” lines. If a line is perfectly smooth through every turn, suspect it.
• Multi-timeframe indicators on a lower chart repaint for a whole higher-timeframe bar unless they wait for it to close. The multi-timeframe analysis guide explains why.

For a list of indicator types that pass, see the non-repaint indicator overview, and for MT5 picks the best MT5 indicators.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if an indicator repaints in MT5?

Run it in the Strategy Tester with “Every tick based on real ticks” and Visual mode, and watch whether arrows on closed bars move or appear late. In my re-check five common indicators changed 0 times on closed bars.

Why does my arrow disappear before the candle closes?

Because the indicator uses the current price of the open bar. Price crossed the line and crossed back. That happened to 32.5% of arrows seen mid-bar in my test.

Does Stochastic repaint?

Not on closed bars. On the open bar 36.0% of its arrows vanished before the close, the most of the five indicators tested.

Can the Strategy Tester test an indicator without an EA?

Yes. In MT5 you can pick an indicator in the same drop-down as Expert Advisors and run it in Visual mode.

What does SignalBar 1 mean?

The indicator reads its signal from the last closed bar instead of the open one. It removes the arrows that come and go on bar 0.