"status": "DISABLED" : means ? how to fix

Getting Started with Alpaca
1

Hello,

When I post a request to https://paper-api.alpaca.markets//v2/account

I get a json result that includes plenty of normal well documented stuff. However, it also returns this…

"status": "DISABLED",

…but **when I read the documentation I do not find any statement about what the status “DISABLED” means. **

Can anyone tell me what it means, or even better, let me know what to do in order to get the status to be “ACTIVE”.

The documentation tells me that an Account request returns an Account object (or maybe the better term is an Account Entity). Whatever.

And at Account - Documentation | Alpaca it tells me that the values of the “status” property are found in a list at the bottom of the page under a heading, oddly enough, called " Account Status".

There are plenty of statuses nicely explained but nothing for DISABLED.

Here are some other property value pairs that are present in the current Account Entity. All of these seem like they are saying “all systems go” and that nothing that would cause disablement is present.

“account_blocked”: false,
“trade_suspended_by_user”: false,
“trading_blocked”: false,
“transfers_blocked”: false

As I look deeper, however there are some fishy aspects.

Here are the fishy key value pairs…

"buying_power": "0",
"cash": "0",
"equity": "0",

Those values seem wrong. If I go to the web UI it says…

$100,000.00 Equity
$199,845.71 Buying Power

…This seems contradictory with “equity”: “0”,
and “buying_power”: “0”.

Also, if memory serves, I created my keys did a bunch of stuff (e.g. had a terrible experience with the postman approach described in some sort of ‘getting started’ documentation and made much better progress after I found this YouTube video (URL removed per policy of Alpaca) After I did that bunch of stuff, I noticed that in web UI (for paper trading) it said…

0 Equity
0 Buying Power

…I did some more fiddling, I forget precisely what but I managed to get my my Equity and Buying Power up to, maybe 100,000 each.

So, here’s my theory of what is going on:

  1. status = DISABLED is an undocumented status. If you don’t have any money in your account then status is DISABLED.
  2. there is a bug such that if you create your key when you have 0 balance in the paper trading thing, and then later update your balance using the web UI, then API does not get informed of this. It still thinks you have $0 and so , erroneously, returns a status of DISABLED.

I’m probably wrong but figured I’d hazard a guess.

In sum, please tell me:

(1) what does status = “DISABLED” mean
(2) what might I do so that I can get the desired status, i.e. status = "Active"

2

Most probably you’ve reset your account but not get the new API key/secret pair. In fact, if you do such a reset Alpaca creates the new account, and the old one is still available for you using the old key/secret pair but it now is in the DISABLED state. It’s not clear from the documentation and it’s not an issue for the live trading because you are unable to ‘reset’ your live account.
I recommend you to rest your account one more time using Alpaca web UI, generate the new key/secret pair, and call the same endpoint one more time

3

Thanks. As you can see in the details below, I have not been able to do precisely what you suggested. However, my experience is consistent with your suggestion, indicating it was indeed helpful! That said, new questions, possibly new bugs have been discovered as you may see as you read on.

So, you have given me somewhat of a confirmation that DISABLED is an undocumented “status” value when one calls v2/account. (Aside: I wonder how much other undocumented stuff there is here? This will help me gauge how much to trust Alpaca with real money!!)

Before I received your helpful reply, I managed to get out of my stuck state - alas it was several days ago. I think what I did was consistent with your instructions. Specifically, by the time I had sent my message, I had already hit the “reset” button. (I assume that by “reset” you mean click the “reset” icon at the top of the screen after hitting “paper overview” after having to set “paper trading” in the upper right corner.)

And so, the next thing I did (i.e. after sending my message) was get new credentials.

At that point all seemed to be well. Specifically,

"buying_power": "199845.71",
"cash": "100000",
"portfolio_value": "100000",
"status": "ACTIVE",

Next over the weekend I bought one share of Appl using the GUI and I saw in the GUI my holdings change in a way that seemed appropriate (e.g. cash went from 10000 to something roughly like 999850 - I did not check the math - Appl shares were like $150 if memory serves).

And then I succeeded in using the API to purchase 10 more shares of Appl (hoorray!!). And the GUI reflected an appropriate balance. Roughly 998600. The numbers made sense.

But now I check this morning and I am very confused.

The GUI says I have $23.89 Equity.

If I click on [Paper Account][Balances] it says I have -$1,702.34.

And I see that [Paper Account][Total Position Value] is 1727.00.

What happened to the $998600 cash I had over the weekend?

Does paper trading balance randomly reset itself to zero or something? (I did not press the reset button).

Any ideas why my balance went down so much when there were more paper trades and the stock has pretty much held its value?

So far it seems there are missing bits from the documentation and bugs from the way paper trading is able to maintain balance state over the course of several days.

Hopefully someone there can help me trust Alpaca? (-:

When I get some more time, I will reset my balance again. I will regenerate keys and see if I can repeat the flaky behavior. And hopefully I will give an update here of what happens though it may be several days before I can find the time.