My IP Has Changed or Expired: What Happens and How to Fix It

Check your current address, re-whitelist it with your broker, and run validation. That is the fix. The detail below is for confirming it is actually the cause and avoiding the mistake that makes it worse.

Confirming it is the address

Address and session problems look alike, and the fixes are different. Two questions usually separate them.

Did today start fine? If earlier orders worked today, the session is valid and the address is the likelier cause.
Did you change network, router or location? If yes, the address almost certainly changed with it.

If neither applies and the failure appeared overnight, check the daily session first. It expires every day, which makes it the higher-probability cause.

The fix

Find your current address

Broker Setup, Network tab. This is the public address your orders go out from.

Compare it with the broker's whitelist entry

Character by character. A single wrong digit fails the same way as no entry.

Update the entry in your broker's API app

Paste exactly, with no trailing space.

Wait a moment for it to propagate

Some brokers take a minute or two. A failure in the first thirty seconds is not conclusive.

Run validation

A small real order, placed and reversed, proving the whole path.

The mistake to avoid

The common sequence is to see an authorisation error, assume the credentials are wrong, and regenerate the API key.

Several brokers return a credentials-flavoured error when the real problem is the source address. Regenerating invalidates the old key, so if the key was fine you now have two problems and no way to tell which caused what.

Why it changed

Cause	Likely if
A dynamic address rotated	You never had a reserved address
Router or line reset	There was an outage or you power-cycled
You changed network	Different office, mobile hotspot, travelling
A platform address was reallocated	You use a bundled IP and something changed upstream
ISP reassigned a static address	Rare, usually after a fault or equipment change

The first row is the one to take seriously. If the address was never genuinely reserved, this will keep happening, and re-whitelisting is treating the symptom.

The character-by-character check

Step two of the fix sounds trivial and is where a surprising share of these end. An address that is almost right fails identically to no address at all.

Compare each group of digits, not the overall shape
Watch for a transposition — 192.168.1.42 against 192.168.1.24
Check for a trailing space, which some forms accept and then reject
Confirm you copied the public address, not a local one starting 192.168 or 10.
If the broker's form shows the saved value, read it back rather than trusting the paste

The fourth item catches people who looked at their router or their machine's network settings instead of their public address. A local address is meaningful only inside your own network and means nothing to a broker.

Checking whether yours is genuinely static

A dynamic address can hold steady for weeks, so one unchanged check proves nothing.

Did you specifically pay for a static address, or does your platform bundle one?
Has it survived a router restart and several days?
Does your ISP confirm it in writing?
If none of the above, assume it is dynamic

What this breaks while it is wrong

Worth knowing so you can assess the damage rather than guessing.

Order placement fails. Nothing reaches your broker.
Existing positions are unaffected. They sit in your broker account as before.
Scheduled exits may not fire. This is the dangerous part — a strategy that cannot place an exit order holds the position.
Paper trading is unaffected. Simulated orders never reach a broker.

The short version

Check your current address, re-whitelist it, run validation
If today started fine, the address is likelier than the session
Never regenerate the API key first
If the address was never genuinely reserved, this will recur
An unfixed address can prevent a scheduled exit — square off through your broker if needed

Frequently asked questions

If earlier orders worked today, the session is valid and the address is the likelier cause. If it broke overnight with nothing changed, check the daily broker session first.

Find your current address in Broker Setup, update the whitelist entry in your broker's API app, wait a moment for it to propagate, and run validation.

Because the address is dynamic rather than reserved. Re-whitelisting treats the symptom; a genuinely reserved address is the fix.

No. Several brokers return a credentials-flavoured error when the real problem is the address, and regenerating a working key adds a second problem.

They stay in your broker account. The risk is that a strategy cannot place its exit order, so an intraday position may be carried overnight. Square off directly through your broker if you cannot fix it in time.

No. Paper orders are simulated and never reach a broker, so no address is involved.

Usually within a minute or two, though some brokers take slightly longer to propagate. A failure in the first thirty seconds is not conclusive — wait, then test properly.

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