[R-SIG-Finance] IBroker: Attempt to call placeOrder() gives socket i/o error?

[spy sixoneone]

Hello IBworld.

I am having trouble entering orders via the API.

Sometimes it works but usually it fails.

So far I've tried 2 types of connection api-wrappers:

R IBrokers package
python ibpy package

I can use R IBrokers package to call reqHistoricalData().
That seems to work well on my laptop.
In fact I've been doing that for months from cron.

So, I have tws setup okay and I know how to debug a variety of problems now.

I first tried entering an order using a script like this in R:

.libPaths("rpackages")
library(IBrokers)
tws2 = twsConnect(2)
print('Attempting BUY')
mytkr     = twsFuture("ES","GLOBEX","201412")
myorderid = sample(1001:3001, 1)
IBrokers:::.placeOrder(tws2, mytkr, twsOrder(myorderid, "BUY", "1", "MKT"))
twsDisconnect(tws2)

Sometimes it works but usually it fails.

When it fails I see this in my tws console:

06:01:21:676 JTS-EServerSocket-160: [2:47:71:1:0:0:0:ERR] Message type -1.  Socket I/O error - 
06:01:21:676 JTS-EServerSocket-160: Anticipated error
jextend.d: Socket I/O error - 
	at jextend.sc.b(sc.java:364)
	at jextend.ch.sb(ch.java:1534)
	at jextend.ch.run(ch.java:1390)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: java.net.SocketException: Connection reset
	at java.net.SocketInputStream.read(SocketInputStream.java:196)
	at java.net.SocketInputStream.read(SocketInputStream.java:122)
	at java.net.SocketInputStream.read(SocketInputStream.java:210)
	at jextend.xh.d(xh.java:45)
	at jextend.sc.c(sc.java:579)
	at jextend.sc.r(sc.java:227)
	at jextend.af.a(af.java:232)
	at jextend.sc.f(sc.java:650)
	at jextend.pd.a(pd.java:822)
	at jextend.sc.b(sc.java:358)
	... 3 more
06:01:21:678 JTS-EServerSocket-160: [2:47:71:1:0:0:0:ERR] Socket connection for client{2} has closed. 
06:01:21:678 JTS-EWriter5-161: [2:47:71:1:0:0:0:ERR] Unable write to socket client{2} - 
06:01:21:678 JTS-EServerSocketNotifier-158: Terminating

At first I thought the problem might be R.

But I get a similar error if I try to enter an order using python ibpy.

Also I tried making a call to reqAccountUpdates(tws) and that works well always.

I've done a bit of searching on google and SOF and have found no clues yet.

Please shout-out if you have any ideas on how to debug this.

Thanks,

Dan