Oanda "Order triggered but could not be completed..."

I experienced the following today with an Oanda live account.

Two valid XAUUSD sell stop orders were not executed because of the following error message: “Order triggered but could not be completed due to invalid stop loss”.
The orders were perfectly valid, as you can see below:

Sell Stop order 1
Price: 1218.83
Stop Loss: 1220.62

Sell Stop order 2
Price: 1219. 04
Stop Loss: 1220.83

They both got NOT executed at 08:39 GMT when XAUUSD dropped from 1221 below 1218.

Is this kind of "non-execution" particular to Oanda, or does it happen with other brokers as well?
Is this related to Oanda being a DD broker? Should I move to an ECN broker to avoid this?

Not sure if it got something to do with it. But Oanda rejects orders that would immediately trigger its stoploss. That would be the case if the spread was $1.79 or more for your first order which seems unlikely. You can check the historic tick-by-tick history at http://fxtrade.oanda.com/analysis/fxcompare

You should email Oanda and ask why it didnt fill. If it is indeed an error on their part, they used to honor the trade (either compensate or reinstate the trade at the correct price).

Thank you for the reply. I have already e-mailed the Oanda support and am waiting for their reaction after the automatic "will respond within 1-2 business days".

I'm currently comparing Oanda with Alpari, it appears that Oanda has a slightly smaller spread when nothing happens, but their spreads increase significantly when the volatility is higher. That sucks!

I will probably leave Oanda, I cannot accept that orders are not filled when they should have been. This morning they cost me over 2k...

I've got some useful feedback from the Oanda helpdesk.
At the time of my order the spread was indeed peaking at around $2.5, preventing my order (with a stop loss of about $1.8) from getting executed.

The helpdesk has pointed me to the graph that can be used to verify the spread: http://fxtrade.oanda.com/why/spreads/recent, the "Maximum" graph shows what I'm interested in. From this I can see that the maximum spread never exceeded $2.8 during the previous month. I will adapt my EA to use a stop loss at least this value.

I'm impressed with the quality of the Oanda helpdesk, very accurate and helpful.

As to my comparison with Alpari, it's interesting that while the spreads during large market movements don't increase as much as at Oanda, the slippage is a lot higher.
An example from last Thursday, a XAU/USD sell stop at a price of 1197.800. At Oanda it got filled at 1197.688, at Alpari at 1197.159. Makes a huge difference for my trading with very tight stop losses.

Glad to hear you got it figured out. Oanda is one of the best brokers a small retail trader can use.

Greetings All and Happy Holidays,
This message is only to 'piggyback' off of what both of you have discovered and an additional comment. I'll never trade precious metals, hats off to you for that. I was thinking the spread has to be off the charts. Secondly, I'd been doing business with Oanda for a few months now and their customer service is 'tops' in my opinion. Thirdly, and finally, since 'spread' was believed to be your issue, do some homework if you decide to 'court' another broker. While shopping a few months back with two different brokers, I discovered an 80 pip difference between 2 reputable brokers. This was the USD/GBP pair on a Friday close. I made screenshots and was furious. Bottom line is this... if you like a broker, stay with them if you are now experiencing reasonable profits. Last but not least, I had to call my attorney to get my cash money back from one of those brokers. Never again---
Happy trading to all and don't forget to goal set.
Reno