Does sound like the perfect storm - doubling a drawdown, ouch!
Having said that, imo these are all teething issues that don't come up in backtesting but emerge once demo testing or living trading. I think of the analogy of a mining company starting a new mine or mill, or a manufacturer commissioning a new factory, site or equipment, there are always issues at the beginning simply because its not possible to anticipate everything that might happen once you start mining/production. It's the reason why they often take 3-12 months to speed up to nameplate capacity - when you start, you start slow so when issues happen they are not as costly. Once the bugs are ironed out then you can speed up. The equivalent in trading is starting in demo mode until you iron out all the bugs that come up. Once there are no more bugs start live trading but with smaller volume/risk, again for a period until any new bugs/issues are ironed out, and only then is it wise to increase sizing/risk - once the bugs/issues have been "de-risked".
Thanks also for the info on the MQL VPN option - I will have a look at them too. I'm currently only EA trading with IC Markets and I know they often a VPN service, but my sense of it is that is not a wise option because then they have potentially have more visibility of what my EA's are doing so I intuitively I think it is smarter not to use a VPN service liked to my broker.
