I'm facing the same issue after updating zenbot today.
Zenbot was running fine with codebase from Jan 22, 2018. I would recommend try to check to an older version and try it out
You can run these commands below, that will take you to this older version of zenbot.
# git checkout d600b3cd8ae53434646d479fdfef8a718e8bf756
# npm install
This older version pointed here works for me when I provide the parameters in the arguments, but throws the error you mentioned, when i provide a configuration file to read from like
# ./zenbot.sh sim --conf gdaxbtc.js
The latest version of zenbot (on Feb 3, 2018), in it's unstable branch is behaving differently for exchanges. I tested with some of them.
GDAX acts like this now
root@kalihost:/opt/zenbot# ./zenbot.sh trade --paper --days 2 gdax.BTC-USD
fetching pre-roll data:
*************************
Hitting up the exchange 'gdax' for trades within the past 1 day.
*************************
Backfilling...
^C
With BITTREX it seems that zenbot gets stuck trying to backfill.
# ./zenbot.sh trade --paper --days 2 bittrex.BTC-USDT
fetching pre-roll data:
*************************
Hitting up the exchange 'bittrex' for trades within the past 1 day.
*************************
Backfilling...
please note: the bittrex api does not support backfilling (trade/paper only).
please note: make sure to set the --period_length=1m to make sure data for trade/paper is fetched.
^C
Poloniex seems to be working fine.
# ./zenbot.sh trade --paper
fetching pre-roll data:
*************************
Hitting up the exchange 'poloniex' for trades within the past 1 day.
*************************
Backfilling...
final trade id ==> [undefined]
DATE PRICE DIFF VOL RSI ACTIONS BAL PROFIT
2018-02-03 14:06:00 9412.00 BTC-USDT 9
2018-02-03 14:08:00 9401.00 BTC-USDT -0.12% 16
2018-02-03 14:10:00 9380.00 BTC-USDT -0.23% 6
2018-02-03 14:12:00 9389.12 BTC-USDT +0.09% 1