thread Customer display update failing in Hardware Setup & Troubleshooting

Customer display update failing

bactive — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 18:29:25 GMT

We’ve recently had issues with the customer display updates-a month ago support told us that our display was out of warranty so we had to buy a new one; mind you we didn’t charge anything. So a few $$hundred later and waiting for the overnight shipment…magically the display started working on it one. So now we have an extra (new) customer display.

last night,..the “update needed “ message pops up again! This time we swap out the display with the new (maybe that was it?)

sure enough now our business is unable to process card transactions because of course…”update needed” all over again.

im about to fire square and move to toast. “Update needed “ on the devs who keep pushing out code that breaks our business

Re: Customer display update failing

kacey_k — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 00:58:21 GMT

You’re not crazy — this is a known issue tied to Square device firmware + app version mismatches, not the physical display itself.

A few important points that usually get missed by support:

“Update needed” on Customer Display is triggered by the POS app, not the display

The customer display mirrors the main register
If the Square POS app, device OS, or firmware aren’t perfectly aligned, it will loop that error and block payments

Swapping displays won’t fix it

You already proved that when the “broken” one magically worked again
This points to software / update rollout timing, not hardware failure

What usually fixes it (temporarily or fully):

Update iPad/Terminal OS first
Then update Square POS app
Restart both devices
Re-pair the customer display from:

Settings → Hardware → Customer Display → Forget device → Re-pair

If the update prompt keeps coming back:

Ask support to manually push firmware to the register
OR roll you back one POS version (they can, but won’t unless asked directly)

If you’re out of warranty:

Push back. This is not wear-and-tear hardware failure
It’s a software regression that blocked your ability to take payments

You’re justified being upset — updates should never hard-stop transactions during business hours.

If Square doesn’t resolve it, ask for:

Case escalation to Tier 2 Hardware
Account credit for downtime
Written confirmation this is a known issue (they’ve acknowledged similar cases)

Re: Customer display update failing

bactive — Fri, 22 May 2026 19:15:13 GMT

Thanks Kacey-the exact same thing has happened twice this week, requiring a complete factory reset and about 2 hours on the phone in the first case. What the heck is going on at Square in their QA? This is not reliable software...