thread Reader not ready. Failed to connect. in Payments Troubleshooting

Reader not ready. Failed to connect.

BUC — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 09:07:15 GMT

Bought the Apple Square here in Australia, tried with 3 different iphones to connect the thing and all devices tell me "Reader Not Ready" and failed to connect. The Apple Square has been charging from the powerpoint all day. Sometimes when I hold in the power button it shows the orange flashing lights, but half the time it doesn't give me the orange lights and it goes straight to the red flashing lights when I keep holding the button till there are lights appearing.

How do I fix this?

Re: Reader not ready. Failed to connect.

Seamus — Sun, 17 Feb 2019 23:26:54 GMT

Hi @BUC,

Thanks for reaching out and sorry to hear you're having trouble connecting your reader.

Because we're not able to look into your private account info via this forum, you'll need to get in touch with our support team to get further help with this one. There are a number of reasons you may not be able to connect the reader - our support team will be able to bring up your account, take a look into your operating environment and provide further advice based on this.

You can reach us on 1800 760 137, lines are open Monday through Friday, 9am-5pm AEST. Thanks for understanding.

Re: Reader not ready. Failed to connect.

Wokka — Fri, 22 Oct 2021 11:01:14 GMT

Same problem, updated everything, card reader fails to connect , screen says update POS, have uninstalled redownloaded so struggling to figure out what next

Re: Reader not ready. Failed to connect.

Arie — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 00:29:58 GMT

Hi @Wokka,

Thanks for writing in and sorry to hear you're having trouble with your reader! If you've already followed our troubleshooting steps, please reach out to our support team so we can look into your hardware a bit further.

You can reach us on 1800 760 137, from Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm AEST, or contact us via online chat or email here.

Re: Reader not ready. Failed to connect.

Wokka — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 21:23:59 GMT

turns out there is a lot of updating required, OS, Square, Reader, then forget everything, then restart everything and bingo we got action

Re: Reader not ready. Failed to connect.

Arie — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 23:12:51 GMT

Glad to hear you got it connected, @Wokka! The app and reader work best when the reader, app, and OS are on the most recent update available. Let us know if you have any other questions, or issues - we're happy to help.