thread Reader failed to connect: using multiple readers and multiple users in Payments Troubleshooting

Reader failed to connect: using multiple readers and multiple users

HelenaFOLF — Sun, 21 Sep 2025 12:48:26 GMT

Hi - I am part of a school fundraising association gearing up for Christmas. We have 6 card readers in total, and as the main person setting all the other parents up I’ve been having a lot of connection issues.

Can I confirm - can only have 1x device ‘saved’ on my SquareUp at any one time? I sometimes need to quickly connect to a different one to the one i was paired with and ‘reader failed to connect’ error message. We have a window of 5-10 mins to sell school raffle tickets and by the time I’ve done all of the troubleshooting steps we’ve lost all our call clients..

Should I delete all the devices from my Square Up at the end of a session and start afresh every time? Not very user friendly………

Any other advice for having multiple card readers and multiple users connecting to those diff readers each time? Not everyone is tech savvy so lowest maintenance please!

thanks

Re: Reader failed to connect: using multiple readers and multiple users

Sam_400º — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 20:17:46 GMT

This is a limitation of bluetooth @HelenaFOLF - they're very much designed to pair with one device.

Even if you remove the reader from your phones you'll still need to enter pairing mode again on the reader.

When in use you need to keep one reader to one person and not swap over - as you've already experienced, it just doesn't work this way.

Re: Reader failed to connect: using multiple readers and multiple users

Breffni — Tue, 22 Nov 2022 11:15:35 GMT

Hi @HelenaFOLF, welcome to the Seller Community.

Correct, as Sam mentioned above, it's recommended that you use one Reader per mobile device/app. You can do more but as you have found, it will lead to Bluetooth connection issues.

Since you have six Readers, would it be possible for the other parents to download the Point of Sale app to their phones? You could create a device code so that you don't have to share your login info with anyone.

Let us know what you think and we can work out the best solution for you here.