Avoiding Square Register automatic software updates

[douglsmith]

Is there a way to avoid automatic software updates or put them off for a different time?

We have a Square Register that we take to trade shows. It's in a mobile cart and isn't plugged in all the time to be able to get updates overnight. We try to make sure it's plugged in for a few days and that the software is up to date before traveling but sometimes an update will come out while we're on the road.

That's what happened yesterday. We turned on the unit and it immediately went into updating with no way to stop it. We were running on a cellular modem for internet, which was a bit slow in that area so the update took over an hour.

This was all happening while we had customers ready and waiting to buy but we couldn't serve them because we could find no way to put off the update until later.

How can we avoid this very awkward situation and terrible customer experience?

[Kassi_]

Hey there, @douglsmith - 

Thank you for reaching out about this! 

If you run into any issues with the update freezing your Register, you can always do a hard reset to free up the lag. 

When it comes to keeping the device updated, our engineers recommend to avoid skipping updates because it can cause further delays & glitches. 

One option you can try is leaving the Register off and unplugged, so it won't update.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.

[douglsmith]

I think you might be misunderstanding the problem. We're not having a problem with the register freezing.

We leave our register off and unplugged just because that's the nature of traveling with a mobile store. When we're ready to begin selling, we turn on the register. Sometimes there is an update and it will begin installing automatically when we turn the register on. That is a problem because we have customers ready to buy but we can't check them out because the register is busy updating, which can take 20 minutes or more.

We don't want to skip running updates. We just don't want them to happen when we're trying to do business. We do plug in our register for a couple of days before traveling so that it can update. But if an update becomes available between that time and when we turn it on to do business, the update takes over and begins installing automatically.

[Kassi_]

Ah okay, @douglsmith. Apologies about that. 

So you can change the time for the updates, if you'd like. Tap the switcher at the top of your Register and choose Settings > Hardware > General > About Register, you can choose to install the update sooner than 3am when it might be a more convenient time for your business.

Please let me know if you have any other questions!

[douglsmith]

That time doesn't set when an update will be applied. That time sets when the device will automatically reboot. If there is an update it will then be applied on that reboot. It will also apply an update any other time that the device is turned on or rebooted.

Let me walk through a real example of why that causes a problem and why I'm looking for a different solution.

We had a trade show event that was running Thursday through Saturday in another city that required a good bit of travel.

On the Saturday before, we plugged in our Square Register and made sure it was connected to the internet. The time for reboot in the settings was set to 3 AM. There was no update available on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday overnight.

On Wednesday morning we packed the Square Register into a cart and loaded it on our trailer. We drove all day Wednesday and part of Thursday. That afternoon we set up our convention booth and finished just in time as people began to arrive.

When we turned on the Square Register it saw that there was an update available. The update must have been released on the days we were driving. Now the register immediately started to update in the late afternoon and we had no control over it. We were on a slow internet connection so it took over an hour to finish. During that time we had customers who wanted to buy thing but we couldn't check out because of the update.

[Kassi_]

@douglsmith

Thank you for the details on this and your experience with the Register. Right now, the only option would be to adjust time on the update, but turning it off and unplugging it throws a wrench in that. 

What you're looking for would be more of a Feature Request. If you could head over to the Ideate Board, you can submit the request directly to our Product Team. 

[douglsmith · Accepted solution]

I submitted the feature request. Here's the link in case anyone else wants to follow along.

https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Square-Point-of-Sale-app/Ability-to-defer-software-updates-until-...