Why won't my Square Terminal load?

[Shawn73]

[The title of this thread has been edited from the original: Terminal will not load]

Trying to use my new terminal and it is saying failed to load this is day one for square. I am thinking i have made a mistake. Help

[voodoo]

My square terminal is totally frozen. Cannot turn off or restart.

[Joe]

Hi there, @voodoo - thanks for reaching out to us here on the Seller Community! Happy to have you join us here.

So sorry to hear about the issues regarding your Square Terminal. Frustrating, indeed. 

I've gone ahead and merged your post into an existing thread of Sellers who were also looking for information regarding troubleshooting the Square Terminal in this state. Take a look at this Best Answer for specific steps to get this resolved!

Let us know where you land. We want to make sure this gets taken care of for you!

[southernshoppe]

my square terminal wont let me push buttons it just stays on the home screen. I was trying to check someone out and it was just frozen. 

[nika]

Sorry that happened @southernshoppe. Have you tried the troubleshooting steps that Joe listed above? If you did and you're still running into the same issue, go ahead and reach out to our CS team.

[southernshoppe]

Yes thank you I found the answer and it’s working great 

[jdnatdesert]

I have Square Terminal and it's charged. When I turn it on, it just shows a black screen with the Square logo in it and says it's ready to take payments.

I have items in my online Square account. Why aren't they showing in the Terminal?

[JustinC]

Hey @jdnatdesert!! Kudos to your first post! Glad to see a new face around here 🙂

As for your Terminal issues, sorry you're seeing a black screen. That definitely shouldn't be happening. 

First let's troubleshoot your device. Since you're seeing a black screen, I suggest forcing a factory reset:

1. Press and hold the power button on the side of your device for 10 secs until you see a countdown timer.
2. Wait until it does its thing, then sign into your device on the log in page.

That might fix your screen issues as well as item visibility. Loop back here to let me know how it goes.

[jdnatdesert]

Hi to you both - thanks to you, Justin, for explaining how to do the factory reset, and to you, Isabelle, for the link to phone Support. I did call Support and they walked me through getting the screen up on the Terminal, and it did involve the factory reset. He also explained the difference between 6-digit and 12-digit device codes and helped me set them, which I can't recall for the life of me. All in all, helpful all around. I'm all set for an offline remote event tonight!

[Seamus]

Glad we could help @jdnatdesert!

I've passed your thanks on to Justin and Isabelle 🙂

[kylegp]

Just came to report that I went into my workshop today to see this issue as well. Stuck on 0%. Very frustrating and lucky that I wasn't about to accept a payment from a customer. Factory resetting was my only option and thank god for that failsafe. 

[FluidTableTenni]

I am also having the issue where my square terminal is frozen on "Installing Software Update," on hour two now with no progress.  I reached out and was told the terminal team would get back to me in 48 hours.  Hopefully that resolves the issue but I'm in a bit of a pickle in the meantime--can I turn the terminal off without damaging the software?  I use it for events and will have to take it with me in a few hours, which will break the internet connection.

[Valentina]

Has this been resolved yet?

If not, have you tried reaching out to our team by phone yet, @FluidTableTenni?

P.S. Welcome to the Seller Community ✨

[FluidTableTenni]

We actually still haven't heard back about the ticket, although the terminal did end up completing the software update 12 hours or so later (I ended up leaving it turned on while I traveled, then plugged it into a power outlet again at home).  We also weren't able to access a phone number using the link in Isabelle's post above, although after typing a few responses to the help bot, we were able to get ahold of a live representative via chat.

[FluidTableTenni]

Also, since we haven't heard back from the support team about the ticket yet--we thought it was strange that the terminal has gone through a software update every time we've turned it on, which is at least once every week.  Usually this is about a 15-minute process.  Is this normal for other people's terminals?  It isn't really acceptable for our business, although we've done our best to gameplan around it.

[_Violet]

Hi @FluidTableTenni - Thanks for reaching out to us here on the Square Seller Community👋

Sorry to hear that you didn't receive a follow-up for your Support ticker. I can provide some insight here, speaking from the experience of supporting Square Terminal over the phone before moving to my current role.

Depending on how many software versions your Terminal may need to install, it can take more than one attempt to install the latest software version. Once your Terminal is completely up to date, you should no longer see the option to install any further updates within your Terminal's settings. 

You can check your software at any time. Head to Settings > Hardware > General from the three horizontal lines in the upper left corner. Scroll to the bottom of the page and tap About Terminal. From this page, you’ll see your software version and update availability.
 

Most software updates should happen automatically every 2-4 weeks and will happen overnight as long as your Terminal is plugged in and on.

However, sometimes, we have a critical update that should be installed more urgently. When that happens, you’ll see Update Available in your status bar to install immediately. Installing an update includes a full reboot of your device and about 10-15 minutes of total downtime.

If your business doesn’t allow you to update Square Terminal right away, it will go through the normal update process overnight - just make sure it’s powered on, but the display can be turned off. To turn off the display, simply tap the power button quickly and Square Terminal will go to sleep.

I hope this information is helpful but please do let us know if you have any additional questions. Always happy to help! 😊

[geocubed]

Hi,

I've used square for a few years now, and  up until this year, updates were pretty quick. Now it tells me 5-10 minutes, and 3 hours later I'm still waiting for it to finish. I started it just after 6am EST, it's now 9:17am EST and it's still installing from this morning.

What is the deal with this? This is getting to be ridiculous and I shouldn't have to come into work 3 hours early to hope the update is installed by the time we're open.

Yes, I went through the troubleshooting, and nothing there applies to my situation. Also tried googling, and this is the only thing I've found even close.

Edit: it took four hours to install the update, I'd still like to know why it takes so long when it literally tells me 5-10 minutes before I accept.