Square card reader - stopped working, 4 flashing white lights.

[JoG]

Hi, I was successfully using square tap system at an indoor market this morning. After 3 hours of perfect transactions it stopped working, and couldn’t not be connected to phone. Many attempts made, re booted everything ...still no luck. 4 white lights flash for a while then nothing. Any clues? Many thanks Jo

[Seamus]

Hey @JoG,

Thanks for getting in touch and sorry to hear you had trouble with the reader!

I'm not sure what the exact reason may have been for it disconnecting - it could have been internet data or signal related, or for some other technical reason. Did you have any other bluetooth devices connected in addition to the reader? Were there any error messages that appeared on screen?

While it's a little difficult to determine what the cause of the disconnection might have been, to reconnect it please try:

1) Forget the reader from anywhere it appears in your Bluetooth settings and also the Square app (via Settings > Card Readers)

2) Hold down the button until the lights completely STOP flashing red. This performs a hard reset on the reader.

3) Once you've reset the reader, try connecting the reader again (via the Square POS app and NOT your device Bluetooth settings) then running a $1 test transaction on your own card as per the instructions here: https://squareup.com/help/au/en/article/5639-set-up-the-square-contactless-chip-card-reader

Hopefully this will help get things back up and running if you've not been able to do so in the meantime!

[JoG]

Thanks Seamus, 

I tried ‘forgetting’ and rebooting (twice) as well as reinstalling the app. The problem seemed to be with the tapper. I was at a craft market where 35 of us in the room were all using the Square device.

A fair few of us were having problems. I ended up manually entering the majority of my sales. 😬 which was tough as it was supposed to be a CV-19 safe/contactless event ...but thankfully I only lost one sale because of it.

Tap pad/scanner flashed green very briefly, then red then a prolonged white. It just refused to connect to the app. 

Its fantastic wen it works but I really wish it was more reliable.

thanks anyway, Jo 

[Seamus]

Hey @JoG,

Generally if you have a lot of people in a small space all using Squarer readers it tends to be an environmental issue - eg were you all using one wifi network? If so it maybe have been overcrowded and started dropping out for everyone.

Other than that if you have too many bluetooth devices in the same small space this can be an issue too!

Anyway, all the best, hopefully things go a little better next time!