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Why is my printer constantly disconnecting?

[The title of this thread has been edited from the original: Star TSP650ii disconnecting frequently]

 

I have two Star TSP650ii printers configured with ethernet and wifi. Both printers are set up to print an error page if they disconnect from the network and I have a delivery service tablet (android) that uses one of them and never seems to disconnect. 

 

On the two iPads where I have my square POS set up it seems like every time the app goes into sleep mode or has to display the square logo before coming back into the app the printers disconnect. I usually have to swipe quit out of the app and relaunch or turn the wifi off then on to get them to reconnect. 

 

This is a problem especially because the Square app doesn’t notify me when they disconnect nor when orders don’t print because the printers are disconnected. There are times when I get a print failure message but it is not consistent. Would be a huge help of the square app to notify me when an order that should have a ticket printed doesn’t print.

 

I’ve already done all the turning off/on etc... this is a problem I’ve been dealing with for months but seems like it’s gotten worse lately. Had these printers on bluetooth before but wifi was more flexible and didn’t require a dedicated printer per tablet.

 

Any additional troubleshooting would be great.

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Hello @Craft19Madrid,

Thank you for posting in the Seller Community. Welcome.

 

Looking over your set up, have you tried resetting your internet/wifi router? Also, are there any pending updates from either the software 

Alex_
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I’ve reset the router without any luck.

 

The problems seems like when the square app on the iPad goes to sleep or has to reload (i.e. you see the square icon and you have to log back into the app) it loses the connection with the printer. 

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Hey @Craft19Madrid,

 

When you say you have to log back in to the app, have you actually been logging out? Or just closing the app / reopening it? Is the app actually fully closing, or is it being put in the background when the iPad goes to sleep?

 

When you say orders are not printing, how are you receiving the orders? Is it from the same iPad that should be printing, once it wakes up?

 

As a workaround you may need to set the iPads to not go to sleep while in use - this would seem like the most simple solution. Other than that you may need to get a local tech person out who is familiar with troubleshooting these printers - it could be something like they'd benefit from being assigned different names (if you're using two) and static IPs.

 

It's difficult to tell exactly what the issue is from here unfortunately, but I'd change the sleep settings on the iPad in the meantime!

Seamus
Square, Australia
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Hi Seamus,

Correct. If the iPad goes to sleep or I switch apps for more than a minute when I come back into Square it shows me the Square logo and then I come back in to the app. Normally at this point either I see the "Multiple printers connected" message or not and if not then when I send a food or drink order it won't print them and also doesn't give any notification that the tickets didn't print. 

 

The printers are set up with Wifi so we can print to them from multiple iPads and when it's working it works great. We had it with Bluetooth before and that seemed to maintain the connection better but has the limitation of only being able to do a one to one connection to a specific iPad. We want to start giving waitstaff tablets to take orders and have those orders print in the respective stations. 

 

I am using static IP addresses for the printers and I don't think there is a way to name them (according to Star support). Currently I am setting the iPads to never go to sleep and that seems to be helping but I'm living with the fear that when I switch into our reservation app then back to Square it's gong to lose the connection. 

 

I'm also checking to see if this works more consistently with Android tablets as we are thinking about using them for the order tablets and the one android tablet I have working with a delivery service never drops the connection to the printer. 

 

Thanks for the help. 

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Hey @Craft19Madrid,

 

I wish I could say I had a clear solution for this one!

 

It sounds like the iPads are dropping off the network when they go to sleep, and in turn dropping the printers. I did a quick google search and there do seem to be a few reports of this happening with iPads, though I don't have a clear solution that will work for what you're seeing here, you could try some of the suggestions online.

 

You could also try downloading one of the Star Micronics Printer apps (applicable to your model) and try changing the names of the printers on the Star Micronics end to different things in case they are both defaulting to the same name and causing a conflict when reconnecting to the network.

 

Let me know if any of these suggestions work!

Seamus
Square, Australia
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I am also having this same problem. The printer will be disconnected but without warning. I hadn't connected the issue to any sleeping the iPad might be doing, so I will look into that, but I think we have it set not to sleep already. 

 

Trying to fix it I have done the following:

 

  • replaced the router with a new router
  • hardwired the printer to the router (instead of an access point)
  • updated Square POS 
  • updated iOS
  • replaced cord that attaches the printer to the router
  • replacing the printer with a new printer

And we are still having this issue. Would love a more in depth look into this problem, as it's not happening with other devices that are connected to the printer, and we are losing order chits constantly. 

 

Thanks!

 

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Admin

Hey @fedfed,

 

Thanks for reaching out and sorry to hear you're having trouble with your printer!

 

It'll be a little difficult for us to troubleshoot this one via our community forum, though one thing I can think of is do you know if the printer is configured to have a static IP address? I have heard of issues where the printer has a dynamic IP address set rather than a static one. If you let me know what model printer you are using I can provide some further advice for this!

 

What country are you posting from by the way? You've reached out to our global forum for the international version of the free Point of Sale app, but depending on where you are I may be able to direct you to our support team for further help!

Seamus
Square, Australia
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