Why are my online store notifications affecting my bluetooth connection?

[lemondogs]

[The title of this thread has been edited from the original: Online store order notifications disconnect audio from Bluetooth speaker on iPad, and no reconnect]

Steps to reproduce:

1) enable online store order notifications within register app on iPad 
2) play music on the iPad using a Bluetooth speaker 

3) place an order in the online store
4) when the notification occurs on the iPad, square disconnects it from the Bluetooth speaker to play the notification on the internal speaker (this is good) but after the notification has played, the music never resumes on the external speaker. 

optimally Square would not interrupt the speaker playback at all and be able to simply play the notification through the internal iPad speaker while music continues on the Bluetooth speaker. However if this is not possible then at least it should resume Bluetooth speaker playback after the notification sound has played. 

[Alex_]

Hi @lemondogs,

Thank you for posting. This is definitely an interesting issue.

What source/app are you using to play music?

Please let me know by replying in this thread. I'll keep an eye out for your response.

[lemondogs]

Hey @Alex_ 

I'm using Spotify for music playback.

In the interest of clarity, I should indicate that the Bluetooth connection appears to remain connected when this bug is reproduced. It's just the audio playback (that happens to be over Bluetooth) that cuts out and switches from the BT speaker to the internal iPad speaker. It then plays the notification (on the internal iPad speaker) and does not switch the audio back to the BT speaker.

At this stage (after the notification plays), if I press the home button to switch *out* of the Square Register app, and display the home screen, playback resumes on the BT speaker.

[Alex_]

@lemondogs,

Does this occur with other music apps/sources besides Spotify? Or is it just with that one app?

[lemondogs]

I'm about 80% sure it also occurred with the Amazon Prime Music app, but I don't know that with absolute certainty as I've switched between that and Spotify.

But since this is an iPad, can't apps only tie into the audio stream via Core Audio APIs? (As in it's a fairly limited function and all apps would be required to use the same set of integrations, except of course Apple's Music app).

[Alex_]

@lemondogs,

Understood. Do you have any pending updates for the app or operating system running on your iPad?

[lemondogs]

@Alex_ It's running iOS 12.4.7, which is the latest release compatible with the iPad Mini 2.

I'm (just now) updating Square to v5.42 from the currently installed version 5.41 (5410011). Will update here if that resolves the problem.

[Alex_]

@lemondogs,

Sounds good, just let me know! Thank you for keeping us posted. 

[lemondogs]

Hey @Alex_ no luck; still the same issue with the latest updates.

[Joe]

@lemondogs 👋 I can step in for Alex in his absence here!

Thanks for bouncing back and letting us know where you landed with troubleshooting. We appreciate you trying out those steps.

Since we've seen no change, I would recommend flagging this over to our Support Team directly when you can. This will give us the opportunity to troubleshoot with a bit more 'hands-on' approach.

We will keep an eye out for your contact!

[lemondogs]

Thanks @Joe I have submit this issue to support via email.

[lemondogs · Accepted solution]

In case anyone else has experienced this issue, the support team says that since the iPad can't update to the latest iOS (even though Square itself supports the older iPad and iOS version), they cannot do anything about this. Their only solution was to disable order notifications and use a separate device for order management and music playback.

[Joe]

Thanks for bouncing back here and updating everyone this thread with the conclusion you reached with our Support Team, @lemondogs. We appreciate you! I'm going to go ahead and tag your post as a Best Answer to this thread so others can easily find it.

Thanks, again!