Card reader troubleshooting

Card readers fail in predictable ways — offline, missing from the dropdown, or dying mid-swipe — and almost all of it traces back to power, Wi-Fi, or an update the reader hasn't finished yet. This Rundoc walks the quick checks a cashier can run before calling for help, plus the canonical fix for the "The card reader is offline. Please try again with a different card reader." message everyone sees sooner or later.

Reader admin in Rundoo is intentionally minimal — there's no pair/name/assign screen in the app. The only reader UI you touch day-to-day is the Choose a reader dropdown in the payment panel at checkout. Bringing up a brand-new reader is a customer-side flow walked end-to-end in Card reader setup; renaming a reader or moving it between locations goes through Rundoo Support.

Reader shows "offline"

The message "The card reader is offline. Please try again with a different card reader." almost always means the reader can't reach Stripe right now — power, network, or a pending firmware update. Walk the ladder in order; most of the time you're fixed by step 2.

1. Look at the reader. Is the screen on? If it's dark, tap it to wake it up; if it's fully off, check the power cable at both ends and the outlet. A reader on a dying battery will go offline before it dies completely.

2. Check Wi-Fi. Stripe readers need internet to authorize a charge. If other things in the store are slow or dropped (a tablet, the printer, the music), you have a network problem, not a reader problem — see Connectivity troubleshooting.

3. Let it finish an update. If the screen says Updating or shows a progress bar, leave it alone until it's done — pulling power mid-update can brick the reader. Updates usually finish in 2–5 minutes.

4. Pick a different reader. If you have more than one paired at this location, switch the Choose a reader dropdown to the other one and retry the charge. The offline one can be dealt with after the customer is out the door.

5. Fall back to keying the number in. Close the Swipe card panel and pick Enter card manually. You'll type the card number, expiration, and ZIP — a little slower, but it clears the transaction and gets the customer on their way.

If every reader at the location is offline at once, that's almost certainly a network outage rather than a reader issue — jump straight to Connectivity troubleshooting.

Reader isn't in the "Choose a reader" dropdown

A reader that was showing up yesterday and isn't today is almost always asleep, unplugged, or on a different network.

1. Reload the page. The dropdown reads from Stripe when the checkout loads — a hard refresh (Cmd+Shift+R on Mac, Ctrl+Shift+R on Windows) pulls a fresh list.

2. Wake the reader and wait 30 seconds. Tap the screen; give it half a minute to rejoin Wi-Fi and check in with Stripe. Then refresh the checkout page again.

3. Confirm it's on the right network. Readers are tied to the Wi-Fi they were paired on. If someone changed the store Wi-Fi password or swapped routers, the reader can't phone home — call Rundoo Support and we'll re-pair it.

4. Check you're at the right location. The dropdown only lists readers assigned to the current location (shown in the header as RUNDOO | {Location}). If you're signed into the wrong store, sign out and back in and pick the right one.

5. Still missing? Call Rundoo Support with the reader's 3-word code (shown on the reader screen). We can see from our side whether it's reporting to Stripe.

Swipe failed mid-transaction

The customer's card was dipped, the reader beeped, and the sale didn't complete. Don't panic, and don't re-run the charge until you're sure the first one didn't go through.

1. Read the error on screen. Most mid-swipe failures come with a reason — Card declined, Insufficient funds, Do not honor, Card expired. These are decisions from the customer's bank, not the reader. Ask for a different card or tender.

2. Check the Payments tab. In Admin > Stripe > Payments, the most recent row will either be Failed (safe to retry) or Succeeded (the customer was charged — do not re-run). Refresh if the row hasn't appeared yet.

3. If the reader froze or rebooted mid-swipe, the charge almost always didn't go through — but confirm on the Payments tab before retrying. If a Succeeded row exists for the amount, print or email the receipt and finish the sale on the Rundoo side rather than charging twice.

4. Retry on a different reader if the same reader fails a second time on a known-good card. One bad swipe is a card; two is the reader.

5. Escalate. If a reader is reliably failing mid-swipe across multiple customers, take it out of rotation and call Rundoo Support — readers that repeatedly drop mid-transaction usually need a firmware reset or a replacement.

Pairing and re-pairing

First-time setup for a new reader — unboxing, Wi-Fi, the 3-word pairing code Rundoo needs — lives in Card reader setup. That's where to start if you've just pulled a reader out of a box or the reader is showing a pairing code on first boot.

If a reader that was already working needs to be re-paired — it was unpaired during a Stripe incident, it's moving to a different Stripe entity, or it's being relocated to a new store — generate a fresh code from the reader's settings menu (swipe right from the left edge of the reader screen → admin PIN 07139 → Generate a new pairing code) and send it to Rundoo Support along with which location it should live at and what you want it named (Front counter, Paint desk, etc.). The previous pairing is invalidated as soon as you generate a new code.

Recommended Rundocs

• Card reader setup — first-time bring-up for a new reader, including how to surface the 3-word pairing code.

• Stripe — the admin tab where card payments, payouts, and reader-backed sales all live.

• Rundoo Support — how to reach a human when the ladder above doesn't clear it.

• Connectivity troubleshooting — for when the whole network is down, not just one reader.