Debit card process in bug

It's been discussed in the past. It's still kind of mysterious, but consensus is that the PINPad draws a little more power than the PC's power supply has to give and the NIC powers down.

Putting in a heavier power supply may help if this really is what's going on, but that's a pretty drastic step...

Some other things you might try: Make sure that your registers are on a good UPS that includes Voltage Regulation.

If you have USB devices, get an externally powered USB Hub ($15 - $30) and move some devices from the PC to the hub - I would leave the dongle and the keyboard on the PC, but pretty much everything else can go to the hub.

Again using a USB Hub, get a USB ethernet device ($20 - $40) - this will get it's power from the hub instead of the PC power supply. If this does solve the problem, you may want to go ahead and upgrade the power supply - these USB devices work OK, but it's not exactly elegant...

Richard,

Ah yes, everyone is trying to figure this out.

Its suspected that some HTML Status screens are creating the issue.

Go to each register SO Administrator | File | Connect | enter your password | File | Configuration | Register tab and delete the path in the Web Status page | restart each register machine.

This is a pisser huh. The first thing to do is to unplug the Verifone pin pad. You will not be able to use these. There doesn?t seem to be a hardware platform that fixes this problem. We?ve had this problem on the IBM SurePOS platform, and these have very robust everything. Changing COM ports will not work either.

It appears to be in the legacy OPOS drivers. For some reason, during the tender, at the time of print, the COM port that the pin pad is on is activated. In extreme circumstances the key injection can even be blown out of the pin pad. This causes the POS to hang at a point that the database and the POS application are handshaking. It?s this hang that is the problem. No network fix can help.

We spoke with Ingenico about this and they say their device, enTouch 1000, not the cheaper one, will eliminate this problem. The difference seems to be that they provide the OPOS. We?ve not had a problem reported with this solution. You can call Ingenico to find out more and to get support for this platform. Also TPI makes an application that gets around the OPOS and will also give you more functionality. The only problem with this is that I think you will have to change your merchant processing vendor.

Chris LaCroix CTO POSable Solutions.

"Richard" wrote:

I'm using Dell Optiplex as my workstations and they are very robost too. Every doc I see says to use the Verifone pinpad. I wonder if it works for anybody? I'll disconnect it asap and I will take a look at enTouch 1000. I appreciate your help.

Tnx, Richard

"POSable Soluti> This is a pisser huh. The first thing to do is to unplug the Verifone pin

Chris, looking in the MS RMS KB, I see the Ingenico 3010 pinpad is one of the two supported pinpads, the Verifone being the other, but I don't see anything abt the enTouch 1000. Did you mean the 3010 instead?

Tnx, Richard

"POSable Soluti> This is a pisser huh. The first thing to do is to unplug the Verifone pin

Richard,

Before you disconnect them, why don't you try my suggestion first. It doesn't cost a penny!

If Chris had been reading the private boards, he would have seen that what I mentioned earlier is reproducible and MS is looking into it.

We have been using 4 ingenico touch 1000 pinpads and TPI SmartAdmin software (through Mercury). Once every other day or so (sometimes more often), when processing CC, the RMS-POS Tender Screen will hang. Its not fatal though, because we can swipe the customer's CC through our keyboard's MSR, and then the transaction continues.

We haven't figured out what causes it to hang though, but we think it might be due to customers swiping their cards too early in the transaction.

Jeff, I have eliminated the web status info per your suggestion as well as made sure the nic cannot be powered down for power savings and confirmed the pinpad is plugged into a self powered usb hub. Additionally, the pinpad cable is powered.

The pinpad still causes errors.

I have been running a ping -t from the POS w/s against the server and out of

61,025 sends, 60,773 were received, 252 were lost. This translates to .413% not rxd over abt a 16 hour time. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. I will run the same test on other w/s to help qualify.

This is a particulary bad issue because when it crashes the POS, you have no receipt to give the customer and the state of inventory is indeterminate as well as the state of the transaction to the merchant processor.

You mention this problem is reproducable. It has been random for me. Is there more info regarding this issue available.

Tnx, Richard

"Jeff" wrote:

Richard,

Correct, the issue is random. The reseller that found the issue says that it is reproducible if his status screen is updating at the same time the RMS debit card is receiving info. It gave him an error that allowed him to identify the problem.

A couple of customers of ours were having the same problem and as soon as we deleted the screen, all has been well since. Those that weren't having problems were not running a screen ever.

Yep, it really whacks RMS because it happens at different times during the database update. For example, one time will update the QOH, but not the customer or the sales file in most cases. Next time it updates the customer and sales, but not the QOH.

Nothing yet. ;-(

This pin pad is almost identical to the Verifone and you will have the same problem. All I can say is what the vendors are telling me. I will not know for sure until we've configured the ingenico on its own and put it through the mill.

With the Verifone, we didn't just have problems with the debit transactions. It happened mostly there, but the problem seemed to be in an printer activity. We tried everything. We could reduce the problem but not eliminate it until we unplugged the pads. I can venture my guesses as to conflicks someplace with the COM ports and printer, but I'm more interested in getting my customers stable.

Ingenico has a tight relatoinship with IBM and I spoke with their OPOS/RMS guru. He assurred me that they have many solid installations on the enTouch with RMS. Having a vendor like this is helpful because they will help with the issues of any problem and support the hardware in the solution. If you purchase Ingenico enTouch 1000 pads, they will support RMS. However, RMS does not support the enTouch. I've heard it from the horses mouth. They have a guy over there that is Mr OPOS/RMS.

My advice is to make sure that whomever you buy your solutions from will give you the direct support to Ingenico for any issues. I'd offer our company, but we do not sell peripherals for anything but IBM installations, sorry.

"Richard" wrote:

Richard,

*** snip ***

confirmed the pinpad is plugged into a self powered usb hub.

*** snip ***

Is that a typo or do you really have the pinpad using a serial to USB converter cable? The Verifone 1000 is a serial device and should plugged into a COM port.

Richard,

I'm still leery of that USB connection. Any chance to plug it directly into a COM port built onto the motherboard?

Yes, I'm going to disconnect the usb hub and connect the the pinpad directly to the com port on the computer one day this week when I can work w/ the system w/o disrupting business. We're an art supply and of course now its "back to school"........

I also found even though I have the network wire going from the network hub to the computer wired straight through, Pin 1 to Pin 1 ... Pin 8 to Pin 8 etc. , the wire is not put together per the standard for RJ-45 8 wire and I'm going to modify this wiring to meet the standard. The few errors that show up on a Ping -t between the db server and the client PC are odd for such a short run of network interconnect.

Thanks for your input.

Richard

"Jeff" wrote:

Lucky,

What version of RMS and what version of Windows are you using?

Lucky,

Sorry one more question, how much RAM?

We have just not seen these issues. We do 512m minimum and manually control the fileswap space. (Control Panel | System | Advanced tab | Performance setting button | Advanced tab | Virtual memory | Change button | Custom size | Initial size and max size 2048 | Set button).

Starting this month, every machine we sell has 1gig of RAM that's not a server, 2gig minimum for those. XP _loves_ RAM

We also turn off XP "tellybubble" graphical features and return to the Classic desktop. Before you close the above, go to the Visual Effects tab | Adjust for best performance and then check the very last checkbox in the list, use visual styles...