POS device does not swipe

[plasmazone]

New to Square and have set everything up. I bought a basic reader and am now setting this up.

I am using a PC running BlueStacks 5 as an Android emulator. Everything seems to working fine and Bluetooth on both the PC and the Square App is showing the device as paired. However when I am doing a £1 test purchase and go to 'Charge' the single green light does not come on and the tap facility and card port doesn't work. It is fully charged. I can manually type in the card number, etc. and the payment goes through. Am I missing something with the Reader?

[phillipsrw]

Hi there, not overly familiar with the PC Bluestack 5 setup. I would suggest verifying if the card reader is OK and functional first, then you can narrow in a little with the PC setup you are using. I would suggest downloading the Square software on to a smartphone or iPad paring up the reader and do a test payment. If this is good then it will eliminate the possibility of faulty card reader and you can then work on analysing the PC setup you are using.

[Breffni]

Hi @plasmazone, thanks for your post and welcome to the Seller Community. 

I'm also not familiar with a PC Bluestack 5, as the Reader is designed to be paired to the Point of Sale app, so you would need to be connecting it to either an iOS or Android app, as Phillip mentioned. 

You can see our range of compatible devices here and you find the link to download the app here. 

The steps on how to pair the two can be found here. 

If you are looking to process payments via your desktop, you can do so using our Virtual Terminal, which does not require the Point of Sale app and can be accessed by signing into your Square account on your browser. 

Let us know if you have any questions. 

[plasmazone]

Hi Allegra and Phillip

I tried Phillips idea as I have a spare phone. It didn't work at first but then the app was telling me it was uploading an update to the Reader. This took about 1% per minute so it took a fair while. I had to restart the Reader a couple of times then it suddenly lit up and I could tap to take a payment. The problem is that my products are tiny images and I would have to have the PC screen to show customers details - then segue over to the mobile to do the transaction. My tablet would be the ideal solution but Google seems to think otherwise. 

I returned to my laptop PC running the Square App through BlueStack5 and it is the same with the App and Reader working OK but not accepting the tap and card insert functions. I'll try a fresh install and get back as I had to install on the phone and this may be what prompted the update.

There is a good deal of chat (rants) on the PayPal forums about this issue. The consensus is that PC based POS would be more secure but that PayPal has some deal with the mobile phone providers (?).

[Breffni]

Thanks for letting us know @plasmazone, I can confirm at least for Square, the Point of Sale app is designed for mobile devices and won't work as intended on your PC. 

What brand and model is your tablet? 

[plasmazone]

It was worth a try but I can see it is not having it. If ever Square could deliver a PC friendly POS device you would get a lot of PayPal converts.