Has Square's reliability decreased lately?

[DaveH5050]

After my wife reported Square Terminal not connecting to wi-fi just now, I checked IsSquareUP to see if any issues at Square's end, and noticed there are a lot of issues in the past 4-5 months. Far more than in previous months it seems. We lost $$ last spring when Square was down for a whole day and we had to take either cash or offline payments, and IIRC a similar situation in 2022. 

With our previous salon, we had an old cc terminal that used a phone line as well as the internet for transactions, and Wells Fargo and then another processor. Paid about the same per transaction, but we never lost money. 

BTW the Terminal problem was that it failed to automatically reconnect to the wifi network, so we had to do it manually. 

[JK_Fiber_Art]

Hey there DaveH5050,

We do look at this site for issues when we encounter them - I'm assuming you do too.  Seems most of our issues are related to our internet provider's hardware but, we don't rule out Square's hardware.

Seems that our router/modem gets replaced at least once a year.  Thank goodness we lease the hardware and it's always taken care of, else replacing this hardware is on us.

As for where to or who to blame for connectivity issues - hey, it's just a crap shoot - we have replaced routers/modems, iPads and Stands, Square Readers, 3rd party Receipt Printers and installed the Apps that we need to do business.

I honestly can't say what the root cause is when issues pop up - we simply try to troubleshoot logically - the good news is that everything works 95% of the time - nothing is not perfect but, there's that 5% that totally makes us crazy.  Hey, that's just our perspective.   I'm sure others here have thoughts - hopefully they will chime in.  (Sorry, this is no solution to your particular issue, just some thoughts from our experience.)

[DaveH5050]

I follow the chain of hardware. First, is the ISP up and the router working. We have video cameras at the salon so the first thing I check is whether I can see a picture on my cellphone, since I don't work at the salon myself. Next, is the Terminal connected to Square with the wi-fi or ethernet connection. That was today's problem. Finally, I check IsSquareUp to see if the issues are at Square's end. I have to do this because my wife is non-technical and doesn't want to learn, lol.

We have Comcast as our ISP, with cable internet with a cellular backup, and have had no issues for the past year. Street repairs or other issues can take out the fiberoptic line but the cellular automatically kicks in so while speeds may drop a lot, we are still able to process charges. This is similar to what I mentioned before - a card reader with internet and phone line backup. Except cellular replacing Plain Old Telephone Service.

We had PayPal prior to getting Square, so I'm probably going to reactivate my old account with them as a secondary when Square is having problems. 

[JK_Fiber_Art]

Always good to have a backup plan !