Most of the time, the various pieces of hardware which connect to Spektrix - ticket printers, chip & PIN pads, cash drawers, and scanners - will work exactly as expected. No piece of technology works flawlessly all the time, however, so there may be times when one or more of your devices don’t work quite as you’d like them to.
It can be hard to know what to do under these circumstances, especially if you’re not normally responsible for looking after the IT side of things, so we’ve put together troubleshooting guides for the different devices that you might be using.
The purpose of this article is to give an overview of how to troubleshoot hardware with Spektrix, and then direct you where to go depending on what you need to know. This article, and the various troubleshooting guides, are best seen as useful tools for when you need help with hardware. It’s usually a good idea to work through these articles as your first steps to troubleshooting, but if you’re still stuck - please don’t hesitate to give us a call!
NOTE: at Spektrix we don’t make any hardware devices ourselves, so there may be times when we need to point you in the direction of the manufacturers themselves...but we’ll always do our best to help you out!
First things, first... the Box Office App
Of the four types of hardware devices that can connect to Spektrix, three - printers, chip & PIN pads and cash drawers - require the Box Office App to work. For these devices, the first thing to do when troubleshooting is ALWAYS check the status of the Box Office App, as without the Box Office App you won’t be able to print, take chip & PIN payments or open your cash drawer.
For information on how to troubleshoot the Box Office App, take a look at this article here.
Some, but not all of the time, you will be able to fix your hardware problems purely through the Box Office App. If your App is working, however, and you’re still having problems...then you’ll need to look at how to troubleshoot the device itself.
NOTE: scanners don’t connect using the Box Office App, so you always need to troubleshoot the devices themselves.
Troubleshooting basics
Okay, this is going to sound very basic...but it’s important to say. If you’re having difficulties with any piece of hardware, our first recommendation (once you’ve checked the Box Office App, if appropriate) is...switch it off, then back on again. We know it’s the old IT cliché, but you’d be surprised how often it works!
We’ll go one step further, however. It’s often worth not just turning your device off, but (where appropriate) completely unplugging it from both the computer and the power at the wall - for both printers and pinpads. Some devices don’t fully restart until you do this, so if switching off doesn’t work, this is a good next step.
Troubleshooting guides
If you’ve made sure the Box Office App is running, you’ve restarted and unplugged your device, and it’s still not working...don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. Here’s a guide to where to look for articles talking you through how to troubleshoot each type of device:
Ticket printers
- If you haven’t already, try troubleshooting the Box Office App.
- If that doesn't work, take a look at this article on troubleshooting ticket printers.
Chip & PIN pads
- If you haven’t already, try troubleshooting the Box Office App.
- If you use SagePay pinpads, read this article.
Scanners
Cash drawers
We don’t have a troubleshooting guide for cash drawers, the reason being that they’re very simple, plug and play USB devices. If your cash drawer isn’t working, you should be able to fix it simply by making sure the Box Office App is installed, registered and running, and the cash drawer is selected in both the Box Office App and local settings within Spektrix.
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If you have any further questions about troubleshooting your hardware devices, please do contact the Spektrix Support team who will be happy to help.