Offline and Troubleshooting

Overview

The Tappya POS is designed for restaurants where the network isn't always reliable. Different failure modes have different consequences depending on the device's mode (Main Cashier / Secondary POS / Waiter). This article explains what happens, what to do, and how to recover.

What happens when the internet drops

On a Main Cashier

• The POS keeps working fully. Orders, payments (cash and most integrated card readers), kitchen tickets, receipts, everything functions.
• A small offline indicator appears in the header. Customers don't see this.
• Every change is staged locally and pushed to the cloud the moment the internet comes back. Sync is automatic; you don't trigger it.
• What you can't do offline: any action that requires the dashboard right now, pulling fresh menu changes published since you went offline, validating a brand-new loyalty member who's never been to your branch, etc.

On a Secondary POS or Waiter

• These devices don't talk to the cloud directly, so the internet status doesn't matter to them. As long as the Main Cashier is reachable on the LAN, they're fine.

What happens when the LAN drops (Main Cashier reachable through Wi-Fi)

This only affects Secondary POS and Waiter terminals.

• The terminal shows a "Reconnecting…" overlay. This is the hard-offline overlay, it blocks new actions to avoid drift.
• The terminal retries automatically. Most LAN blips heal within seconds.
• If the LAN comes back, the overlay dismisses and you carry on.
• If the LAN doesn't come back, you have to either move the terminal back to the right Wi-Fi or use the Main Cashier directly.

Important: Secondary and Waiter terminals do not fall back to direct-to-cloud. They always go through the Main Cashier.

What happens when the Main Cashier goes down

This is the worst case. If the Main Cashier tablet crashes, runs out of battery, or has a hardware fault:

• All Secondary and Waiter terminals see "Reconnecting…" and can't take orders until the Main is back.
• Recovery: power-cycle the Main Cashier. Its local cache is intact and it'll come back up with all in-flight orders.
• If the Main is permanently broken, you'll need a replacement device and to re-pair the LAN clients to it, see "Switching to a backup Main" below.

Switching to a backup Main

If you keep a spare tablet as a backup Main:

1. On the broken device, if it's reachable: Settings → Devices → POS Devices, find it, click Deactivate.
2. If the broken device is unreachable, deactivate it from the dashboard anyway.
3. Pair the spare as a new Main Cashier for the same branch (see Pairing and Modes).
4. On each Secondary / Waiter terminal: Settings → LAN Pairing, tap the new Main from the discovered list, and re-pair.

Common issues and fixes

"Kitchen tickets aren't printing"

• Open Settings → System → Print Jobs on the POS. Look for failed jobs.
• Confirm the printer is on, plugged into the right network, and on the same Wi-Fi as the POS.
• If the printer is paired by IP, confirm its IP hasn't changed (router restarts cause this).
• Use Print Test on the printer in Settings → Hardware → Printers.
• Jobs that exhausted their retries are in the dead-letter queue. You can retry them manually.

"Drawer won't open"

• The drawer opens when triggered by a printer (the kitchen / receipt printer it's daisy-chained to).
• Settings → Hardware → Cash Drawer → tap Test Open.
• If nothing happens, check the cable from drawer to printer and that the printer has power.
• "Auto-open on payment" can be toggled off in Settings → Hardware → Cash Drawer; if it was turned off, payments won't open the drawer.

"Menu changes I made in the dashboard aren't appearing on the POS"

• The POS pulls menu changes incrementally. A pull happens at sign-in and periodically afterwards.
• Force a refresh: Settings → System → Sync Status → Pull Now.
• Confirm the dashboard menu is actually Published, unpublished changes don't ship to the POS.
• Confirm you're looking at the right branch's menu, branch-level overrides win over the brand menu.

"Payments work but don't reconcile at end of day"

• Compare the POS Close Session screen to the dashboard's Transactions → Sessions report.
• Discrepancies usually trace to: cash float not entered correctly at open; tips entered as discounts; refunds processed outside the session.

"The device asks me to activate again every time I open the app"

• Pairing credentials are corrupted. Factory-reset and pair fresh (see Pairing and Modes).
• This is rare but happens after OS storage cleanups on some Android devices.

"Pulse / Brain says my POS data is incomplete"

• A Main Cashier that's been offline for a long time hasn't shipped recent orders yet. Once it reconnects and finishes syncing, the gap closes.
• You can check sync progress in Settings → System → Sync Status.

When to call support

• Hardware that won't pair after a clean factory reset.
• Payment reconciliation discrepancies you can't explain.
• The POS app crashes repeatedly on launch.
• Lost data, though this is extremely unusual because data lives in the cloud, not on the device.

Have ready: the device's name from the dashboard (Settings → Devices), the last-seen timestamp there, and a description of when the problem started.

Related articles

• POS Overview
• Pairing and Modes
• Daily Use

Key Concepts

• Offline indicator: A subtle status icon in the header. Main Cashier shows it when the cloud is unreachable; LAN clients show it when the Main Cashier is unreachable.
• Hard-offline overlay: The full-screen "Reconnecting…" overlay on Secondary / Waiter terminals. Blocks actions to prevent drift.
• Dead-letter queue: Print jobs (and other background jobs) that gave up retrying. Retained for manual inspection in Settings → System.
• Sync status: The page that shows what the POS still owes the cloud (or owes the Main Cashier).