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Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting

When something doesn't work in Spectre POS — a printer won't print, a scan won't go through, the app says it's offline — most fixes live in two places: Settings → Hardware and the Logs screen.

Settings → Hardware

Open the user menu (your avatar, top right) → Settings → Hardware tab. This is where you pair and check the bridge that talks to your physical hardware (printer, scanner, customer display).

The Hardware card shows:

  • Bridge URL — the address of the bridge running on your hardware.
  • Cashier name — used to identify this terminal in logs.
  • Status — a badge that tells you whether the bridge is connected.
  • Download bridge APK — downloads the latest version of the bridge app for the Android terminal.

Pair the bridge

  1. Tap Pair.
  2. The terminal displays a 6-digit code.
  3. Type that code back in the app and confirm.

Once paired, Status turns green.

Barcode scanning

Open the Barcode Scanning sub-tab to fine-tune scanner timing, prefix, suffix, and minimum length. The defaults work for most handheld scanners; adjust only if your scanner behaves oddly.

Logs

Open the user menu → Settings → there's a Logs entry. Use it to see what's happening inside the app — sync attempts, hardware events, errors.

You can:

  • Search the log entries.
  • Filter by log level (info, warning, error).
  • See context, timestamp, level, code for each entry.

When you contact support, copying the last few errors from here gives them the fastest path to a fix.

Offline mode

Spectre POS keeps a local copy of your products, customers, and orders. If your internet drops, you can keep ringing up sales — they're stored locally and sync up automatically when you're back online.

While offline:

  • New sales are queued locally and show up in Orders after sync.
  • The bridge to your hardware (if it's on the same local network) keeps working.
  • Card payments through Stripe will not work until you're back online.

Common fixes

  • Receipt won't print. Check the Hardware status — if it's not green, re-pair. If green, check the printer's own power and paper, then try printing from the order detail again.
  • Scanner stopped working. Open Hardware and confirm the bridge is connected. If you use a USB scanner connected directly to the device, check the Barcode Scanning sub-tab settings.
  • The app feels stale or wrong. Open the user menu and tap Clear All Local Data, then sign in again. Only do this when nothing else has worked — it deletes everything cached on this device and re-downloads from the server. (Available on the web app.)
  • Sales aren't syncing. Check that you're online and that the Logs screen doesn't show repeated sync errors. If errors persist, contact your store administrator.

When to escalate

If a problem keeps coming back after the steps above, capture:

  1. What you were doing.
  2. The exact error from Logs (search, copy the entry).
  3. The Bridge Status at the time.

…and send that to your store administrator or Spectre support.

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