Mag Cards Not Working Consistently for POS Access

[JackieR]

Good afternoon! I am fairly new to Toast, but very seasoned in POS support for other brands, and I support a small group of restaurants that switched to Toast late last year. We recently made a decision to require all managers to use mag cards for POS access, and have disabled the POS access codes. They are using gift cards for swiping in and approval, which should not be an issue, but all six locations are reporting problems with their mag cards not working. They're re-registering the cards when they fail, and in some cases just reverting back to POS access codes to get them by for a day or two. One location opened a case with Toast support, but didn't get anywhere with it, so I recommended that they  order a case of cards directly from Toast (or at least the company that Toast uses for all mag card needs) - they should have them in the next day or two. I don't think there should be anything wrong with the gift cards that they have been using, so just reaching out here to see if anyone else in the community has come across this? I have not directly supported the managers on this case (our company has an internal IT department that I am a senior member of), because I figured I would be in the way if I tried to help troubleshoot, so I don't have a play by play on actions. Any insight is greatly appreciated! Thanks!

[rcmck]

Gotcha. 👍 No, not experiencing this issue. 

[Rob]

Hey @JackieR, whatever is causing this issue might be the same for all the cards involved; to figure out what is happening, I will need a point of contact at a specific restaurant location, from here there are a few tests we can run with cards that are not working and figure out what's happening, this includes a swipe test.

I also see you have ordered new cards, which should solve all the issues if you cannot provide a contact for troubleshooting.

Note:
Manager swipe cards will work among all Toast Tap Devices and will work among all eDynamo and MSR devices. But if a manager card is set up on a Toast Tap device, it will not work on eDynamo and MSR devices and vice versa. You can only have one EMV reader at a time on a terminal.
 

[JackieR]

Thank you very much for the offer  to assist. I have spoken with the operations director, and they are hopeful that the new cards will fix the problem, which have just been distributed in the past 24 hours. I will update this thread when I know more. 

[au79teahouse]

We also use mag card for activities that require manager approval. So far from my experience, I notice that the toast MSR (magnetic stripe reader) does not stay activated all the time. The first swipe usually won't register because card reader is not activated so it does not read cards. On the second swipe it would usually work. However, Toast MSR may not read cards consistently depending on the quality of card's magnetic stripe. The other issue that I can think of is system sometimes does not recognize the MSR for unknown reason suddenly. When that happens, you will see a message that says "searching for BBPOS reader" pops constantly on the system. If that's the case, you need to go to setting on terminal and do a device search. The micro-usb port on the terminal may be defective and you can try to plug the MSR to a different port on the terminal to see if the issue is fixed. After all, there could be many different reasons that may cause MSR not working consistently and properly.

[JackieR]

Thank you so much for your insights! They have insisted repeatedly that there are no hardware errors appearing on the POS for this, but again, I have not been present or directly involved in the troubleshooting, and they are  and are hopeful that the new cards will fix the problem, which have just been distributed in the past 24 hours. I will update this thread when I know more.