A catalog of common problems with their causes and fixes: exact sign-in error messages, locked suspended sales, test mode, card terminal and unconfirmed-payment recovery, printing and cash drawers, offline sync, ecommerce SKU conflicts, email failures, hidden report columns, and what to send support.

Most register problems have a short list of usual causes, and most of them you can fix yourself in a minute or two. This page is a symptom → cause → fix catalog: find the message or behaviour you are seeing, try the fixes in order, and follow the linked article when you need the full procedure.

Signing in

"Invalid username/password." Either the credentials are wrong, or the employee account is marked inactive or was deleted — the app deliberately shows the same message for both. You can sign in with either the username or the employee number. An admin should check the account under Employees and clear the inactive flag if needed; see employee accounts.

"You are not allowed to login at this time." The credentials were correct, but the employee account has a login start time / login end time window set, and you are outside it. The window is evaluated in your first location's timezone. An admin can widen or clear the times on the employee record.

A page says "You can not access with your ip" and shows an IP address. The employee account has an allowed IP address list, and the network you are on is not in it. This is the restriction working, not an outage. An admin adds the shown IP (or an IP range) to the employee's allowed list, or clears the list — see secure sign-in, 2FA and SSO.

"Employee is not assigned to any locations." Every employee must be assigned to at least one location to sign in. An admin edits the employee and checks a location under the employee's location assignments.

You are forced to change your password right after signing in. The account was created or edited with force password change enabled. Pick a new password (at least 8 characters) and continue — this is expected, not an error.

You forgot your password. Click Reset password? on the sign-in screen and enter your username or email. If the app says "A password reset e-mail has been sent," check that inbox (and spam). If it says the username or email doesn't exist, you typed a value that is not on any employee record — ask an admin to check what email is on your profile. Support cannot look up an existing password for anyone.

Your 2FA code is rejected. Codes are time-based — check the device clock, and make sure you are using the current code. Recovery options and admin resets are covered in secure sign-in, 2FA and SSO.

A warning says you are using an unsupported browser. Update your browser, or switch to a current version of Chrome or Firefox. Old browsers cause the widest variety of odd behaviour in the register.

Blocked from a feature you expect to see

"You do not have permission to access the module named …". Your employee account lacks that module's permission. An admin grants it under Employees or via a permission template — see permissions and templates.

"This feature is not included in your current plan." The feature (for example PrintNode printing, the Label Designer, or Genie) is a plan entitlement your subscription does not currently include. Check Store Config → Subscription plan → Entitlements — many entitlements offer a free in-app trial, and the page links to billing to upgrade. Details in billing and your subscription.

You cannot see costs or profit on reports. Not a bug — cost and profit visibility is gated by the Reports permissions Show Cost Price and Show Profit (and item cost by the Items permission See Cost Price). An admin can grant them; see permissions and templates.

The dashboard shows no sales statistics. The Reports permission View Dashboard Stats is off for your account.

An Excel Export button is missing on a list page. Each module's export is gated by its own Excel Export permission — see backups and your data.

At the register

"Sale is open on Register X by Y" when opening a suspended sale. Someone else has that suspended sale open on another register — the message names the register and the employee. Have them complete or re-suspend it, and the lock clears. The lock also expires on its own after 15 minutes, so a stale lock (a browser left open, a crash) resolves itself — wait it out or come back to the sale shortly. The same employee is never blocked by their own lock. More in suspended sales, layaways and estimates.

A banner says "You are in test mode. Sales will NOT be saved" — or receipts print "TEST MODE TRANSACTION". Test mode is on. It lets you practice without saving sales — great for training, alarming when left on by accident. Click Disable test mode in the banner on the sales screen. What test mode does and doesn't record is covered in store configuration basics.

An item will not scan or cannot be found. Barcode scanners type what they read, so click into the item search field first, and check that the scanned value matches the item's Item Number (UPC/EAN/ISBN) on the item record. If scans come out garbled, the scanner's keyboard layout does not match the computer's — see scales, scanners and customer displays.

You cannot add a new location. Locations are licensed individually. The Locations page shows "Adding another location requires another license" with a Purchase Additional Locations link, and adding one asks for your Purchase E-Mail to verify the license count. See billing and your subscription.

Card payments

"Your credit card terminal is OFFLINE please check connection before processing sale." The pin pad has dropped off the network. Check its cable or Wi-Fi, power-cycle the terminal, and confirm it comes back online before retrying — a terminal that lost its network looks exactly like a broken one. Terminal-specific steps are in taking card payments.

A banner says "There are 1 or more transactions that are approved but do NOT have a completed sale." A card was approved on the terminal but the sale never finished in the app (a dropped connection, a closed tab). Do not charge the customer again. Click View Unconfirmed Transactions in the banner, find the payment, and click Load Sale & Confirm to attach it to its sale — or Delete if it was voided/refunded on the processor side. Full recovery flow in taking card payments.

Card processing is not offered at all on the payment screen. Card processing is configured per location — check the processor settings on the location, per setting up credit card processing.

Printing and cash drawers

Receipts are not printing. First identify which printing path the register uses:

• Browser printing — the print dialog may be blocked as a pop-up. Allow pop-ups for your store's address and check the browser's selected printer and paper size.
• PrintNode printing — confirm three things: the PrintNode desktop client is running on the computer physically connected to the printer; Store Config → PrintNode → Test Connection succeeds; and the right printer is assigned to your register under Locations → (your location) → registers → PrintNode settings. PrintNode is also a plan entitlement — if the tab is missing, see billing and your subscription.

Both setups are walked through in receipt printers, cash drawers and PrintNode.

The cash drawer does not open. Cash drawers connect to the receipt printer and fire when a receipt prints. If receipts print but the drawer stays shut, check the drawer-to-printer cable; if receipts do not print, fix printing first — the drawer will follow. See receipt printers, cash drawers and PrintNode.

Labels print misaligned or blank. Label size and printer setup are covered in barcodes and labels.

Offline mode and syncing

A banner says "You are offline and can process transactions in a limited way until you come back online." That is offline mode doing its job — the register lost its connection and switched to the locally cached data. Ring up sales as usual within offline limits; see selling offline for exactly what works offline.

Sales made offline did not upload. When the connection returns, a Sync Offline Sales [n] button appears on the sales screen (with an Edit Offline Sales link to review the queue). Click it and wait for "Offline Sales Synced Successfully." If you expect this to happen by itself, check that Auto Sync Offline Sales When Back Online is enabled in Store Config. If sales still will not move, Reset Offline Data in Store Config is the last resort — read selling offline first so you know what a reset discards.

Offline mode has stale items or customers. The offline cache refreshes on a cycle (Offline Mode Sync Cycle Time (Hour), 24 by default) and after each app update. Leave the register open while online and it re-downloads on its own.

Ecommerce sync

Items are not matching between the POS and the online store. Matching runs on SKUs/UPCs, so mismatched values — or two records sharing one value — are almost always the cause. The app logs these explicitly, e.g. "E-commerce sync: SKU/UPC … matches more than one item — see sync log" or "… matches a deleted or hidden item." Fix the SKUs on the item records, then check the logs: each item's form has an Ecommerce Sync Log, and Store Config has the store-wide E-Commerce Syncing Logs. Matching rules are in how ecommerce sync works.

Email and notifications

Receipts, reports or notifications never arrive. Mail problems usually trace back to the settings in Store Config → Email Settings — expired or changed SMTP/Gmail credentials are the top cause. Verify the settings, then click Send Test Email on that tab to confirm mail flows before retrying the real thing. Also have the recipient check spam. Details in email, SMS and notifications.

After an update, or general weirdness

The app looks broken, buttons do nothing, or a screen is half-styled. Do a hard refresh — Ctrl+F5 (Windows) or Cmd+Shift+R (Mac) — to force the browser to drop cached files. Updates normally refresh themselves (see updates and new versions); a hard refresh clears the stragglers. If the problem follows you across browsers and machines, it is not a cache issue — report it.

Something changed and you don't know why. Check the Change Log (your name/avatar menu → Change Log) — moved buttons and new behaviours are usually release notes. For "who changed this record," admins can consult the audit trail under Reports.

When to contact support

1. Check status.phppointofsale.com first — if there is a service-wide problem it will be posted there, and there is nothing to fix on your end.
2. Open the support chat from your name/avatar menu → Support (if you don't see it, the Hide AI Support Chat Bot setting in Store Config may be enabled), or use the support page. Getting help lists every channel.
3. Include four things: your store URL, the exact steps that produce the problem, screenshots of any error, and the Built on date from your sign-in screen. Those are what support asks for first, so sending them up front usually saves a whole round trip.

Common questions

A card was charged but there's no sale in the system. Did we lose the money? No — the payment is sitting as an unconfirmed transaction. Use the View Unconfirmed Transactions banner on the sales screen and Load Sale & Confirm to attach it to its sale. Never re-charge the customer without checking there first.

Why can one employee do something another can't? Almost always permissions: module access, per-action permissions (exports, discounts, cost visibility), or a location assignment. Compare the two accounts under permissions and templates.

Why can't I open the suspended sale? It says it's open on another register. Someone else has it open; the lock names the register and employee, and it self-expires after 15 minutes if they walked away. Have them finish or wait for the lock to clear.

Why do receipts say TEST MODE TRANSACTION? Test mode is on and sales are NOT being saved. Click Disable test mode in the banner on the sales screen before ringing up real customers.

The whole store is down for everyone — what do I do? Check status.phppointofsale.com. If an incident is posted, it is being worked on service-wide; if nothing is posted, contact support with your store URL.

Emails stopped working after we changed our email password. That is the cause — update the credentials in Store Config → Email Settings and confirm with Send Test Email.