Comprehensive Network Troubleshooting

The POS is Offline Right Now!

This is an extremely distressing situation for everyone involved, from the one or more customers who may be waiting to pay and leave, to the salon staff you’re assisting, and probably even yourself.

• Explain that you’re going to help resolve the problem as quickly as possible.

• Let them know that once the connection is reestablished, everything should be back to normal but that you’ll stay on the line to be sure, while they check out a customer.

• Suggest that the staff find a way to collect the payment in whatever alternative method they have available to them in these situations if the customer is not willing to wait. That may be a manual credit card reader, or writing down their phone number to take a payment over the phone later.

Regaining a connection

1. Try to connect to the machine through LogMeIn.

   • If you can connect– it’s not their internet connection! You can stop following the steps in this article. It may be necessary to ask more questions about what exactly they’re experiencing and narrow down the problem from there. Depending on the symptoms it could be anything from their credit card processing, to their online check in, to uploads.

   • If you can’t connect– you can be almost certain that the POS is not connected to the internet and continue to the next step!

2. Is the POS connected directly to the router with an ethernet cable, or is it wireless?

   • If it is (or should be)– have the user check to be sure that one end of the cable is properly connected to the POS, and the other end is properly connected to the router. Have them gently push the cable into the ethernet ports for extra measure.

   • If it’s wirelessly connected– you will need to walk the user through checking the wireless connection in Windows. Here’s a video on how to do that (you can tell them how to find the video on youtube using their phone!).

     1. This can feel too basic to some people for them to be interested in checking.

     2. You may need to insist, so that they are absolutely sure the cable is seated properly.

     3. Explain that it’s critical for you to check every link in the chain to successfully diagnose the issue, and that they’ve been a really big help in doing that.

     4. No one wants to spend an hour troubleshooting to find out it was such a basic and fundamental problem.

3. Power cycle the router. To do this, tell the user to unplug the router from it’s power source for 10 seconds, and then plug it back in again. You can also have them reboot the POS, in case the issue is Windows related. It will likely take the router around 3-5 minutes to regain it’s connection. Periodically refresh LogMeIn to see if the POS becomes available for remote access, indicating that the power cycle worked.

4. Does the salon have a separate modem and router? If so, you will need to have them verify that the modem and router are physically connected, along with verifying that the POS is connected to the router. This also means you’ll need to have them power cycle both devices. The modem provides the internet connection, the router segments the available connections for devices on the local area conection.

5. Check if there’s the POS has a static IP address configured, and get rid of it – temporarily! If a POS is configured to connect to a specific IP address, and that address is being assigned to another device by the router, you will need to allow the POS to connect to the network dynamically again. You can walk the end user through how to do this, and/or tell them how to find this video for a quick guide!

   • Open the Windows start menu and type network into the search bar. Click on Network and Sharing Center in the results.

• Click change adapter settings on the left, in the menu that appears.

• Right click on the network adapter, and click the properties button.

• Under This connection uses the following options click on Internet Version Protocol 4 (TCP /IPv4).

• Click the properties button in the bottom right of the adapter settings menu.

• In the following menu, the end user may see that the POS is configured to use a specific IP address. Have them click the Obtain IP Address Automatically bubble for both available options, and then click the OK button.

NOTE: Give the POS a moment or two to reconfigure itself, and then refresh LogMeIn a few times. If there was an IP address conflict that was resolved by releasing the PC to connecting dynamically, you will now be able to connect.

Don’t stop there though – a POS that was configured to a static IP address was set that way for a reason. You will need to set it back on a static IP address, and then make sure that all of the following adjacent services and devices are reconfigured to accommodate the change. Otherwise they may stop working completely, and will cause the salon to need to call back again!

Directing the user to their ISP

Here’s a list of all the major internet service providers in the US.

Still no connection available? At this point, you’ve tried everything within your powers to get the POS connected. From here, you can do the following:

1. Ask who their service provider is, and then google it along with the area the salon is physically located in. Sometimes you can find out that there’s a local outage this way, which means the user will unfortunately just have to wait for the outage to be over.

2. Get the support number for the salon’s ISP and give it to the end user. Explain that you did everything you could, and that they were a big help in trying to troubleshoot. Let them know that they’ll need to talk to their service provider for more help, but to call back if there are any problems with SuperSalon once they know they’re connected to the internet again.

Diagnosing a Slow Connection

• Ask a few qualifying questions:

  • Is the POS hardwired, or wirelessly connected? A wireless connection is often too inconsistent to properly accommodate SuperSalon.

  • How long have they been experiencing network issues, and how often? This can tell you more about what they’re dealing with, helping you decide where to go next in your diagnosis and troubleshooting.

  • Have they tried asking their service provider for assistance? Be careful not to send them right to their ISP just yet, it might make the user upset or feel like they’re being pushed back and forth between us and their ISP. It’s best to get some data together first.

• Verify that port 3306 is open in the Windows Firewall. If it isn’t, please open it following these instructions.

• Check that the network is set to public, not private. If it’s set to private, change it to public:

Run a web-based speed test

1. Connect to the POS in question using LogMeIn. Take note of how stable the connection is; this is a quick way to get a basic idea of what you’ll be finding.

2. Check the network speed using web-based connection speed test.

• Open a web browser on the POS.

• go to www.speedtest.net and click the go button.

• If you are checking the connection speed in an effort to provide evidence to a salon manager or business owner, keep the page open or otherwise get a screenshot of the results for later.

Check for packet loss and bad ping response times

Open Windows start menu, and type cmd to bring up command prompt.

• Right click on cmd, and run it as administrator.

• Type the following command and hit enter: ping google.com -t

• Let the ping test run for a minute or two.

NOTE: Wildly inconsistent responses can indicate a poor connection.

Again – if you are trying to get evidence to provide to a salon manager or business owner to show them that their connection is lacking, take a screenshot or otherwise let the ping test continue to run and show it to them.

Providing feedback and understanding

Framing the Message

• It’s critical that you don’t just tell the user “it’s your internet, call your service provider”, leaving them to figure it out on their own.

• This is because they may not understand the details behind why in fact their internet is the problem, and they need you to help them understand.

• It also reflects poorly on you as a technician and our support team as a whole – always do your due diligence of offering a proper explanation to our end users.

You need to make sure that the customer understands the basic idea of what the problem is and get them started on solving the issue. You aren’t fixing their problem in this case, but you’re helping get their ducks in a row to solve it themselves.

• Show the speed test and ping test to the user, and maybe ask them what download speeds they are paying for. If they pay for 10Mbps and are only getting 2 or 3- that’s a quick way to help them understand. It’s costing them money and they aren’t being provided the speeds advertised by their ISP.

• Help them help themselves, where possible. Did power cycling the router help? Make sure they know they can do this without needing to call us and wait for help, while they seek a long term solution. Leave the speed test and ping test minimized on the POS so they can show their service provider!

• Are they still having trouble understanding, or are they being combative? Let them know that offering basic troubleshooting and helping them get pointed in the right direction is within the scope of what our support team offers, but calling their internet service provider isn’t. Show them the evidence you found, short term troubleshooting they can use to get by, and maybe even google their ISP’s support number to provide to them.