Dial Troubleshooting | PAX S80

Owned by Ariana R. (Deactivated)
Last updated: Jan 19, 2021
3 min read

Quick Links

Basic Troubleshooting

Hardware Troubleshooting

  • Power-cycle the terminal

  • Disconnect and reconnect the phone cable from the terminal and the phone/line port.

  • Check that the phone cord is plugged into the correct port on the terminal. (Line Port)

  • Check if the phone line has a dial tone with no pauses or beeps beforehand.

    • Check if long distance works by calling our auth numbers (18002281257 & 18772664012) on the line.

  • Check that the terminal is not on the same line as the phone.

  • Check whether or not the terminal is sharing the line with another device/phone via a splitter.

    • If so, try to remove it and connect the terminal directly to the phone jack.

  • The phone cable may have a short, try a different physical phone cable.

    • If another phone cable is unavailable, try using the cable from the telephone.

  • Try a different wall jack, if available.

  • Confirm if the phone line connection is on an Analog or Digital Line (see 'Analog vs VOIP/Digital' section below)

Software Troubleshooting

  • Check that the correct comm type is set.

  • If you are getting connect errors, the terminal might not 'hear' the dial tone, try disabling dial tone check (see below).

  • Confirm if the merchant needs a dial prefix or pause.

  • Check Terminal Comm settings:

    • Try changing the baud rate (see below)

    • Check that the appropriate auth numbers are set on the terminal (Contact Support for assistance)

Analog vs VOIP/Digital

A digital phone line may cause the terminal to lose data during transmission. Digital phone systems do not have retry/error correction capabilities, and if a piece of data is lost in transmission, there is no way to recover it. This ends in a failed connection. The longer the connection time, the more likely that a failure will occur. That’s why transactions may go through OK (the connection time is very short) and settlements or downloads may fail (connection time is much longer).

Analog lines do not have this issue because they will allow “retries” and error correction.

Advanced Troubleshooting Steps

To turn dial tone check (blind dial) on/ off

If you are getting connect errors, it may be that the terminal is not hearing the dial tone. Some dial tones may be too “soft” to be picked up. Try disabling the “Dial Tone Check” setting.

  1. Press Menu

  2. Press 6 for Communication

  3. Key-in the password (today's date- MMDDYYYY) and then press Enter

  4. Press 6 for Dial Parameters

  5. Press 3 for Dial Tone Check

  6. Select the 1 for Off / 2 for On

To add dial prefix/pause

  1. Press Menu

  2. Press 6 for Communication

  3. Key-in the password (today's date- MMDDYYYY) and then press Enter

  4. Press 6 for Dial Parameters

  5. Press 2 for Dialing Prefix

  6. Key-in the Dialing Prefix (or a comma for a pause) and press Enter

To change the baud rate

Changing the baud rate from 2400 to 1200 may help if many of the auth attempts fail and the terminal tries for a minute or more.

  1. Press Menu

  2. Press 4 for Hosts Settings

  3. Key-in the password (today's date- MMDDYYYY) and then press Enter

  4. Press 2 for Host Phones

  5. Press 1 for Auth. Phones or 2 for Batch Phones

  6. Select the desired phone. (You must change the baud rate on each of the phones individually)

  7. Press 2 for Baud Rate

  8. Select the baud rate: 1 for 1200 or 2 for 2400