Barcode Scanner Failures

Laura Purvis
Laura Purvis
Fourth Anniversary Name Dropper Participant Facilitator 1
in Blackbaud Altru® General Discussions

Hi Everyone,

Has your organization ever had consistent problems with scanning tickets or merchandise labels? This seems to be a consistent issue for us where a scanner will function ok for a while (maybe) and then stop working. Sometimes shutting down the computer will help. However, the issue returns where it will scan a few times, I'll leave the front desk, then the issue comes up again for our staff.

Our Altru desktop terminals consist of a Dell Optiplex 9020 Small Form with Windows 10 with EOM-POS cash drawer/thermal receipt printer. Our mobile point-of-sale is a Dell Latitude 13 (3379) and we usually process cards/issue e-receipts through that set-up. Ever since we have started with Altru, the scanners I have paired with these point-of-sales stations have not worked consistently for front desk staff.

Originally we purchased two Tera 2D wireless D5100 barcode scanners for our gift shop and lobby registers along with a Symcode GR40-2D-US 2D smaller wireless handheld scanner for our mobile station. They worked inconsistently if at all after initially seeming to be ok, and I have reset them to factory settings several times (then reloaded any necessary settings for Altru) with no luck. The symcode seemed to work for a while, but now has fully stopped working. We then moved on to a Honeywell 1900G-HD and Zebra DS4308-XD, both corded. I thought these were working ok, but now it seems they are working inconsistently again. When I restart the computer, it seems to resolve the issue, but then it'll reappear later.

It is a continual source of frustration at work…any suggestions on how to fix this issue would be helpful. I'm looking at buying a Zebra Symbol DS2278-SR or a Datalogic QBT2430. However, continually switching out equipment to still have the same issue makes me wonder if there is something else underlying that is causing the scanners to fail.

Thank you for any thoughts.

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Comments

  • Joe Killian
    Joe Killian
    Kudos 2 Second Anniversary Name Dropper Facilitator 1

    @Laura Purvis

    It does sound like a hardware failure, maybe a bad USB port. But, if that were the case, you'd expect the behavior to only affect one terminal, not all of them.

    A few thoughts to help trouble shoot:

    • Are you using a USB hub to connect your scanner to the Dell? (If so, the hub could be under powered, which would explain the erratic behavior).
    • Next time a scanner acts up, open Windows Notepad. Then scan an item. Does the bar code print in Notepad? This would help you rule out if the issue is Altru/Windows or hardware related.
  • Laura Purvis
    Laura Purvis
    Fourth Anniversary Name Dropper Participant Facilitator 1

    @Joe Killian Thank you for these suggestions. I went through using Notepad to scan everything on all of the different scanners that we've had and ordered. It turns out the the Honeywell 1900G-HD seemed to eventually resolve all of the issues that we have had. I found out that the reports of the Honeywell scanner not working were the result of faulty or misplaced barcodes rather than the scanner itself. So, we've replaced everything with Honeywell scanners, which seems to have resolved the issue. The new scanners I ordered (which were wireless) never worked well, so those ended up not being an option. It seems like we have to use wired, high-definition scanners to have consistent scanning abilities on all of our different terminals.

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