X-Charge Classic Dot NET ERRORS

Questions and Answers that relate to the [CS] Version of POS Pizza 6 and 7
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synpse
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X-Charge Classic Dot NET ERRORS

Post by synpse »

Hi Scott,

Updated to the 6.93 release. Using the new X-Charge Classic. and..........

IT CRASHES!!!

After the transaction runs, and before that msg gets back to POS Pizza, everything dies.


I've got the Windows system logs of it. saying Dot NET 4.0 Error. UPPM_Xpresslink.dll version 6.90



YEAH. This has not been a fun week.
What's up with this?

Did you test it with X-Charge version 8 ?
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Re: X-Charge Classic Dot NET ERRORS

Post by Scott »

Very odd indeed because UPPM_Xpresslink.dll version 6.90 does not use DOT NET at all. None of POS Pizza's components do.

You may need to update the XPressLink.dll file. This should work the same as it did with 6.8x and prior. Nothing was changed with the integration itself. XpressLink is XCharge's dll, so you will need to get it from them.

I know that they're phasing out XPressLink, so we will be looking at alternative solutions with them down the road. Nothing on the table yet, because we are pushing for talking to external chip hardware directly like we have done with another processor. No need to keep chasing our tails with all of the different processors and their software requirements and constant changes and updates, when we can talk directly to a terminal over the network.

I still have a few dragging their feet on this, and they want the end user to install 40MB of DOT NET based software which I am trying to avoid. There is no need for the extra baggage when you can communicate directly with a terminal using TCP/IP. Also with the onset of tablet processing becoming popular, DOT NET is a no go.


Scott
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Re: X-Charge Classic Dot NET ERRORS

Post by synpse »

Image

Here is the system log for it. X-Charge sends the APPROVED msg back. Then KA-BAM. CRASH.


And then, we are stuck with an unpaid order in the POS. I haven't tried to hack together a "fake credit card payment" for the sake of security and sanity!! So, my hotfix was to just say it was paid with a check. Our financials are a little bit screwed up this week... but.. it evens out.

We are evaluating Heartland Payments tomorrow, and will probably switch very soon. I spoke to Chuck last week, and he had a lot of good things to say.



OFF TOPIC - GIFT CARDS
We finallly got the gift cards working properly. I did a "test" gift card, then learned about the CANNOT VOID part of it.. the hard way, of course.

Something like this needs to be added to the HOW TO GUIDE for Gift cards. If you are giving away a gift card, you need to DELETE the number that is already entered in the Gift Card Mgr. Then, add the gift card in with the amount and expiration date. We gave away 2 gift cards for pizzas. Everything else works beautifully. I sold the last of the stack today, and had to get a new stack, and entered the numbers, so we were all set to go from there. It was very pleasing and easy to do it properly now.
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Re: X-Charge Classic Dot NET ERRORS

Post by Scott »

I was going to see if you were going to be on site, and send you a debug version of the dll, that logs everything, every step of the way. If you are switching then no need. Something is clearly getting corrupted in memory because DOT NET is not used (by us anyway). Maybe X-Charge is using DOT NET and leaving the stack unresolved, or sending back more data than allocated in their newer version? I can just trying allocating a larger return buffer and see if that cures it.

Let me know if you are interested and we can test a larger buffer. It could be that they changed something like this in their updated version, even though this would be a bad practice as far as an API is concerned.


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Re: X-Charge Classic Dot NET ERRORS

Post by synpse »

I forgot to check the "Notify me when a reply is posted" box. Ugh!
I PM'd you my email

I'm all for testing stuff until it works. We aren't switching today.. so.. this is an ongoing issue.

and today's date being what it is.. tomorrow would be better.


So, for the sake of anyone using X-Charge with POS Pizza, let's get this 1 out of 50 times bug elminated.

It has happened on both Windows 7 and Windows XP terminals. And both with the X-Charge server on the same computer, and the X-Charge server on the back office computer.
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Re: X-Charge Classic Dot NET ERRORS

Post by Scott »

I will build a debug version this coming week and send it to you. It will create a detailed log for every transaction overwriting the last log, so that it doesn't grow to a ridiculous size. The next time that a crash happens, we need to grab that log prior to any new transactions taking place. Hopefully this will give me some insight as to what might be happening. 9 times out of 10, it is a buffer overrun somewhere, meaning that someone tries to access memory that has not been allocated to them, and Windows frowns upon that.


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Re: X-Charge Classic Dot NET ERRORS

Post by synpse »

Ugh! It won't crash now. Been waiting 3 days, but no error. It may have been something in the AVS or AVS2 on keyed entries. Maybe one of them was failing. I dont know. But.. I've been patiently waiting for this to break.. and it hasn't.

I don't quite get the same satisfaction as fixin that little semi-colon of code somewhere. But, hey, it's not an issue at the moment.



For anyone else reading this, I had an issue with something crashing, and Scott promptly helped with some debug, and I've yet to see this bug again. Very quick response time on a possible critical error. A++++++ Support.
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Re: X-Charge Classic Dot NET ERRORS

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synpse wrote:Ugh! It won't crash now. Been waiting 3 days, but no error. It may have been something in the AVS or AVS2 on keyed entries. Maybe one of them was failing. I dont know. But.. I've been patiently waiting for this to break.. and it hasn't.

Murphy's law..... :twisted:
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Re: X-Charge Classic Dot NET ERRORS

Post by synpse »

I captured a bug today!

But.. I'm not sure how useful your debug code was.

It was actually a walk-in, swiped card. Not the usual keyed phone order.
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Re: X-Charge Classic Dot NET ERRORS

Post by Scott »

synpse wrote:It was actually a walk-in, swiped card. Not the usual keyed phone order.
Maybe that's the pattern? Next time it happens, have the cashier make a mental not as to whether or not it was a walk-in or not.

Any patterns that can be found can usually be helpful.

I will look over the debug stuff when I get into the office.


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Re: X-Charge Classic Dot NET ERRORS

Post by synpse »

We've had 1 of each, of almost every example of ways we have orders in the system.

walkins, pickups, swipes, phone entries, idk. we're not seeing a pattern. i looked thru specifically for any patterns on order types the other day. Also, the AVS failing or not, etc. All happened either way.

This isn't like our old problem with the Apostraphe in the LastName, as printed on the card.
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