The Importance of Staying Up to Date with App Updates 

Today, we received an interesting support request that we had never encountered before. It was a critical issue—one of those challenges that every technical team dreads, especially in a production environment where downtime or transaction failures need to be resolved as soon as possible. The customer reported encountering an error while trying to process a return to a credit card for a transaction completed the previous day. The error message was as follows: 

“(59042) [PAYMENT_TYPE] is required with CTROUTD (59042).” 

At first, as anyone should, we try to search our knowledge bases for workable solutions or at least some clues. Then, since no obvious solutions were found, we get tempted to debug, but of course as you already know, you cannot debug in Production instance.  

Being under pressure, we tried to solve the issue by installing a latest version of LS Retail’s Hardware Station (an essential component that is responsible for allowing communication between the cloud and the POS (point of sale) peripherals like Credit Card Devices), which is a common solution in similar situations.

Unfortunately, this approach did not work, and the same error persisted. This left us puzzled, and we began to consider whether the issue might be related to something beyond the Hardware Station—something embedded deep in the code within the software architecture.

We then decided that this might be a case that would require additional assistance from LS Retail – the creators of the solution itself. The problem seemed unique and required their input. 

However, before escalating, we noticed that there were some app updates available. We figured that it might be worth installing these updates before continuing down the troubleshooting path. Once the updates were applied, we tested the return process again — and much to our relief, the error was resolved! 

This experience serves as a perfect example of why it is essential to always stay up to date with app updates, particularly in environments that are critical for business operations. It is easy to overlook updates, especially when systems are running smoothly, but staying current can often be the key to resolving unforeseen issues quickly and efficiently.

This success story also highlights the importance of thorough troubleshooting—sometimes the solution is not the most obvious one, but with persistence, even the most frustrating problems can be solved. 

So, keep up with your apps and environments, read the release notes and keep your business running smoothly.