Multiple merchants report persistent lag issues with Shopify’s iOS POS app during checkout, particularly when loading payment options. The problem often requires app restarts and worsens during high-volume periods.
Common symptoms:
Checkout screens taking 30-60 seconds to load or timing out completely
“Trying to connect to internet” errors despite strong connections
Issues recurring every 2-3 transactions, requiring app restarts
Problems intensify during busy periods (one merchant couldn’t process transactions on Boxing Day)
Troubleshooting attempts (largely unsuccessful):
Network upgrades, new routers, ethernet connections, cellular data
New iPads (including 2024 models), updated iOS/app versions
Different payment terminals (Wisepad3, POS Go, Chipper 2X BT)
We went live in our first Shopify POS location and have found out that Shopify POS app has lot of lag when initiating the checkout process, sometimes it takes up to a minute to load the payment options section. The workaround is to restart Shopify POS app, then it works ok for few times. And then the issue comes back again.
iPad’s are used, latest iPadOS version and Shopify POS app version are used. Reset of Shopify POS app and restarting the iPad and router does not help. Shopify Support has been contacted but issue is not yet solved.
Just wondering if other merchants have this issue and is there a solution?
Same issue here. We will need to go offline for the payment option screen to appear. Seems like this is a software issue rather than a hardware problem as I notice other people are also experiencing the same issue.
I have noticed that we do not have the issue when external payment terminal is used. When Wisepad3 is used as an integrated payment terminal, then we have the issues.
We are a large business, using Shopify within our shop and over several floors of the building with a standard iPad and Wisepad setup. We see over up to 5,000 customers in a short period of time on our busiest days. What we encounter mainly is delay on loading the checkout with a long lag and buffer which says “trying to connect to internet. Please check your connection and try again”. We have tried a number of troubleshooting steps as follows:
Updating devices
Updating shopify
Stalling updates to see if the updates are having a negative effect
Changing location of devices
Upgrading AP points to highest spec possible
Whitelisting devices on the internet to ensure they won’t get kicked off if system overloaded
Buying new 2024 10th gen iPads
Buying Samsung Tablets
Docking POS Go as a PDQ to see if the connection between WisePad and iPad was the issue
Reconfiguring ethernet ports to connect iPads via ethernet to the system.
None of the above has worked to change our fortunes. It appears no matter the hardware, internet, location, updates, connection method, the lagging checkout and “trying to connect to the internet. Please check your connection and try again” persists.
I’ve spoken to Shopify about a solution, but they haven’t been able to help, running me through all troubleshooting options (which have already been tried) before suggesting I report a bug on the devices, which I’ve done over the past 2 weeks, but has yielded no contact from them. I’ve since been back in touch to reopen the ticket, but it all points to issues with the software itself. I’d suggest not investing in troubleshooting until pressing shopify to fix it on their end.
Recently it got better for us.
The only thing that I changed is to add the permission for the third-party cookies to the POS app.
As suggested for ios 14 (https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/sell-in-person/shopify-pos/troubleshooting#ios-14-permission-requirements) even if we wasn’t on ios14.
But it’s weird. The issues wasn’t 100% fixed after that. But now it’s more stable.
So I assume it’s a mix of problems from the POS app and Shopify. Maybe with third-party apps and the new POS features.
It wasn’t the network (we almost always use the POS on cell data, on wifi it was working). And our LTE connection was always good (tested).
something must have changed at Shopify’s end because we have not lately experienced the issue anymore. Unfortunately I cannot say what the root cause was.
Here is one thing our network team did, but I do remember that it did not initially seem to fix the issue: disable QUIC-protocol when communicating to Shopify.
Hi, we’ve got 5 stores with about 40 POS devices currently experiencing our busiest period of the year and this issue seems to be happening to us on a very frequent basis. Likewise we’re going through troubleshooting with Shopify (we’ve followed all the same steps as you have) as well as moving some of our devices onto a mobile network, having some devices without a card reader connected etc. and seem to not be getting anywhere very fast. Did you manage to make any progress with Shopify on this / made any developments in understanding what’s going on?
Just giving the thread a bump to see if anyone else is still experiencing these issues? Would love to hear feedback from other retailers, so I can provide it Shopify in the pursuit of getting this completely resolved.
I think I found another hypothesis to confirm.
It seem to be related to our paiement wisepad that goes on “sleep” mode. If we force it up before paiement it goes “ok”-ish.
You can remove Wisepad3 from Shopify POS setup and do few test sales without it. If issues go away I think that would be a good way to put pressure to Shopify to fix the issue.
We’ve done some testing with devices not connected to a Wisepad and experienced the same issue at roughly the same frequency. We also have a few devices connected up to a POS Go + Docking Station being using a card reader for Shopify POS and they’re also having the same problems.
We are an I.T. Department that deals with a couple of Shopify POS terminals. Been experiencing this issue on and off for months, extremely frustrating for the Terminal Staff. We have followed all the Steps:
-Latest updates for IOS and Shopify Apps always installed
-Used both Shopify GO or WisePad payment terminal
-Setting up independent Wifi environments without any other devices (on independent ISP separate from the corporate network)
-Prioritizing iPad and Payment Terminal traffic and guaranteeing highest levels of bandwidth at every point in the network
-iPad always getting 400Mbps+ down and 75Mbps up on SpeedTests on independent WiFi networks
-Tried cellular modems and connections for POS setups (again, independent of the corporate network)
-No geoblocks or other firewall rules interfering. Again highest priority in/out for the Shopify POS System IP’s
-Item list on the POS app is relatively small with only a few buttons/choices and slow/crashing transactions happen with 1 item in the cart
All signs are pointing to Shopify being the problem, wanted to make sure we tried everything before engaging them but at this point I don’t have much confidence in them being able to resolve this since they can’t pass a few kilobytes of traffic efficiently to confirm a transaction without the app glitching and Staff having to force close/reopen and redo the transaction, it works fine for 1-2 transactions then glitches again. Extremely frustrating as it’s a coffee shop doing a lot of transactions per hour.
We’ve had this problem for about the duration of this thread. Followed all the steps like the rest of us; even upgraded to hopped up iPad Pro to eliminate doubt of 3 year old iPad.
Heavier volume is where our issues show up.
Shared this thread with the agent who took note and promised to send along for review.
We’re running Chipper 2X BT for payment capture. Was informed these have been discontinued. Now going to order new capture hardware to see if that helps. Any suggestions are welcomed.
We hate shotgunning hardware at this, but we’ve tried everything else.
We will allegedly receive a follow up email regarding this thread, so stay tuned…
We’ve been liaising with Shopify consistently for about 3 months now and although they haven’t yet found a solution, they seem to be taking the problem seriously. I can confirm from our own testing that a hardware change re the payment capture (e.g. switching to wisepad or the POS terminal) will not solve this problem. However we’re under the theory that this issue does not occur on Android devices (only iPad / iOS) - although we haven’t personally tested this on android tablets.
When you say you’ve used ‘Shopify Go’ during your testing do you mean you’ve used them as a payment terminal connected to an iPad running Shopify POS?
If you’ve got the unlocked Shopify GO devices that can be used as a standalone Shopify POS it would be worth trying these - we’ve experienced no issues using the POS Go devices.
We have it connected to an iPad running Shopify POS, Yes.
We haven’t tried using it as a standalone device since the screen is a bit small and Staff are used to their ipad. I suspect moving the Go Terminal back and forth between the Staff punching in their order and then showing it to the customer would get a bit annoying but at this point we’re willing to try anything to alleviate some of these headaches.
When you say you haven’t experienced any issues with Shopify Go devices are you just referring to using them as standalone devices or having them connected to an iPad running Shopify POS? You mentioned in your other reply that switching between hardware like WisePad or Go doesn’t solve the problem.
Just to clarify. We prefer iPad and IOS because we have the ipads remotely managed so we can update apps, push updates, remotely manage our tablets and mobile devices. We use IOS exclusively for our phones and tablets. I know you can do similar things with Android but it’s just another system to setup and we’d rather not for 1 devices..
The issue seems to purely be with the iOS version of Shopify POS and so if you’re using the iOS version of Shopify POS and are experiencing the problems then regardless of what hardware / network setup / connected payment device etc. that you have you’ll experience the issue. The POS GO (when used as a standalone device) is using the android (or a version of the android) Shopify POS. As a result Shopify Go shouldn’t experience the issue.
We felt that the experience that our customers were having to deal with, with the issues of the payment connections was worse than having to switch to using POS Go devices until Shopify is able to resolve the problem.