Reading error screens

BoothIQ has dedicated full-screen error UIs for hardware failures during a customer session. This article tells you what each one is and how to extract useful information from it.

Who this is for: Operators who arrived at the booth to find an error screen up, or customers who reported one.

The two main error screens

Camera Error Screen

Shown when the camera fails during a customer session. The camera disconnected, frame capture timed out, or the SDK threw an error.

What's on the screen:

  • A friendly message explaining there's a camera problem
  • A short error description
  • A Retry button
  • Possibly a Cancel or Back button

The customer's session is preserved. If they paid, their credits are still in the balance, and they can retry without losing money.

What to do:

  1. Apologize.
  2. Have the customer tap Retry once. It might be a transient issue.
  3. If retry fails, take the booth out of customer flow and open admin → Diagnostics.
  4. Check the Camera card.
  5. Power-cycle if needed.
  6. Comp the customer (add credits in the Credits tab) so they can finish their session.

For deeper camera troubleshooting see Camera not working.

Hardware Error Screen

A more general "something is wrong with the booth's hardware" screen. Shown when the hardware watchdog (set in Settings → Hardware Error Screen) detects that printer, camera, or PCB has gone offline.

What's on the screen:

  • A clear "Out of Order" or "Hardware Problem" message
  • Component info. Which piece of hardware is offline
  • (Possibly) the BoothIQ version number for support reference
  • A diagnostic info panel with details

The customer's session is preserved in the same way as the Camera Error Screen, but the booth will not let them complete the session until the hardware is healthy again.

What to do:

  1. Take the booth out of customer flow.
  2. Open admin → Diagnostics.
  3. Find the component that's offline and run the matching troubleshooting article:
  4. Once the hardware is recovered, the error screen should clear automatically when the watchdog re-detects healthy status.

For more on the watchdog and the out-of-order screen, see Out-of-order screen won't go away.

Reading error codes

Some errors include a specific error code or short message. Common patterns:

  • CAM-NOT-FOUND. Camera not detected
  • CAM-INIT-FAILED. Camera detected but initialization failed
  • CAM-FRAME-TIMEOUT. Camera initialized but no frames arriving
  • PRT-OFFLINE. Printer is offline
  • PRT-OUT-OF-PAPER. Printer reports out of media
  • PRT-DOOR-OPEN. Printer service door is open
  • PCB-NOT-LISTENING. Payment device not connected
  • PCB-NO-PORT. COM port not available
  • WATCHDOG-*. Hardware watchdog triggered for component *
Note
The exact codes may differ in your version of BoothIQ. The pattern (COMPONENT-CONDITION) is the standard.

If you see an error code you can't decode, note it down and contact support.

Looking up the BoothIQ version

The hardware error screen often shows the BoothIQ version number. Note this for support. Different versions may have different bugs.

You can also see the version on the welcome screen in a corner, and in the admin dashboard footer or settings area.

Capturing the error for support

If the error is unfamiliar and you need to report it to support:

  1. Take a photo of the screen with your phone. Get the full error message and any codes visible.
  2. Note the time the error appeared and what the customer was doing when it appeared.
  3. Note the Booth ID (visible in the Cloud Sync tab if you can get into admin).
  4. Don't power-cycle yet if you haven't already. The in-memory state may have useful info that's lost on reboot. Get the photo and the timestamps first, then reboot.
  5. Send all of this to support.

If your booth is registered to the cloud, support can also pull logs from the cloud (see Remote commands).

When the error screen clears

For most error screens, resolving the underlying hardware issue is enough. BoothIQ re-detects the healthy hardware and the error screen disappears within a few seconds.

If the error screen doesn't clear after the hardware is fixed:

  1. The booth's status cache may be stale.
  2. Power-cycle the kiosk to reset.
  3. The error screen should not appear after the boot.

Hardware watchdog: friend or foe?

The hardware watchdog (toggled in Settings → Hardware Error Screen) is what triggers the Out of Order error screen when hardware fails. It's a safety mechanism. Without it, the booth would keep accepting customers and taking their money even when it can't print.

Leave the watchdog on in production. Turn it off only temporarily when you're diagnosing a hardware issue and need to walk the customer flow without being interrupted by the out-of-order screen.

What customers see vs what you see

  • Customer side, mid-session, hardware fails. Camera Error Screen or Hardware Error Screen with Retry button
  • Customer side, hardware was already broken. Hardware Error Screen / Out of Order from the start
  • Operator side, in admin. Header bar pills go red. Error badge appears. License banner unchanged
  • Operator side, on welcome screen. Hardware error overlay over the welcome screen if the watchdog is on

The error screens are designed to be customer-friendly. They don't show stack traces or technical jargon. The detailed information is in admin Diagnostics.

Verify the error is gone

You're back in business when:

  • All header pills are green
  • The error screen no longer appears anywhere in the customer flow
  • A test session completes successfully end to end
  • (If applicable) the error doesn't immediately come back

Next steps