What to do when the kitchen ticket doesn't print

What happens between sending and paper

When the waiter sends the order, qmen.us doesn't talk to your printer: it creates a ticket in that kitchen's queue and waits for someone to fetch it. The one that fetches it is the print app, the small program that runs inside the restaurant — which is why a ticket can fail to print even when the order shows up just fine on the prep station's display.

That queue is why we almost never lose a ticket. The print app reports when it has printed; if it picks up the ticket and doesn't confirm within a minute, qmen.us assumes something got stuck along the way and offers the same ticket again. Every attempt is recorded, along with the last error the printer returned.

Why the queue retries instead of giving up

• A lost ticket costs more than a duplicate one. If the print app picks up the ticket and crashes before confirming, qmen.us puts it back in the queue within a minute. At worst you get an extra copy, not a dish nobody prepared.
• The error is saved. Every attempt bumps a counter and stores the last message the printer returned, so you can tell whether it was out of paper, a loose cable or a stuck system queue.
• The prep station isn't left blind. Even with the printer down, the kitchen display keeps showing the items. Paper is backup, not the order's only path.
• One station down doesn't take the others with it. Printing is set up per kitchen, so the grill keeps printing even if the bar's printer is out.

How to find the problem in 6 steps

Follow this order: what breaks most is at the top, and what almost never breaks is at the bottom.

1. Confirm the order reached the station

   Before blaming the printer, look at that kitchen's display. If the item isn't there, the problem isn't printing: the waiter didn't tap Send to kitchen, or the item is routed to another prep station through its default kitchen on the Menu.

2. Check that the print app is running

   This is by far the most common cause. The print app has to be open on the device inside the restaurant — PC, Raspberry Pi or Android phone — and online. A computer that restarted overnight, a phone that went to sleep or a Wi-Fi drop will stop printing without the cloud getting any warning.

   Tip: Set the print app to start along with the device. That's what makes printing come back on its own after a power outage, without anyone having to remember to open anything.

3. Check the obvious on the printer

   Paper running out, cover not fully closed, paper roll loaded backwards, a loose USB cable, a network printer that changed its IP. Print a test page with the printer's own button: if the self-test doesn't come out, the problem is the printer, not qmen.us.

4. Check paper width and copies

   If the paper comes out but scrambled or cut in the wrong place, it's almost always the Paper width set to 80 mm on a 58 mm roll (or the other way around). Open Kitchens, tap Set up in the printing block and adjust it. That's also where the Copies field is, if you want more than one copy.

5. Re-check the station's token

   If the print app is running but nothing arrives, the Kitchen token may be wrong or may have been changed. Copy the address and token again from that kitchen's printing window and paste them into the print app's settings. Generating a new token kills the old one instantly, so the two have to match.

6. If needed, resend from the station

   Once the problem is fixed, the tickets left in the queue print on their own as soon as the print app starts fetching again. For an old ticket you want on paper again, the practical way is for the waiter to resend the items from the table — the display is still the source of truth for what's left to prepare.

Frequently asked questions

Glossary

Print app

The program that keeps running on a device inside the restaurant, fetches the prep station's tickets from qmen.us and sends them to the thermal printer.

Kitchen token

The long password that lets that kitchen's print app fetch tickets. Generating a new one makes the old one stop working instantly.

Paper width

The paper roll the printer uses, 80 mm or 58 mm. It sets how many characters fit on each line of the ticket.

Copies

How many copies of the same ticket print with each send, from 1 to 5.

Kitchen

The display where orders show up and move from Preparing to READY.

Related resources