Swipe Card does not let me Login (Troubleshooting)

I am a user/ student/ teacher/ admin and have swipe card login issues, which does not let me log in or shows an error?

This page will help guide you to troubleshoot Card reader issues. It’s also worth reaching out to your PaperCut partner who has been involved in your setup. You can find their details by logging in your PaperCut Admin console > About tab > Support Info section.

 

My swipe card is not recognised on the device.

You might see the following message in the PaperCut Admin console > Logs tab > Application Log tab:
Unknown card/ID number entered on an external device. Card/ID No:xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx”.



This screenshot highlights a card ID number reported in the Application log tab. It’s showing an Unknown card/ID number because this card number is not linked with any relevant user in the Users tab. You can also check this by using the Quick Find filter under the Users tab.

If the card number you see in the Application log tab doesn’t look right. Eg. it has leading 0000s like 00001234 instead of 1234, then check out the ‘My card reader is reading numbers in a format different to my records. How can I change the format?’ section on Common Questions About Card Readers?

Connecting to server

We have a knowledge base article on troubleshooting this error with the Konica Minolta devices over Konica Minolta embedded application shows “Connecting to server”

Invalid pin number

This means PaperCut doesn’t recognise the pin number that the user is entering at the photocopier screen. The user can have their pin reset if they forgot what it is. You can do this from the PaperCut Admin console > Users tab > select the username > Details tab > scroll down to the “Card/ID PIN (digits only) field. The field hides the real pin number, so you can re-enter it.

Alternatively, the users can change their own PIN by logging into the PaperCut user interface with their account. Before doing that, the system administrator will need to enable the ability to change their own pin. This can be done by logging into the PaperCut Admin console > Options tab > General tab > tick the checkbox “Allow users to change their card/ID PIN” and then scroll to the bottom of the page and select Apply.

Also, go to the PaperCut Admin console > Logs tab > Application Log tab to see if there are any errors being shown there to help troubleshoot.

The error message received is Invalid Authentication

This error message is shown on the photocopier screen when a user tries to authenticate.

There are a few ways to troubleshoot this:

1. Is this affecting just one card or user or multiple?

2. Where is the issue occurring? Is it happening to just one photocopier?

3. If it is only one user, there’s a chance that they might be set up with the wrong card number inside PaperCut, so that might be worth double-checking by logging into the PapeCut Admin console > Users tab > select the username and confirm their details (password & pin id).

4. If the details for the user looks correct in the PaperCut Admin console > Users tab, there could be an issue with the card itself that it might not actually produce the number you think it does. Depending on the card reader you might be able to plug it into a computer and open a text editor, like a notepad. Then swipe the card. It should show the numbers the card actually thinks it is. We can get your PaperCut partner who supplied the card readers to help with troubleshooting this.

5. Log into the PaperCut Admin console > Logs tab > Application Logs. This page is great to see what sort of errors are coming up when a user attempts to authenticate.

 

I swipe but nothing happens at all

My swipe card beeps as if it receives the card data, but the MFD interface doest not react? This includes checking if swipe card is enabled and other basic checks, see the below section How do I start troubleshooting.


How do I start troubleshooting?

Check the basics

a) Ensure to check the Swipe card configuration is set up in PaperCut?

Card self-association allows a user to associate their card with their account without needing any administrator assistance. More details in this knowledge base article: Authentication Methods



b) If this was working previously, what changed? Did I update the PaperCut server/embedded application/copier firmware, or have any networking changes been made recently such as a new router or firewall rules?

c) Am I using the correct Embedded App version and a supported card reader? Check this with your PaperCut Partner.

d) If this only started happening since updating the embedded app, then does an older version of the embedded app still work?

e) Is the device reading the card as a different number than what the users have on their User Details

f) Did I read this page, about Card Readers problems Common Questions About Card Readers?

g) Set aside the card reader for a moment and try logging in with just the username/password

h) If that fails, it could be that their account is disabled, their username and password expired.
If authentication is only failing for only for domain-joined user accounts, See: Troubleshooting ActiveDirectory Authentication

i) Ensure if the card reader firmware is up-to-date?

j) Is the card reader connected to an RFIDeas 241? Make sure they are set to Client Mode (as opposed to Generic Mode) for the best performance. This was added in our PaperCut version 17.2.3 and the advantage of using this mode is that it can provide greater stability of communications on a network that may be flaky or unstable. See: Network CardReader Protocol

 

Further extended troubleshooting

Try a laptop test

There might be times where the issue is isolated to one or specific devices and we need to take your PaperCut Application server and the MFD out of the equation for a moment to further troubleshoot what the issue could be. Also, the card reader or the device might have to have a factory reset done if it’s happening just to the one device. Your PaperCut partner can help with this.

 

Check your Server resources and network connectivity

This could just be a symptom that the server does not have enough CPU and memory to handle the load, or so. Ensure, there are no issues with the network connection between the PaperCut Server and the machines, also no changes were made to the network as well.

a) Make sure you have sufficient amount of CPU and memory. Check the PaperCut Server Sizing Guide

b) Is PaperCut actually running on a 32-bit OS? This processor architecture cannot use more than 4GB of RAM, even if the server has more installed.

c) If the PaperCut server is on a virtual machine, make sure the memory is reserved and not dynamically allocated. We have a knowledge base article PaperCut on VM that covers this.

d) Confirm if anything else is running on the PaperCut server that could be consuming excessive resources? Check the list of processes that are installed on the PaperCut Application server by executing ‘tasklist / SVC’ in a Command Prompt.

 

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