question

Dan avatar image
Dan asked Jeffrey Blattman answered

Activity won't launch while the Merchant Keypad Display app is open

Hi folks,

Is it possible to launch an activity to do some quick processing after (our custom tender is used) via the com.clover.intent.action.PAYMENT_PROCESSED receiver while the Merchant Keypad Display app is alive showing a customer facing view?

Our app uses the same broadcast when it is received via the Sale or Register apps, but when it is received via the Merchant Keypad app I get a log (below) suggesting the launch of the app has been halted. The activity launch code is a simple intent and the broadcast receiver's context is used to start the app. 

12-07 20:03:25.039 866-1974/? I/ActivityManager: START u0 {flg=0x10008000 cmp=com.xxx.activities.MainActivity} from pid 1239512-07 20:03:25.040 866-1974/? W/ActivityManager: Activity start request from 10161 stopped - appSwitchesBlocked
Clover MiniMerchant
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Mark Mullan avatar image Mark Mullan commented ·

Hi @Dan

Could you explain more about what kind of processing you would require? Does it require user interaction (which is why you need to fire an intent to launch your application) or can the processing be accomplished from within the Broadcast Receiver, or on a background thread, or on your own server?

Thanks-

Mark

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Dan avatar image Dan Mark Mullan commented ·

Thanks Mark I think we've come up with a solution so you can probably close this. Just wanted to confirm this was the case. Yes the intention was to essentially inform the user if our app failed to send a transaction to our server. We've come up with a mechanism to retry with a fall-off, but informing the merchant if their device is offline for the whole day for example is still kind of an issue.

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1 Answer

Jeffrey Blattman avatar image
Jeffrey Blattman answered
No, you cannot launch an activity over top of the customer facing app running on the mini when merchant keypad is in use. We explicitly block other apps from starting over top of the customer facing display (as you can see in the logs). Your options are limited to what you can do when you are invoked from the (customer-facing) custom tender flow.

Keep in mind the customer facing display is for customers only, and attempting to display a message there for the merchant is the wrong idea. I think the best you can do is raise a notification such that the merchant will see it if they exit customer-facing mode on the mini. Another option would be to send them an email describing the problem.
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