Ingenico PIN PAD Out of Order: Why, What, and How?

Drasko June 6, 2022

If you got a "Pin Pad out of order" error on your payment terminal, then this post is for you.

Today I will show you a (secret) trick how to get your Ingenico pinpad back online in 2 minutes or less.

But first, let's see why this error occurs and what does it mean.

By the way, did you know that thousands of Ingenico Pin-Pads and terminals suddenly stopped working since May last year?

The best part?

Most of the affected devices are fully functional card readers that do not have any sign of ware, damage or hardware malfunction!

So what could be the problem if hardware is OK?

Ingenico claims it's a problem with expired digital certificates.

You get the idea.

Obviously the manufacturer wants you to service or replace the device, although your card machine and PinPad could last for at least a few more years without any issue.

POS swipe machine models covered in this post are: iCT220, iCT250, iWL250, iWL280, iSMP, iCMP, iPP220, iPP280, iPP310, iPP320, iPP350, iHC950, Gamme ISelf.

There are quite a few articles on the internet explaining how to fix the PINPAD out of order error on Ingenico terminal.

But you need to understand french and read them all if you want to solve the problem.

That's why I decided to provide all the info in one place (yes, here), complete and accurate on what might be causing PIN PAD out of Order and what you can do about it.

So without further ado, let's dive right in:

What is PIN PAD Out of Order on Ingenico Card Machine?
PIN PAD Out of Order - Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a Fix for Ingenico PIN PAD Out of Order Error?

What is PIN PAD Out of Order on Ingenico Card Machine?

According to Payment Card Industry (PCI) security requirements, payment terminal certificates need to have a limited lifetime, especially for certificates used for securing the data and/or communication.

Ingenico (POS machine manufacturer) refers to them as "IngeTrust certificates".

When certificates expire, a secure communication between the card terminal and external pinpad cannot be established anymore. That is why you are getting the "PIN PAD Out of Order" error message, rendering your pinpad unusable.

In some rare cases when this error occurs, certificates might stil be valid, but the reason is that pinpad is loosely connected to the terminal, or has a hardware malfunction.

PIN PAD Out of Order - Frequently Asked Questions

There are some great documents that can be found on the internet, explaining all the aspects of Ingenico certificate expiry, but unfortunately all of them are available in French language only: link 1, link 2, link 3.

So what is IngeTrust?

Established in 2009, IngeTrust is Ingenico's public key infrastructure, which uses certificates for their Telium credit card machine terminals.

Why do certificates expire?

Certificates are used to secure data. As already mentioned, PCI imposes a limited lifetime. Ingenico usually applies a 10-year life for their certificates.

When do IngeTrust certificates expire?

Certificates expire after 10 years, which means that some devices have already expired on April 14th, 2021 or April 29th 2021, while some expired in December 2021.

What is the consequence of IngeTrust certificates expiring?

The consequence is twofold:

Loss of communication between the terminal and a PinPad.
Inability to make a secure connection (mainly for downloading
keys).

Is there a Fix for Ingenico PIN PAD Out of Order Error?

After getting this error, the first logical question is how to fix Pin pad out of order on the card machine and continue accepting contactless card payments?

Proceed with the following steps:

Open the back cover of the terminal, and check if the Pinpad cable is firmly connected to the terminal USB port. Or even better, just pull the cable out and plug it back firmly.
Then try to reboot Ingenico (if not sure how, check out this post on "how to restart Ingenico card machine")
Wait for the terminal to boot to idle screen, and see if it helped solve the problem.

If this did not help to get Pinpad back online, then keep reading.

I'm about to show you a less known trick how to make Ingenico pinpad functional again, but do not forget this is only a temporary solution - it will work until the next restart, device power off or TMS download.

Here is the trick:

Enter the TELIUM MANAGER menu and set the date to 01-01-2018
Restart the credit card machine
Check if Pinpad display is showing "Welcome" message
Now enter TELIUM MANAGER again, set correct date/time but do not restart the terminal

Use your terminal and Pinpad like before the error occurred, and make sure not to turn it off, do not restart it or make TMS software download.

In case if all this has not helped, then keep reading.

Now,

You may not want to hear this, but here we go:

There is absolutely nothing else you can do on your own to quickly fix the "Pin Pad out of order" error.

Let me explain.

The thing is, digital certificates can be renewed remotely, but only before the expiry date. So if you can already see the "PinPad Out Of Order" error, then the certificates inside the device(s) have probably expired. Which means that remote certificate renewal will not be possible either.

Depending on the POS maintenance contract you have, there are basically two options left on how to solve PinPad Out of Order:

Contact the Ingenico service vendor or merchant help desk service line and ask for a pinpad and card machine terminal swap; or,
Contact the Ingenico service center and ask for a pinpad and card machine terminal diagnostic and IKR certificate refresh. Usually, the service will collect it, or you will need to ship it. The repair is usually done at the repair center because of the reloading, reactivation and secure inserting of the encryption keys/certificates into the terminal.
Last but not the least, put up a clear and visible card machine out of order sign.

If you found this post helpful, I'd appreciate it if you would share it.

Author: Drasko Georgijev

I'm a financial technology professional with 15+ years of experience in payment cards, eCommerce, POS transaction processing, and switching.
From time to time, I'm sharing some helpful tips, tactics, and news about Digital Commerce and Fintech.
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