Why Is My Venue Paused?
If your venue suddenly stopped receiving orders and shows as Paused in Stream, this article walks through the two most common causes and how to fix them.
Why This Happens
Stream automatically pauses a venue when it can no longer confirm that orders will reach your kitchen. This is a safety measure — it's better for Stream to stop sending orders than to send orders that never print or fire, leaving customers waiting on food that was never started.
There are two common triggers:
1. The venue's internet went down
Your POS and auto-fire tablet both rely on an active internet connection to communicate with Stream. If your venue's internet drops — whether from an ISP outage, a router reset, or a network cable coming loose — Stream loses its connection to the location and pauses it automatically to prevent orders from going unseen.
2. The auto-fire tablet became disconnected
The auto-fire tablet is what receives incoming orders and automatically sends them to your POS/printer for the kitchen. If that tablet:
loses power,
loses Wi-Fi connection,
goes to sleep or locks,
or has the auto-fire app closed or crashed,
Stream can no longer confirm orders are firing, and the venue gets paused as a result.
How to Check Your Auto-Fire Tablet
Before unpausing, confirm the tablet is actually working — unpausing without fixing the root cause will just cause the venue to pause again.
Locate the auto-fire tablet at the venue (usually mounted near the POS or expo station).
Check that it's powered on. If the screen is off, wake it and confirm it's charged/plugged in.
Confirm it's connected to Wi-Fi. Check the Wi-Fi icon in the tablet's status bar — if it shows no connection or a weak signal, reconnect to the venue's network.
Confirm the auto-fire app is open and running in the foreground. If the app was closed, force-quit and reopen it.
Send a test order (or ask a manager to place one) to confirm it fires through to the printer/POS successfully.
If the tablet is on, connected, and the app is running, but orders still aren't firing, treat this as a technical issue rather than a simple reconnect — see the escalation note at the end of this article.
How to Unpause Your Venue in Stream
Once you've confirmed the internet is back up and the auto-fire tablet is on and connected:
Log in to the Stream Dashboard.
Navigate to your venue/location settings.
Locate the status toggle showing the venue as Paused.
Switch it back to Active (or select Unpause, depending on your dashboard version).
Send a test order to confirm the venue is receiving and firing orders normally again before considering the issue resolved.
Tip: If your venue frequently pauses due to Wi-Fi drops, consider placing the auto-fire tablet on a dedicated network or a UPS/battery backup to reduce future disruptions.
If the Venue Won't Stay Active
If you unpause the venue and it pauses again shortly after, or the auto-fire tablet appears connected but orders still aren't coming through, don't keep toggling it — reach out to Stream Support with:
The venue name and ID
What you observed on the auto-fire tablet (powered on? connected? app running?)
The approximate time the pause started
This will help our team troubleshoot faster and identify whether it's a connectivity issue or something on Stream's side.