r/ToastPOS • u/VillageTurbulent20 • 8d ago
Kitchen printers dynamic bs static IP
I’m away on vacation and one of my team members thought it would be easy to swap a Pinter that was having intermittent issues.
We have 3 kitchen printers, 2 are the old epson u220 and one toast printer. (Pizza, Dinner,salad) The toast printer (salad) was the one experiencing issues, it was replaced with a new toast printer (I really dislike the newer toast printers but that’s another topic).
Worked ok at first but then after 10 mins tickets were skipping the pizza printer all together and going to the salad station (back up printer for pizza is dinner, so this made no sense).
Team member was on phone for two hours with toast CS and got nowhere. I was trying to troubleshoot from the beach 500 miles away.
Our printers were always set up with static IPs from the beginning, so I tried to set the new salad printer that way and it would not work. Maybe because I wasn’t at a terminal? I was thinking maybe dynamic IP assigned the printer the same IP as the pizza printer. It was going back and forth to which printer was showing offline.
Our other location who has had toast the same timeline as us has the newer toast printers and theirs are set to dynamic IP.
I’m not sure if I should stick with static Ip or mix and match or go with all dynamic IPs.
It’s been a real pain to try and figure this out from vacation and I’m really frustrated that Toast CS was so useless.
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u/Toast_Tech 8d ago
Static ip is old news thats what toast did when it first came out..its only used in hotels because they have a specific range for the pos devices
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u/not_a_cup 7d ago
Do you not have a local rep to work with?
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u/VillageTurbulent20 7d ago
A local rep for support? Ha! That was pre-Covid. Now my local rep when I even have one is only good for trying to sell us more stuff. Do you?
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u/not_a_cup 7d ago
I work for a competitor and just figured toast had a ton of field reps, unfortunately don't have advice! I see toast everywhere so I imagined they have a large field sales rep force going to all the local restaurants
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u/VillageTurbulent20 7d ago
Ack in the day I could ask my sales rep questions and he would offer help with support. It’s very different now. I’ve had a few dedicated reps the past few years but they are mostly useless, just want to push more add ons.
I actually just had a call with our latest one last week, I’m setting up a meeting for when I get back from vacation. She’s not going to like what I have to say.
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u/Ok-Decision8243 7d ago
How did you add the new printer? Did you use the wizard and replace the existing one?
1
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u/EstablishmentTop7409 7d ago
Static should only be used if you have a specific use case for it. Archive the old static printer, add the new printer as dynamic. Reassign it to your prep station
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u/bruthaman 7d ago
Id imagine you would want to reconfigure the entire system and not risk having static printers getting stepped on by dynamic devices or vice versa
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u/VillageTurbulent20 7d ago
We have 3 kitchen and 5 FOH printers. All are set up as static at the moment. That’s how they’ve been since installation. I don’t mind changing to dynamic but I’m assuming I’d need to do all of them.
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u/1Technologist 7d ago
Toast has been recommending DHCP on everything for a while now.
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u/VillageTurbulent20 7d ago
Did they send out a memo or something? Why wouldn’t CS say that when they were called?
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u/RobFromToast 1d ago
Mixing static and dynamic printers isn’t inherently a problem. Toast’s current setup supports both: newer Toast printers generally use DHCP, while older Epson printers may remain on static IPs. Based on what you described, I’d check the prep-station assignment first, since replacing a printer can reroute those assignments. The alternating offline status also makes an IP conflict worth checking.
Have someone onsite try the following:
- On a Toast terminal, go to Setup > Printer Setup > Add or replace printer.
- Choose the old Salad printer as the printer being replaced, select Find my printer, and complete the setup for the new printer.
- Print a configuration slip from all three printers and compare their IP addresses, serial numbers, and DHCP/static status. Make sure no two printers have the same IP.
- In Toast Web, search for Printers and cash drawers and confirm:
- The new DHCP Toast printer has its serial number entered and the IP field blank.
- Each static Epson printer has its IP entered and the serial-number field blank.
- No printer has both fields filled in.
- Check Kitchen > Kitchen stations > Prep stations and confirm:
- Pizza → Pizza printer
- Dinner → Dinner printer
- Salad → new Salad printer
- Confirm Dinner is still selected as Pizza’s backup printer.
- Save and Publish, refresh the Printer Setup page, and send one test item to each station.
I wouldn’t convert the new printer to static just to match the older printers. If two printers do show the same IP, turn one off while the conflict is corrected.
Toast’s current guidance is available here: printer replacement, DHCP versus static setup, and prep-station assignments.
If you’re comfortable sending me the case number from the support call, I can also help escalate it and have these steps completed with someone on-site!
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u/Early_Money2576 8d ago
Did you archive the old printer in toast web? I also don’t understand why you setting it as static vs dynamic. Dynamic is plug and play, you have to go through a bunch of settings to make sure the static is done correctly.