If you own an iPhone or other Apple device, chances are good that you use Apple Pay. There are a lot of things to like about Apple Pay: It gives us a secure way to pay for things online, and the ability to pay with our phones eliminates the need to carry a wallet full of credit cards or cash when we are on the way are on the way. Thanks to Apple Pay and similar services, paying for things has become in many ways as easy as sending a quick message to a friend.

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Once you’ve set up Apple Pay on all your devices, you probably think you can sit back and forget about it. And while that’s often true, every now and then there’s a hiccup and it stops working. Unfortunately, in this case, a good day can turn bad pretty quickly, especially if you’re on the go and don’t have an alternative way to pay for your purchases. After all, no one wants their payment method to be declined when they’re standing at the checkout trying to pay for coffee or groceries. As annoying as this situation can be, the good news is that there is almost always a solution to get Apple Pay working again.

Before diving into the more complicated troubleshooting, you should first double-check that the point of sale terminal you want to use supports Apple Pay. While almost all smartphones and many smartwatches manufactured today support mobile payments via NFC, not all providers have yet caught up with the technology. This means that there will be times when you want to make a purchase using Apple Pay but it’s not possible. Even major retailers like Walmart don’t accept Apple Pay.

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If you don’t see the Apple Pay logo on or near the point of sale terminal you’re trying to use, that’s your first indication that Apple Pay isn’t accepted. You can still try holding your phone near the terminal to see if it responds. If not, check with someone who works at the store to see if they accept Apple Pay. If you look at Apple Maps, you can sometimes identify nearby stores that accept Apple Pay. This can save you a trip to a store that doesn’t support this payment method.

However, if you have confirmed that the POS terminal supports Apple Pay, you cannot get it to work or receive one of the following error messages: Card could not be added, Card invalid or Card device invalid To exceed the limit, you should contact your bank or contact the company that issued your credit card. If you’re traveling abroad and having issues with Apple Pay, check this Apple support page to confirm it’s supported in the region you’re visiting.

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If you’ve confirmed that the provider supports Apple Pay and it still isn’t working, the next thing you should do is check the Apple system status page to see if the service is down. Sometimes the problem is not with Apple Pay, but with Apple’s servers. Apple Pay is an online system that relies on Apple servers to process transactions. If an outage occurs, your payment won’t go through – no matter what you do.

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Even though Apple Pay servers don’t go down often, it can still happen and has nothing to do with your iPhone. Therefore, you have no choice but to wait for the system to boot back up to use Apple Pay. If you see a green circle next to Apple Pay and Wallet on the Apple System Status page, it’s working as it should. However, if the circle is yellow or red, stay calm – Apple is probably already working on it. In this case, you should use another payment method or be prepared to wait.

Whether you use Apple Wallet and Pay on your Apple Watch or iPhone, the card you set as your default will be used when you try to pay at a point of sale terminal. As you can imagine, if the card doesn’t work, your payment won’t go through. There can be a number of reasons why your default payment method may not work. For example, your debit card may have expired without you realizing it, or your bank may have flagged a transaction as suspicious and temporarily blocked it.

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Whatever the case may be, there is a workaround if you have more than one debit or credit card linked to your Apple Wallet. All you have to do is choose another card and pay with it. To do this, open the Wallet app on your iPhone or Apple Watch and tap the card you want to use. Then try to make the payment again. Unless something else is causing the problem, the transaction should go through.

Sometimes a temporary error can cause Apple Pay to not work properly. Apple Card users have reported issues when attempting to use Apple Pay’s tap-to-pay feature at point-of-sale terminals in retail stores as the terminal did not recognize their iPhone. You can often fix these types of problems by temporarily signing out of your Apple ID and restarting your iPhone or Apple Watch. Although it may seem like a simple solution, restarting your phone can resolve temporary glitches or errors in the system software. Restarting your device will give you a clean slate for iOS, including the background processes that handle Apple Pay. Follow these steps to restart your iPhone:

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1. Press and hold the side button and either the volume up or volume down button until you see the power off slider.
2. Slide the power button to the right and wait 30 seconds for your iPhone to turn off.
3. Press and hold the side button on the right side of your phone until you see the Apple logo to restart your device.

If you’re still having problems after restarting your phone, you can try signing out and signing back in to your Apple ID to see if that solves the problem. This will resolve any remaining authentication or sync issues and update your account’s connection to Apple Pay. Follow these steps to sign out and sign back in to your Apple ID:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone.
2. Tap your name at the top of the screen.
3. Scroll down and tap Sign Out.
4. Restart your iPhone.
5. Go back to Settings and sign in with your Apple ID.

After completing these steps, try using Apple Pay again. Note that these steps may take a few minutes. So if you need to pay something immediately, you should use another payment method.

When you update or restart your iPhone, you may see an “Apple Pay problem detected” message on the screen. If you receive this message, you won’t be able to use Apple Pay or Wallet until you reinstall iOS on your iPhone. Some passes in your Wallet may still work even if you can’t make purchases with Apple Pay. To fix this problem, if it occurs when you are on the go, it is best to use another payment method.

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Follow these steps to fix the “Apple Pay problem detected” message:

1. Back up your iPhone to your Mac, PC, or iCloud if you haven’t already.

2. Connect your iPhone to a computer running the latest version of macOS, iTunes, or Apple Devices.
3. If you’re using a Mac with macOS Catalina or later, open a Finder window.
4. If you’re on a Mac using macOS Mojave or earlier, open iTunes.
5. If you are using a Windows PC, open iTunes or Apple Devices.
6. If your iPhone says “Trust this computer,” unlock it and tap “Trust.”
7. Select your iPhone in Finder, Apple devices, or iTunes.
8. In Finder or on Apple devices: Click General or in iTunes: Click Summary.
9. On a Mac: Hold down Command and click Check for Updates.
10. On a Windows PC: Hold down the Ctrl key and click Check for Updates.
11. Click “Download and Update” and then follow the on-screen instructions.

Once you complete these steps, your computer will download and reinstall the latest version of the software on your iPhone. Make sure your device stays connected until everything has downloaded.