Poor Choice of Payout Denominations Due F53 Jam Report

[paulp]

It has been reported to me that our application made a poor choice of payout denominations.... when only £10 notes and £1 coins had stock available, a £50 payout paid in 1 x £10 and 40 x £1

In fact, I have determined that it is the Paylink that decides the denominations rather than our application since we used an api call Payout(5000) to request payout of £50.

To confirm, we have 2 x £20 F53 dispensers, but these had no stock in them. However there was plenty of stock of £1 coins and £10 notes. The expectation was that a £50 payout would produce 1 x £10 and 2 x £20

Based on the log below, this is what we think happened:
- Payout request for £50
- Paylink determines it will try to pay 1 x £10 and 2 x £20
- Payout of 1 x £10 succeeds ok
- Payout of 2 x £20 on cassette at address 1 fails since it is empty
- Payout of 2 x £20 on cassette at address 2 fails due to a "Jam" reported (in fact there is no jam, there is nothing in there. We believe this is a faulty cassette)
- Paylink decides it cannot pay the remainder in £10 notes as the F53 device has a jam condition. So it pays out the remainder as 40 x £1

So the issue I am reporting here is that once the Paylink has determined that a single F53 cassette has a jam condition, it will no longer attempt to use any of the other F53 cassettes in the same device. Had cassette 2 really been jammed, it should still have been able to pay from cassette 1.

09:33:23.792 DP: Pay request for 5000, (1547470 - 1542470 (1296682675 - 1295135205))
09:33:24.300 DP: Pay 5000 (2 @ 2000) from 160721AA0900~F53 @ 1
09:33:24.300 DP: Pay 1000 (1 @ 1000) from 160721AA0900~F53 @ 0
09:33:24.855 F56: Issue Pay, Cass 0 pay 1, Cass 1 pay 2, sent
09:33:26.578 ID-003: Barcode stacked
09:33:26.578 DP: ID-003 Status to 4
09:33:26.690 ID-003: Disable acceptance
09:33:30.274 F56: NAK reply 21 00
09:33:30.274 F56: Counted, C 0 paid 1 of 1, C 1 paid 0 of 2 empty, Done
09:33:30.274 DP: 1000 paid so far.
09:33:30.274 DP: Cycle End, 0 coins @ 2000 status: -1 - retryable, 1 coins @ 1000 status: 1
09:33:30.333 DP: Payout still owes 4000, (1547470 - 1543470)
09:33:30.333 DP: skip 160721AA0900~F53 @ 1 as not OK
09:33:30.333 DP: Pay 4000 (2 @ 2000) from 160721AA0900~F53 @ 2
09:33:30.333 Exec: DP task took 70 msec
09:33:31.852 F56: Issue Pay, Cass 2 pay 2, sent
09:33:36.271 F56: NAK reply 38 00
09:33:36.271 F56: Counted, C 2 paid 0 of 2 jam (38), Done
09:33:36.271 F56: Jam 38 00
09:33:36.309 DP: Event 380089 for Dispenser 0
09:33:36.309 DP: Cycle End, 0 coins @ 2000 status: -2
09:33:36.369 DP: Payout still owes 4000, (1547470 - 1543470)
09:33:36.369 DP: Hopper for 2000 not available
09:33:36.369 DP: Hopper for 2000 not available
09:33:36.369 DP: Hopper for 1000 not available
09:33:36.369 DP: Pay 4000 (40 @ 100) from SUH1-NOENCRYPT @ 7
09:33:36.369 Exec: DP task took 104 msec
09:33:36.401 ccHopper@7: Request to pay 40...
09:33:36.780 DP: Event 380089 for Dispenser 1
09:33:37.437 DP: Event 380089 for Dispenser 2
09:33:37.437 DP: 100 paid so far.
09:33:37.622 DP: 200 paid so far.
09:33:37.805 DP: 300 paid so far.
09:33:38.068 DP: 400 paid so far.
09:33:38.262 DP: 500 paid so far.
09:33:38.426 DP: 600 paid so far.
09:33:38.601 DP: 700 paid so far.
09:33:38.821 DP: 800 paid so far.
09:33:39.340 DP: 900 paid so far.
09:33:39.615 DP: 1000 paid so far.
09:33:43.198 ccHopper@7: Final payout status... Event Count 01, Coins: Remaining 0; Paid 10; Unpaid 30
09:33:43.240 ccHopper@7: Payout fault 00000042, Empty
09:33:43.240 DP: Cycle End, 10 coins @ 100 status: -1 - retryable
09:33:43.283 DP: Payout still owes 3000, (1547470 - 1544470)
09:33:43.283 DP: Hopper for 2000 not available
09:33:43.283 DP: Hopper for 2000 not available
09:33:43.283 DP: Hopper for 1000 not available
09:33:43.283 DP: skip SUH1-NOENCRYPT @ 7 as not OK
09:33:43.283 DP: Pay 3000 (30 @ 100) from SUH1-NOENCRYPT @ 8
09:33:43.283 Exec: DP task took 48 msec
09:33:43.443 ccHopper@8: Request to pay 30...
09:33:45.005 DP: 100 paid so far.
09:33:45.060 DP: 200 paid so far.
09:33:45.285 DP: 300 paid so far.
09:33:45.459 DP: 400 paid so far.
09:33:45.680 DP: 500 paid so far.
09:33:45.956 DP: 600 paid so far.
09:33:46.151 DP: 700 paid so far.
09:33:46.335 DP: 800 paid so far.
09:33:46.498 DP: 900 paid so far.
09:33:46.831 DP: 1000 paid so far.
09:33:46.953 DP: 1100 paid so far.
09:33:47.685 DP: 1200 paid so far.
09:33:47.733 DP: 1300 paid so far.
09:33:47.968 DP: 1400 paid so far.
09:33:48.828 DP: 1500 paid so far.
09:33:49.013 DP: 1600 paid so far.
09:33:49.187 DP: 1700 paid so far.
09:33:49.518 DP: 1800 paid so far.
09:33:49.633 DP: 1900 paid so far.
09:33:50.106 DP: 2000 paid so far.
09:33:50.362 DP: 2100 paid so far.
09:33:50.437 DP: 2200 paid so far.
09:33:50.653 DP: 2300 paid so far.
09:33:50.986 DP: 2400 paid so far.
09:33:51.108 DP: 2500 paid so far.
09:33:51.333 DP: 2600 paid so far.
09:33:51.520 DP: 2700 paid so far.
09:33:51.706 DP: 2800 paid so far.
09:33:51.929 DP: 2900 paid so far.
09:33:52.203 ccHopper@8: Final payout status... Event Count 01, Coins: Remaining 0; Paid 30; Unpaid 0
09:33:52.203 DP: 3000 paid so far.
09:33:52.203 DP: Cycle End, 30 coins @ 100 status: 1
09:33:52.257 DP: Finished - overall status: 1, paid now 1547470
09:33:52.273 Exec: DP task took 77 msec

[davebush]

I complete agree with your analysis.

It does seem that Paylink should have tried to pay 4 x £10 - I will add this to the list of items to consider for the next release.

There is a general ongoing tension with an F53 Jam situation as a payout failed due to a jam can leave notes in the delivery path, and an aggressive retry approach can then result in overpayment. If there was an aggressive retry option available, would you turn it on and risk occasional overpayments?

Regards

Dave

[paulp]

Hmmm, probably not now