If you are trying to troubleshoot the Plait Point of Care progressive web app, there is an additional FAQ for that here (though much of what is below applies to the PWA as well as the App).


Plait Mobile is the app that care workers use to get their schedules / access MAR charts / write visit logs etc.  It is therefore a critical tool, and on the rare occasion that things go wrong, important that it can be put right quickly.  


This is a list of things have happened to people and how to fix them:


Problems logging in with username and password

Care workers will almost always use QR Code to log in, but family members will log in with username and password.  If there is a chance the user has forgotten their password they can reset it by visiting www.plaitapp.org/password-reset

Plait and Plait Mobile treat user name as case sensitive, which is unusual and has been known to cause problems.  If the user isn't sure about the capitalisation of their username they can see it (or change it) by going through the password reset process.


Carers being shown Unauthenticated Login dialog

Sometimes we hear of carers who log in by scanning their QR Code and they are shown a dialog like this:

Known reasons for this are: 

  1. The care worker is scanning a client QR code without having first logged into the mobile app using their own care worker QR code.
  2. The care worker is suspended.  If this is an error then go to the care worker record and replace the /careworker/ in the address bar with /user/ then open the Security tab and uncheck the Suspended checkbox.
  3. The care worker attempting to use a login method that is no longer supported by the organisation.

Unable to check-in to bookings

A rather common problem when one of the geolocation options is enabled is that care workers cannot progress beyond the Accept button when checking in to a booking.  This is likely because the user does not have location permissions set up correctly.  Location permission should be set to Allow only while using the app. Full instructions to check that a phone is correctly set up are to be found here.


Blank / Unresponsive Screen

If you get a blank or unresponsive screen when you start up the app, it has likely not installed properly or become corrupted on the phone.  Remove and re-install the app from the Play Store / App Store.


Missing / Partial Data

Like all mobile systems that work with back end databases Plait Mobile has to keep a partial copy of the main database on the phone for when the user is out of signal.  This is called caching, and it is a difficult thing to do at the best of times - even more so when dependent on a potentially unreliable mobile data signal.  Very occasionally we have been informed of people seeing screens with missing medication names or similar and it seems these can almost always be fixed (if you have a mobile signal) by re-initialising the cache or logging out and back in again.  


Clearing the Cache

To clear the Plait Mobile cache, first tap the hamburger menu at the top left of the screen:


A menu will expand from the left.  Tap Clear Cache and Log Out.  That’s it.


Note: If the Clear Cache and Log Out menu option is not available, see the Blue Header section below.


Another thing that you can try in these circumstances is to switch on aircraft mode and then switch it off again.


Blue Header

Occasionally a blue header (which indicates the phone has some data for the server and is in signal - see this FAQ) persists for more than a few seconds.  This means that something has gone wrong and the phone is no longer properly communicating with the server.  This can normally be fixed by one of these two methods:

  1. exit the app and restart it when you have a good signal
  2. switch on aircraft mode and then switch it off again

In either case the updates should be flushed within a short time (which should give you a light grey background).  


In some cases the problem lies with the data that is being sent back to the server, and this can give rise to protracted periods of blue header.  What happens in these cases is that the phone tries to send the data to the server 6 times, with increasing gaps between attempts.  Once it has failed 6 times (which can take several hours) it gives up and stops trying to send the invalid data, which often sorts things out.  So if you leave your phone on and occasionally bring the app to the foreground then any problems will likely sort themselves out in time.  Errors with data being sent to the server generate fault reports which support staff can see - they will often send information about how to correct the data.