A field-tested guide to fixing the most common CIAW app errors, GPS failures, QR-code mis-reads, sync issues, and submission errors, without losing compliance.
When a Check in at Work app fails on a Monday at 7 a.m. with 22 workers waiting at the gate, the cost is rarely just the app fee. It is missed registrations, an NSSO submission gap, and a foreman improvising on paper. This troubleshooting guide gathers the issues we see most often across Belgian construction, cleaning, and concrete sites and walks through the practical fixes. Most CIAW errors are environmental, bad signal, glare on a phone screen, an outdated app version, not platform bugs. Knowing the difference saves hours of support tickets and protects your Check in at Work compliance record. Use this as a reference card; we have ordered problems from “fix in 30 seconds” to “needs IT escalation.”
Quick Navigation
- Before you troubleshoot: confirm the basics
- GPS and location errors
- QR code and badge scanning issues
- Login, password, and account problems
- Connectivity and submission issues
- NSSO submission errors
- Quick-reference error table
- Managing CIAW with technology
- Frequently Asked Questions
Before you troubleshoot: confirm the basics
Before opening a ticket, run through these four checks. They resolve roughly half of all reported issues:
- App version. Open your app store; if there is an update available, install it before anything else. Older versions miss security patches and NSSO endpoint changes.
- Operating system. iOS 16+ and Android 11+ are the minimum supported versions for most professional CIAW apps. Older OS versions silently break location services.
- Permissions. The app needs Location, Camera (for QR codes), Notifications, and, for sites without Wi-Fi, Background App Refresh enabled. A single denied permission can cause cryptic errors.
- Date and time. Phones with manual clock settings drift; force automatic time synchronisation. NSSO submissions with incorrect timestamps are rejected.
| ⚠️ Important regulatory warning: A failed registration is not the same as an exempt registration. If your CIAW app cannot submit, the worker is officially unregistered and the NSSO can impose administrative or criminal sanctions per offence, refer to the NSSO’s Check in at Work guidance for current amounts. Always have a manual backup plan. |
GPS and location errors
GPS issues are by far the most common cause of CIAW app failures, especially on construction sites surrounded by tall buildings, cranes, or steel structures.
Symptom: “Could not determine location.”
- ❌ Trying to scan inside a basement, lift shaft, or shipping container
- ✅ Stepping outside or to the site perimeter for the initial scan
- Restart Location Services (iOS: Settings → Privacy → Location Services off/on; Android: Settings → Location → off/on).
- Check that the app has “Always Allow” or “While Using” location permission, not “Ask Next Time.”
Symptom: “Location too far from authorised site.”
- The site geofence may be misconfigured. Ask your foreman or admin to widen the geofence by 20–30 metres in the CIAW admin panel.
- Verify your phone is not connected to a VPN, many VPNs spoof location, which the app reads as a tamper attempt.
Symptom: GPS works in town but not on the site.
- Sites with heavy steel rebar can degrade GPS to 100-metre accuracy or worse. In this case, switch to QR-code or badge-pole registration. Suivo offers physical site-pole hardware that bypasses GPS entirely.
QR code and badge scanning issues
Symptom: QR code won’t scan.
- Clean the lens. A film of dust or rain residue is the most common cause.
- Check the screen brightness on the QR-code source; if it is a paper poster, replace it, laminated posters fade in UV.
- Move to a position where the QR code is not in direct sunlight; phone cameras struggle with glare.
- Make sure the camera permission is enabled.
Symptom: “Invalid QR code” or “QR code expired.”
- Many CIAW systems rotate QR codes for security. Ask the foreman to print the latest version from the admin panel.
- Confirm the worker has been assigned to the project; an unassigned worker scanning a valid code will still see “invalid.”
Symptom: Badge or NFC tag not recognised.
- For NFC, hold the phone steady against the tag for two full seconds. Brief taps frequently fail.
- Bend or scratch damage to the tag can make it unreadable; replace damaged tags. Suivo’s asset management range includes rugged NFC tags rated for outdoor use.
Login, password, and account problems
Symptom: “Account not found” or “User disabled.”
- Confirm the email or phone number used for registration matches exactly what is in the admin panel. Capitalisation matters.
- Check whether the worker was deactivated when leaving a previous employer; the same identity cannot be active in two CIAW environments.
Symptom: Password reset email not received.
- Check the spam folder.
- Confirm the email domain is not blocking the sender, many corporate Microsoft 365 tenants quarantine “info@” senders. Add the CIAW vendor’s domain to your safe sender list.
Symptom: Multi-factor authentication code not arriving.
- SMS codes on a Belgian network can be delayed by minutes during peak hours. Use the authenticator app option if your CIAW app supports it.
- Move to a location with at least 3G coverage.
Connectivity and submission issues
Suivo’s CIAW app is connectivity-required by design: every registration is created live on our backend the moment the worker authenticates. Connectivity failures therefore show up as “registration not accepted,” not as a silent queue.
Symptom: “No connection, registration not accepted.”
- Have the worker switch from Wi-Fi to mobile data (or vice versa) and retry.
- Move to a position with at least one bar of cellular signal, the gate, perimeter, or main access route is usually best.
- If the entire site has no signal, escalate to the foreman to use the site-pole hardware, which carries its own SIM, or the vehicle-tracker handshake on arrival.
- Never instruct workers to “register later”, there is no local queue to recover from.
Symptom: Registration completed on the worker’s phone but does not appear in the admin panel.
- Confirm the worker had connectivity at the moment of capture. Without it, the registration was not created server-side and does not exist as a record. Re-register at a connected location.
- Check the vendor’s status page; major CIAW providers publish uptime in real time.
Symptom: Duplicate registrations after a network glitch.
- Most platforms deduplicate automatically. If you see duplicates persisting for more than 24 hours, raise a support ticket, do not delete them manually as this can affect audit trails.
NSSO submission errors
Symptom: “Submission failed, NSSO endpoint timeout.”
- The NSSO portal has scheduled maintenance windows, typically Sunday mornings. The CIAW app should retry automatically. If it does not after 24 hours, contact your vendor.
- For posted workers, confirm the Limosa declaration was filed; missing Limosa is a common cause of NSSO rejections.
Symptom: “Invalid social security number.”
- Belgian rijksregisternummer (NISS) is 11 digits with a specific check formula. Double-check capture; one missed digit blocks the whole record.
- For non-Belgian workers, use the BIS number; if you do not have one, the worker may need to obtain one before working in Belgium.
Symptom: Inspector flagged missing registrations during a site visit.
- Pull the export of the affected period from the CIAW dashboard.
- Verify against your own attendance records. Most “missed” registrations are connectivity failures at the moment of capture, the worker’s phone briefly lost signal, the registration never reached the backend, and no server-side record was created.
- If a genuine gap exists, transparency is critical: see the Suivo CIAW FAQ for how to handle a confirmed gap.
Quick-reference error table
| Error | Likely cause | First fix | Escalate if |
| “Could not determine location” | Indoor / signal block | Step outside; restart Location Services | Persists outdoors with clear sky |
| “Location too far from site” | Geofence too tight or VPN active | Disable VPN; ask admin to widen geofence | Worker is genuinely on site |
| “Invalid QR code” | Outdated or unassigned | Print latest QR; check project assignment | Latest QR still rejected |
| “Sync failed” | Phone connectivity | Switch Wi-Fi/mobile data; reopen app | Status page shows outage |
| “Invalid NISS” | Capture typo or wrong number | Re-enter; verify against ID card | Number is correct but rejected |
| “NSSO endpoint timeout” | NSSO maintenance window | Wait for auto-retry | Still failing 24h later |
| Duplicate registrations | Network glitch + retry | Wait 24h for dedup | Duplicates remain after 24h |
Always document the steps you attempted; vendor support can resolve tickets faster with clear reproduction notes.
Managing CIAW with technology
Suivo, a Belgian CIAW and time-tracking company with over 15 years of experience, builds tooling that minimises the troubleshooting surface in the first place. Their platform helps you:
- Register workers reliably across sites with CIAW and CIAO workflows that work on iOS, Android, and dedicated site-pole hardware.
- Capture registrations live on our backend the moment the worker authenticates, with no editable local queue, what reaches the NSSO is what was captured.
- Solve low-signal sites with site-pole hardware that carries its own SIM, rather than relying on the worker’s phone, preserving the audit story.
- Integrate with SD Worx, Partena, Acerta, and ERP systems so corrected records flow through to payroll without manual re-entry, see the time tracking module.
- Surface chain-liability issues for the construction industry before NSSO inspectors do.
- Provide NL/FR/EN support from a Belgian team that understands the NSSO submission API end to end.
Suivo’s IoT platform integrates seamlessly with existing payroll and ERP systems, helping companies like Hoogmartens and Cegelec resolve incidents within minutes rather than hours.
“Most of what looks like an app bug turns out to be a permissions setting or a stale QR code. Once we trained foremen on the first-line checks, our support tickets dropped by more than half in a quarter.”
– IT Lead, mid-sized contractor, East Flanders
Take Action Today
Don’t let preventable CIAW errors put your compliance at risk. Start by walking through the four basic checks at the top of this guide with every foreman and key user, post the quick-reference error table at the site cabin, and make sure every worker knows where to escalate if the first-line fixes fail.
For more information about reliable CIAW deployment and troubleshooting, contact Suivo at +32 3 375 70 30 or visit the Suivo CIAW solution page to see how their smart, integrated platform reduces app errors at the source. You can also browse the full product range or book a demo.
Free Troubleshooting Checklist, Keep CIAW Running on Site
Want to hand foremen a single-page reference they can actually use at 7 a.m. with cold fingers? Our free Troubleshooting Checklist condenses this guide into the steps that resolve 90% of CIAW app issues.
Inside, you’ll find:
- The four pre-flight checks that prevent most incidents
- How Suivo handles low-signal sites with site-pole hardware (preserving live, audit-proof capture) and provides rapid local support
- Real-life lessons from sites at Hoogmartens, Cegelec, and Antwerpnatie
- Quick fixes for GPS, QR, sync, and NSSO submission errors
Frequently Asked Questions
My CIAW app keeps showing “location not available”, is that an NSSO violation?
Not in itself, as long as you complete the registration once the worker regains location signal or uses an alternative method like a QR-code site pole with its own SIM. What matters legally is whether the NSSO has a registration on file before the worker starts work. If the issue is persistent on a site, deploy a Suivo site pole at the access route rather than relying on workers’ phones.
Should I delete a duplicate registration myself?
No. Duplicate cleanup is automated on properly built platforms, and manual deletion can break the audit trail you may need at inspection. If a duplicate persists for more than 24 hours, open a support ticket. For background on the NSSO audit process, see the Suivo CIAW FAQ.
Can Suivo’s CIAW app work without a connection?
No, and that is the design. Suivo’s CIAW app requires an active connection at the moment of registration so that every record is created live on our backend and cannot be edited or backdated locally before sync. For sites where the worker’s phone signal is unreliable, the platform provides site poles with their own SIM and vehicle-tracker handshakes at the access route, the connectivity lives with the hardware, not the phone.
What do I do if an NSSO inspector spots a missed registration?
Be transparent. Pull the export from your admin panel for the affected period, document any sync or app errors, and present the audit trail to the inspector. Hiding a gap is worse than declaring it. If the gap was caused by a system issue, that context is usually accepted, but you still need to fix the process going forward, ideally by adopting integrated time tracking.
