If you drive for DoorDash, you may enjoy it. But you might also experience a lot of frustrating things, such as an app that keeps pausing.
Before you freak out, consider why your DoorDash keeps pausing. Then, you can figure out how to get it to stop so that you can use the app efficiently.
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Why Would DoorDash Keep Pausing?
DoorDash may keep pausing if you don’t have a good GPS signal since it can’t tell your location for giving you orders. Another reason may be that you’ve declined too many orders, especially in a row. It’s possible the app is just glitchy, so you may need to restart or update the app.
It’s important to consider why your DoorDash app keeps pausing. Unfortunately, you may not always know the cause right away, but you can figure it out.
Why DoorDash Keeps Pausing
Your DoorDash may keep pausing for a variety of reasons. It depends on your role, such as that of a dasher or merchant. It can also depend on your activity within the app and other factors.
Here are a few potential reasons why your DoorDash app keeps pausing and what you can do about it.
Bad GPS Signal
If you’re a dasher, you may notice DoorDash keeps pausing in certain locations. When that’s the case, there’s a good chance it’s due to a bad GPS signal. DoorDash wants to make sure to assign orders that are somewhat close to you.
So if the app can’t tell where you are, they may pause your app to allow you to find a better signal. You should look for areas with a good cellular connection. If that’s not possible, consider switching cell carriers to one with greater coverage.
Then, you can drive around your area and make sure you have a good signal. Of course, you can also wait in areas with a better signal. But that can get annoying if you have orders that take you far away from a good signal since you can’t take back-to-back orders.
Too Many Declined Orders
DoorDash won’t deactivate your dasher account if you decline too many orders. As a contractor, you get to decide how many orders you take or don’t take. However, when dashers decline orders, that can increase the wait times for orders.
The app has to do something to get you to take more orders. One of those things they’ve done is to pause your app if you decline too many orders in a row. Of course, this can happen if you forget that you scheduled a dash.
But it can also happen if you are active in the app and decline a lot of orders. DoorDash will pause your activity and start showing your potential orders to other dashers to increase the turnaround time for customers. So make sure you really don’t want to do an order before you decline it.
You Paused Your Dash
It’s possible that you paused your dash but didn’t remember it. You can pause your dash in your app under the settings menu. If you’re in the middle of an order, you can tap “Stop orders after this delivery.”
When you aren’t in the middle of an order, you can hit “Pause orders” to stop getting new order requests. This is a great option if you need to use the restroom, get gas, or otherwise need a short break.
However, you may have accidentally hit the button to pause orders. Or maybe you intentionally took a break but forgot to turn orders back on. Whatever the case may be, look at your DoorDash dasher app to figure out the problem.
High Dasher Wait Times
If you’re a merchant and your DoorDash keeps pausing, you may have high Dasher Wait times. On regular days, the threshold for a high wait time is 13 minutes. For holidays, that drops down to six minutes.
DoorDash will pause your orders for 30 minutes if you had high wait times that were avoidable within the last hour. The app takes the long wait times as a hint that your store needs more time to prepare the food.
So it will give you that time to catch up. If you catch up, you can reactivate your app and take more orders, but DoorDash can pause you as often as every hour. Make sure you have enough people to prepare orders quickly to avoid pausing from DoorDash.
A Random Glitch
Sometimes, there may not be a clear reason why DoorDash keeps pausing. If that’s the case, the app may have a glitch of some sort. You should restart the app by force closing it and reopening it again.
Another option is to end your dash and start a new one. You can also try restarting your entire phone to see if that helps. If you haven’t done so in a while, check for app updates and update your DoorDash app if there’s an update available.
All of these things may help fix the glitch in your app. If none of them work, contact DoorDash to ask for more specifics on why your app keeps pausing.
Why Does the DoorDash App Pause So Much?
The DoorDash app may pause for a variety of reasons. For dashers, it could be that you don’t have a good GPS signal or that you’ve declined a lot of orders in a row. Merchants may have DoorDash paused if they get behind on orders. In any case, make sure you’re efficient so that you can continue to accept or fulfill orders.