Thursday, October 17, 2013

Broken Kindle = Crazy Bea


 
Amazon Kindle
Amazon Kindle (Photo credits: Best Buy)

My Kindle Touch has not been working properly recently - sluggish, freezing, and now, it won't open books. I have 3 kindle books that I need to write reviews for and I can't open them. None of them came from Amazon, they came from outside sources, so I can't access them on the Kindle app on my laptop. I've read them but I took notes which I now can't access nor can I verify to make sure that I have my facts right. I'll type up drafts but I need to refer back to the books.

I spent almost 90 minutes on phone with Amazon tonight - we did many things, none of which worked but we DID manage to delete all of my folders and to download all 1000+ books onto the Kindle device. I no longer have any books archived in the cloud. The search function isn't working. I'm feeling a little nuts right now. :P

At the moment, I have a customer service ticket with Amazon and they will call me back within 48 hours. Twitch, twitch. Well, I do have a pile of library books to read, and print books that need reviewing, but being cut off from my Kindle books has me feeling antsy and anxious. I need my precious!




ETA 10/19: As of yesterday, Friday afternoon, my Kindle was working again. I turned it on to fiddle around with it and everything was fine - my collections were back, I could open the books, and it was running less slowly though it's still sluggish. I haven't yet heard back from Amazon, and I don't know what the problem was with my Kindle. I hope it continues to work.
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10 comments:

  1. Omg! That's horrible! I'd be totally freaking out cause ALL my books are on my Kindle. Trying to find YA books here in English is near impossible and the ones you do find are ridiculously expensive, so eBooks all the way. And trying to read on phone or comp is a pain in the ass.

    Nyx @Unraveling Words

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  2. Oh wow! How horrible! I hope it gets fixed soon!

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  3. That would drive me crazy!! I so hope that it doesn't act up again!!

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  4. I'm so glad it's back! You must be really relieved.

    Can I make a recommendation? Download Calibre (free ebook management system) to your laptop or PC. Then download all your Kindle books from the Kindle into a folder and pull them into Calibre. This might be best done in small batches, especially since Kindle files (annoyingly) seem to have numbers as the file name rather than using author or title. That way, even if the books disappear from the cloud or something horrible happens to Amazon (or your Kindle), you'll know the files are safe. (Of course, you probably also need to back up the Calibre library on a separate hard drive to be doubly safe...)

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    1. I have Calibre and some of my books are backed up but I need to make better use of it. I should do a better job of backing up, and not just my books.

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  5. OMG! I hate when something just fixes itself...and then you wait with paranoia for the same problem to happen again!

    I have a friend who is also having problems with her Kindle Touch. Hmmm....

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    1. Yes! Now when I turn it on, I'm holding my breath, hoping it will work. Amazon still hasn't gotten back to me.

      I love the touchscreen, it's so much better than the Kindle Keyboard, but maybe the Touch is too glitchy. :(

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  6. OMG. I would be crying, screaming and doing other things. Luckily I have an IPAD as a backup if things ever go wrong, but still.....its frustrating.

    Grace

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  7. I'm so glad it started working for you again!! I can totally relate.

    I have a Kindle Keyboard from a couple of years ago that started to act up over the last few months. Refusing to open books, search, and giving me a white screen, which can only be equated to the blue screen of death on computers. It would take hours to reset and reboot to a workable level. I finally caved and bought the new Fire HDX.

    Happy reading!!

    Maria @ Reading the Alphabet

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  8. Okay, here's the deal. I have a Kindle Keyboard that I bought 4 years ago. About 6 months ago, it started acting sluggish and it would lock up on me, and I had to reboot the thing to get it to work again. Searches took too long or the thing would lock up. Take every book off of your Kindle and back it up on a hard drive. I have a 2 TB hard drive just for this purpose. Load only the books you are currently reading, reviewing, etc and those you want to read in the next few months. When you are done completely with the book, delete it from your Kindle and copy it back to the hard drive, if you want to retain your notes. Maintain no more than 300 to 400 books. The search stops working after this and after 1000 the Kindle becomes sluggish. I know. I had over 3500 books on my Kindle and it was a nightmare. Amazon won't tell you this because they don't want you to know the processor on the Kindle can't handle the load. So what do you do? You buy a bigger and better version, only the Kindle tablets don't have text to speech and the backlight hurts my eyes after awhile, and you can't read the thing out in the sun. LCD backlight makes the screen go dark with sunlight. I love my Kindle Keyboard and the problem with your Touch is probably the same problem I had with mine. Good Luck!

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