THE KINDLE BOOKS APP ON KINDLE FIRE HAS A GLITCH THAT CAN CAUSE BOOK TITLES TO NOT DISPLAY -- THE SOLUTIONThis dilemma of Kindle book titles seeming to disappear from Kindle Fire listings of book titles on The Cloud especially (the server library area) and also from the listing for the Device has been happening to more than a few, per reports from the forums -- and it happened to me twice in a few days.
Forum members, as usual (in this case, 'Q' and 'Mona') came up with the answer a few weeks ago, and more and more of us are needing to use their solution. The problem seems to have started or worsened after the last Kindle Fire upgrade.
I think it's important that all of Amazon Kindle Support be told about this solution, because I was told by two members of Amazon Kindle Support to set my KFire back to Factory Defaults (as a 2nd or 3rd step!) which would have lost me the personal documents I had on the device. I told them I would NOT do that, as it has always been a last-ditch step when nothing else solves the problem and that it causes more unnecessary work for customers when there is a simpler solution.
Later we were reminded by 'affinity" on the forum that Q and Mona had provided the simple solution, and it worked like a charm for me and for MANY others on the forums.
I called Amazon Kindle Support back to let them know there was a simple solution and this time (when I asked to be connected back with 2nd level support as before), I got Kindle Customer Support representative Ryan. He knew about this glitch and the workaround (and started to tell me what it was before I could tell him what forumners were doing) and was surprised that other areas of Customer Support apparently did not know about it, but he said himself that the 'factory default' settings was a FINAL step that shouldn't be taken until other steps proved not to work.
Amazon, Ryan is a prize. I wish I could talk directly to him whenever I have questions. It'd be nice to have someone like him in charge of letting all of Kindle Customer Support know what the latest known glitches and workarounds are. It would help situations like the one in which one of the two free-book-forum-thread leaders was told to go back to factory defaults and then had to gather (from her computer and Amazon's servers) the personal documents that were of course 'gone' when going back to 'factory' defaults.
For the future, here is, essentially, what Q and Mona discovered.
The first clue that something is amiss is that the Cloud listing doesn't show all your books, but the Amazon servers -will- have them there. The servers and our libraries on the servers are the 'Cloud.'
One may or may not be able to access the Cloud directly from the Kindle Fire - doable with music and books and not doable with personal docs (at this time).
I'll do a blog entry later on the several types of storage (and sometimes streaming) that are referred to as the Cloud, at Amazon.
When the problem with the Kindle Fire that I'm writing about occurs, our books-app "Amazon Kindle Books" is not "seeing" all the titles that are on the Cloud (our personal server library where our Kindle books are kept by Amazon) due to a software glitch that is in the Kindle App on the Kindle Fire. Some book titles MAY be missing from the 'Device' display (the Kindle Fire itself) also.
Mona and Q discovered that to correct this software glitch -- you should make sure that "WiFi" is ON and then go to the Gear or wheel icon at the top right of the Kindle Fire and tap that, and then choose "More" -- then go down the Settings list a bit to see "Applications" and select "ALL Applications." Once there, you can actually select the Amazon Kindle app to be managed in this way when there is a problem.
The Steps: (a clearer way to see them)
Make sure WiFi is 'ON' when doing this)
Go to the Gear wheel at the top right when you're at the HOME Screen
Then click on:
. More,
. Settings,
. Applications
... (choosing ALL applications to view),
Select 'Amazon Kindle' and then
. Click to option to clear DATA (which clears the cache at the same time)
. Press Home at bottom left
SIT BACK (as Mona says) as it all returns to The Way It Was. :-)
No restart needed. No need to remove the app. No Factory Default setting involved (and never should the latter be chosen unless nothing else has worked.)
The Kindle Fire then rebuilds the Cloud and "Device" library information, and it doesn't take that long.
Always back up personal docs (as opposed to Kindle books) onto your computers.
NOWadays, we can send those personal documents to our Kindle via email addressed to the Kindle (see earlier articles cited at the bottom of this post), and Amazon will back those up for us, since they give us 5 free gigs of space for personal docs on their servers now (in addition to the 5 gigs for ALL Amazon customers for personal data in general) and they even sync those personal docs across devices too, as long as you send them to your Kindle in email across the Net, which gives them permission to store these for you.
Thanks again to Q and Mona for the steps that have helped several of us.
EARLIER ARTICLES ON PERSONAL DOCUMENTS
- How to send documents to your Kindle
- How to send WORD docs to your Kindle
- How to use Amazon's own SendtoKindle for PC
This last one, however, results in a PDF file, which is not very readable at all on a 6" Kindle.
Added Note
The Amazon SendtoKindle for PC feature is different from other tools previously discussed (below):
. sendtoreader
. the Google Chrome add-on, sendtokindle
. the original, Instapaper.
These last three 3rd-party web-to-Kindle tools are helpful in other ways, mainly for sending documents from web pages without ads included, to your Kindle.
| US: Kindle Fire 7" tablet - $199 Kindle NoTouch ("Kindle") - $79/$109 Kindle Touch, WiFi - $99/$139 Kindle Touch, 3G/WiFi - $149/$189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189, Free, slow web Kindle DX - $379, Free, slow 3G web |
UK: Kindle Basic, NoTouch - £89 Kindle Touch WiFi, UK - £109 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi, UK - £169 Kindle Keyboard 3G, UK - £149 Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB | OTHER International Kindle NoTouch Basic - $109 Kindle Touch WiFi - $139 Kindle Touch 3G/WiFi - $189 Kindle Keybd 3G - $189 Keybd: w/ Free, slow 3G WEB |
Check often: Temporarily-free recently published Kindle books
Guide to finding Free Kindle books and Sources. Top 100 free bestsellers. Liked-books under $1
UK-Only: recently published free books, bestsellers, or £5 Max ones
Also, UK customers should see the UK store's Top 100 free bestsellers.
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Andrys,
ReplyDeleteFYI, I have been dealing with the issue of missing cloud books since last October. As recently as this last weekend I was told--by a 'Kindle Specialist'--to reset my Fire to factory defaults, because that "might work". Thank you for finding this fix, and thank you thank you thank you Mona and Q.
Bob
Bob, for some reason I thought I'd responded earlier, but I don't see it here. You've seen the problem since the Kindle Fire was released?
DeleteYes, Kudos to Mona and Q !
Have had my Kindle for two years and just had this happen for the first time. Thought all was lost and a new Kindle was in the works. Your fix worked (!) and I will definitely keep it on hand. THANK YOU!
DeleteAnonymous, glad it still helps some and very appreciative that you took the time to let us know that it worked for you.
Delete:-)
Does clearing data remove the books from your tablet/sd card? I am having this problem with my audible account (rather than my kindle books). I don't want to have to download everything yet again (This isn't the first time it has happened). Plus, when I have followed some of Amazon's "solutions", the original downloads stay on my sd card, but cannot be accessed even to free up space on the sd card. I have had the disappearing problem with my kindle books, my audible books, and my prime music downloads. Oddly, this only happens on my fire - My non-Amazon tablet doesn't seem to have this problem. (However, it has a much smaller memory capacity.)
DeleteVery late reply here, since I've not been active on the blog. Clearing data doesn't remove books from the tablet or an sd card. It removes cached data. I don't have an Audible account so I don't know the answer on that, but I doubt that an Amazon-owned company's "clear data" option would remove or delete a book. Amazon books are kept in their "Cloud" for your account whether or not you keep a copy on your device. Other tablets don't necessarily do book-reading tracking and management, so can be quite different.
DeleteAndrys,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the very illuminating description of this problem and the solution. I wonder if you've encountered or heard of another type of problem that I seem to have with the Fire. When I purchase a book, it appears in the cloud and on the carousel as expected. I always download the book so I can read it with the Wi-Fi off. At seemingly random times, when I tap on the book's carousel icon to open it, the cover of the book enlarges and a message at the bottom informs me that the download is incomplete and and I need to turn on the Wi-Fi. I am unable to open the book until I do this. The next time I close the book and re-open it, the same thing may happen, OR it may open perfectly normally. This behavior occurs often enough to be really annoying because, of course, it always happens with the Wi-Fi off. It is as though the Fire has forgotten that the book was downloaded, and/or the Wi-Fi was shut off during a download -- but that did not happen.
Does any of this jiggle a recollection ?
TIA,
Frank
Frank VC,
DeleteI haven't seen it happen nor heard of it before, but I'd recommend removing the book from the device and then re-downloading it from the Cloud, and you'll probably have better luck this time.
Long-press the book on the Carousel and choose to remove it from the device. Then get a new copy! Let me know if this works, if you can. Thanks!
I did try this, but it wasn't a fix. The first time I tried the book after re-downloading it worked fine, but on a subsequent access the same old problem showed up. OTOH, it has not required a re-download for several days now, so dare I hope that Amazon changed something and fixed it? I've seen nothing from anybody else about this kind of problem, so perhaps it's a strangeness associated with my Fire....
DeleteF
Frank, your never quite completed download has definitely been a strangeness, as you say! Sounds like it was corrupted in the download but it must have been something to do with that book...
DeleteGlad it's not happened for days. Fingers crossed.
Andrys,
DeleteThanks very much for your help and advice. It's really wonderful how the Kindle community pulls together to help those with troubles!
It's more than one book -- it's happened with several books, all purchased from Amazon and downloaded from "the cloud". It's never happened with other books I've loaded on the Fire from various sources. It almost seems like the downloading-from-the-cloud process gets fouled up in some way. When it happens, the last-place-read sync is also reset back to the beginning, or sometimes to two reading sessions behind.
Since I seem to be the only one with the problem, I'll investigate further with Amazon CS. Thanks again, and happy reading!
Frank
Frank,
DeleteIf I were going through what you have, I'd definitely accept an offer of a replacement by Customer Svc. Let me know what they say.
I've had the same problem several times. Just started happening. Any fixes?
DeleteAnonymous, the same problem as Frank has had? It's highly unusual and I would call customer support at 1-866-321-8851 or go to amzn.to/kcall_me which you can ask to call you and almost as soon as you press enter, you get a phone call.
DeleteIf they can't solve it, they'll replace it.
Before doing that, have you tried the solution to disappearing books that is described in this blog post?
If that doesn't work for your more unusual problem, Kindle Customer support will need to work with you.
Good luck. Let us know how it goes.
Thank you ALL for providing this solution. I recently noticed that my Cloud list was incomplete and had not yet researched solutions. So thank you for saving me time and possibly from a reset.
ReplyDeletebfree2read,
DeleteGlad we caught you in time!
There are apparently several "blank", or missing book issues on the KF. Stopping the reader app,clearing the cache, and hard restarts have all been suggested as solutions (and all have been reported on the forums as working in some cases). Release 6.2.2 was supposed to fix at least some blank book problems. I have had a problem that appeared only after 6.2.2 was installed on my KF. Several .Prc files of books bought from Barn (which appeared under documents, but were readable) would open to a blank page for a few seconds, and then the reader would crash, and you'd be thrown back to the carousel. Going back to Barn revealed that all the. Prc's I had bought had been converted to. Mobile -- redownloading them (they then appeared under books, and were now readable. The KF reader app is clearly a little sensitive to book formatting idiosyncracies.
ReplyDeleteEdward,
ReplyDeleteFrom my own experiences converting files with Mobipocket, prc files and mobi files are interchangeable.
Amazon uses the Mobipocket tool of course, since they own it though they've not done much with it.
Probably the best way to make sure they're most compatible is to send them to the Kindle via email rather than just sideload them.
The fix for incomplete listings of the server library (or 'missing books') is a definitely 100% effective method for Kindle books apps on the Kindle Fire. I'll be interested in your further experiments with personal docs.
Thank you!! I had a book, it disappeared before I was ready to read it, but I got it back just now using this info. Very grateful.
ReplyDeleteSophie,
ReplyDeleteThat's great! Glad it helped.
Thanks to all for the feedback.
I have this problem on my new Kindle Touch. I would love to know how to solve it. I have to go the Amazon site on a computer and send books to the device to get them!
ReplyDeleteRachael,
ReplyDeleteYour home WiFi sends it to your Kindle Touch, but Amazon doesn't otherwise?
At the ManageYourKindle page where you send the books to your Kindle Touch, is it set up to send to another, older Kindle by default?
Can't imagine what it might be otherwise, since your WiFi is working.
When you've bought a book, do you turn on the WiFi on your Kindle and then press Menu and do a "Sync and Check for Items" ?
If you've done all that, I'd call Kindle Support. I did that today and they called me back as soon as I hit Return, I swear. You can go to http://amzn.to/kcall_me, identify your model, select a topic, and let them know if you'd like a call back 'Now' ...
This is good because they'd tend to route these to appropriate areas.
Hope this helps.
saved me! thank you so much!
ReplyDeleteGlad that helped, Anonymous :-)
DeleteHi - I have a kindle fire hd - I have had missing books from my cloud and the books do not appear on my archive. Customer svc's say this could not happen. If I try your suggestion, I take it that deleting the data will not affect other stuff I have on my kindle ? Many thanks for any info.
ReplyDeleteAGM
AGM, I would always back up any non-Kindle documents or books, as they might not be on the Cloud. "Personal docs' are in the Cloud ONLY if you emailed them there to your ____@kindle.com email assigned to your Kindle.
DeleteOtherwise they are just on your device and if for some reason they're deleted, they're gone for good (unless you have a backup on a computer or other tablet).
Now, if you go into the Kindle reading app and delete -that- data, it should affect only the Kindle books, but I've intentionally put some of my personal docs into the Kindle reading app folder, so that would delete those too.
It won't affect apps. Any Kindle books that disappear will re-appear.
However, any Kindle books you have bought from Amazon itself should not be missing from the Cloud at this point.That is a puzzlement. When you speak to customer service, give them your order # for the Kindle book and have them look up the book on the servers, or 'Cloud' ...
Hope you're able to get back what you're missing.
bought some kindle fires, tried clearing the appstore data, forcing closed the launcher, deregistering the kindle and reregistering it, factory reset, and the cleaner master app. None worked. Turns out, there was a later update the kindle fire needed to work properly and download the icon information, it just wasn't downloading the update. I contacted help and they gave me a direct link and instructions to download the update. While downloading the update, I found that if I went into the app store (after clearing the cache and forcing closed the loader) and left it sitting there until the screen went to sleep, it started downloading the latest update automatically. Then after it installed the update, i went to the games tab and it began downloading icons one by one. as it filled the screen I scrolled down to "encourage" it to download more and once at the bottom all icons were now downloaded and it works like a charm. Here are the direct download and install instructions:
ReplyDelete1. Click on the below link and it will take you to the download:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/kindle-fire-updates/update-kindle-10.4.6_D026_4620220.bin
2. You may be prompted to open or save the file; choose "Save" and select a location that is easy to find again, such as the desktop.
3. Once the download is finished, you need to connect the Kindle to your PC. Locate the Kindle drive. Open the Kindle drive on your PC, drag and drop the download file in to that folder.
Make sure to turn on your Kindle Fire and unlock the screen. Then, connect it to your computer using a USB cable.
- Open the Kindle Fire drive (the drive is typically displayed as a "device" icon), and then drag and drop the software update file into the Internal storage folder. Do not drop the file into any other folder in Internal storage.
anonymous, thanks for all the work you put into this feedback. You came upon the blog's glitch-workaround dated February *2012* -- and there was a later upgrade in the last 1.5 years that took care of the glitch.
DeleteGlad you updated your Kindle Fires but I don't understand why you opened with 'bought some Kindle Fires" -- I guess you mean you bought a batch of older Kindle Fires and they had not been updated? from whatever version they were at?
-- Whatever, you were wise to call Customer Support and get advice on the glitch and then update. Thanks again for taking the time to let us know what solved the problem for you.
With almost any Kindle device update, there are usually links to those pages and those instructions and it's a good idea to update any software for older electronics sold, right away, and you knew where to go. So, that was great. Thanks again.
In addition to having books disappear from my Kindle Fire I am now receiving many red exclamation signs with the message that the license limit has been reached even though the book has been downloaded only once on my device. Do you have any suggestions as what I can do about this annoying problem? Thanks
ReplyDeleteDo you have Kindle reading apps for iPhone, Android, etc? Do you have a Kindle desktop for reading Kindle books? Those are counted as Kindle-compatible devices and any books you have on those will count as one of 5-to-6 that publishers will allow on one account.
DeleteThat must be maddening if you have no other reading devices using those books. I'd contact Kindle Support at 866-321-8851 and let them know and they can see what is going on with your account.
I have noticed that some books download and some do not. I will go to Amazon and download them all one at a time and maybe only 1 of the 4 will actually download. I did the clearing of the data in then Kindle as laid out above and then tried again but it didn't work. It seems like "free" books will download most every time but not the ones I bought off Amazon.
DeleteThat calls for a tech support call to Kindle S upport at 866-321-8851 - they answer within a few seconds.
DeleteThey can watch what happens on their end while you're trying to deliver books to your device. I've seen a delay myself once, recently.
WOO HOO! Thanks for this easy fix.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, thanks for letting us know this still works !
DeleteBrilliant. My mum was confused as to why her books weren't showing in cloud... she has hundreds and only 10 were showing up. This simple solution worked wonderfully. Thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteGlad that workaround did work for her. Thanks for taking the time to let me know !
DeleteSeems simple enough; I followed steps and clicked on "clear data", doing so enabled a popup, asking "all of this applications data will be deleted permenently. This includes all files, settings, accounts, databases and so on"; which means what exactly, that everything will be deleted? I just want to clarify what is actually happening before i confirm clearing data. —Kali Jane
ReplyDeleteHi, Jane - sorry I wasn't back to Comments area to reply in time. But at the bottom, of that orange box it mentions rebuilding your Cloud and device library info. I haven't looked right now, as am in a rush, but the other comments here might help too. Hope you went ahead and did it. It's non-destructive.
DeleteThe error message in your app being managed is just data for that app. It rebuilds everything when you follow the steps though.
DeleteThank you so much for this! I'm on like my third or fourth Kindle. This is my first Kindle Fire HD and I've not really had any major issues with it. But last night I started freaking out because not just one or few of my books disappeared from my Kindle and Kindle Cloud, but ALL of my books disappeared. All other content was fine. I figured out something was wrong when I was trying to clear out my Carousel content and then went to tap on a book I wanted to read and it just disappeared. I started going through all the books in my Carousel and they would all disappear as soon as I started tapping them to read. I shut down my Kindle and restored it and then no books reappeared in my Carousel, on the Device or in the Cloud. I thought I was going to have to reset it because that seems to be Amazon Support's answer for everything when I came across your blog. IT WORKED! Thank you so much! I didn't want to have have to download my books one by one from my Manage Content on Amazon.com. You saved me from that. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteMeg, thanks so much for letting us know that this happened again, on a Kindle Fire HD, and you somehow found the 3.5 yr old article on how to fix this.
DeleteIf I hear about it happening more, as a side effect of a recent version-update, I'll renew the article. Very glad it worked for you . Yes, a factory-default should be an ultra-last-case scenario :-) Hope you're enjoying your new KF HD. Am still loving mine.
I am encountering the same problem on Kindle e - reader. Could you help in that. The process suggested above does not work on e-reader. Kindly help.
ReplyDeleteva, I haven't heard of this happening on an e-reader for years. What I'd try is a 'reboot' or 'restart' ...
DeletePress the power button or lever and hold it for 21 seconds or more.
-- (Ignore any dialog box that asks if you want to Power Off ... keep holding down the power button.)
Then let go.
If it doesn't turn on by itself in a few minutes, then power ON the Kindle e-reader and it should start up again but with a clean memory situation.
And then your books would start showing up but VERY SLOWLY... Just go away from it for awhile, while it populates the books area.
Hope that works for you. Let me know.
Thank you for this! I was missing audio books, so I did this only with the Audible app. They're all back! Such a relief!
ReplyDeleteLaughing Girl ( I like the title of your blog), I'm glad that this old trick worked for missing audio books as well. I didn't know this could be done with the Audible app. Thanks for letting us know :-)
DeleteI have purchased books on my Kindle Fire but they are not showing on my Kindle Paper whites. How do I rectify this?
ReplyDeleteHaydn - they'd be in your 'Library' or 'Cloud'-- both of which are now called "ALL" on your Paperwhite, at the left of the Home screen. The other option there is 'DOWNLOADED' which means it displays what you've downloaded (if it is bold-faced or active) The other category at the leftand you can choose to download them to your Paperwhite.
DeleteOn your Paperwhite, choose 'ALL' and browse what you have in your 'Cloud' or your Library area at Amazon. From those you can tap on one to download it.
Hope that works for you.
Sorry. I had a typo there. What I meant in the last sentence of the first paragraph is that there are two categories at the top left of the Home screen. "All" (for all the books you've purchased) and "DOWNLOADED" which is an option to see only what you've downloaded to your Kindle Paperwhite.
DeleteFirstly, thank you. Deleting the data on Kindle App worked for me. Secondly, worryingly, I am using a Kindle Fire HD 8 that I purchased recently during the black Friday/cyber Monday deal. I had a previous Kindle Fire that finally gave up and I bought this as a replacement 'right-arm' (I take it everywhere :-) ). It's the first time I've experienced book loss in this way. The first time I lost the book i was reading was after a Kindle update. I thought it was just a glitch and borrowed the ebook from my local library so I could finish it. The second time it happened was following another kindle update and again, the book i was reading (different book) was gone. I even searched using ES - Explorer but the physical file was not in my new kindle. I decided to search online and found this blog. Thank you. Resetting the kindle app returned both books without a factory reset. This appears to be a current ussue, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteBest Regards, Paul
To Paul posting, as Anonymous writing on Dec 3 - thanks for taking the time to let us know that this can still happen and that this old workaround still does work. Apologies for the delay in seeing your comment. Sorry you had to go through this. I may add a note to a current post as an alert that this can happen. Thanks again.
Delete