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I used to have a Kindle 3 (keyboard). After almost 3 years of honourable service, it started getting stuck more and more, until reset wasn't solving anything anymore.

The very helpful Amazon customer service replaced it (albeit out-of-warranty) with a Kindle Touch. Happy again, I copied some books I was reading to the new device and started reading.

After less than a month, the Touch got stuck too. Now since I don't believe in cursed ebook users, I'm trying to figure out if there is a common cause. I haven't treated any reader badly, always charged before getting the warning, never let it fall (at least the new one).

I'm starting to suspect it's because of some book I loaded, can it be? I usually use Calibre on Windows 7 to manage ebooks.

Anthon
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clabacchio
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  • Do you remember reading/opening a particular book? Or having added one before the problem occured. It doesn't seem likely that the device just rescans some file(s) unless something external was changed (book selection, books added, setting change) – Anthon Mar 06 '14 at 10:06
  • Hmmm I was reading two different books on the devices when the device got stuck, but I had similar books in the internal storage indeed. If only I could have a stable USB connection I'd try to remove them all, but the PC recognizes the reader only for a couple of seconds and then it vanishes. – clabacchio Mar 06 '14 at 10:20
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    You can safely delete your amazon content, and then redownload it from Amazon to your PC. Anythiing you have stored on Calibre, can also come off. Try to identify what is not easily restorable, and work to get copies of them. – James Jenkins Mar 06 '14 at 13:37

4 Answers4

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You can try and convert all of your Calibre managed files, to any format and see if any of the books show a problem.

If you don't want to polute your book database, make a copy first and work on that. No guarantee to find the culprit, but not a lot of effort either.

Holger
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Yes there can be a common cause. The change in hardware does not necessarily mean that there is no bug in the software (even between different versions), that causes this to happen and that is triggered by some (non-standard) sequence in one of your ebooks.

If you have PDF files, it might even be a bug in the program that is part of the PDF file (it can be causing some infinite loop, or memory/stack overflow).

Sometimes this freezing behaviour is triggered on ebook readers while the (new) files are scanned. This is one of the reasons why I recommend storing the ebooks on an removable medium, which allows you to search for and remove the offending file even if the device doesn't start anymore.

I don't know how many ebooks you are talking but you should consider opening them with some software that actually complains about non-standard/faulty files (e.g. using evince started from the command line in bash scripts, running epub-check on EPUB files)

Anthon
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  • Sadly that isn't possible with kindles since they don't have a card slot :( – clabacchio Mar 06 '14 at 09:52
  • No hidden reset button at the back either? My Sony PRS700 has one of these. – Anthon Mar 06 '14 at 09:57
  • No, there is a reset procedure by holding the power button, but in this case it's not working – clabacchio Mar 06 '14 at 10:03
  • I would certainly consider checking all of the books before buying another kindle. Or if the books you have are not DRM-ed convert them to EPUB and try them on a different device. – Anthon Mar 06 '14 at 10:05
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I have a kindle keyboard, and was having similar problems with freezing getting more and more common. I had about 700 different works on it, but it reported it still had lots of room left on the drive. At that time I was getting works from Amazon, Project Gutenberg, Wikisource, and few random places pointed out by Internet Archive. (No pirated works)

I removed nearly all the books from the kindle keyboard. Leaving a few reference books and a dozen or so in my going to read soon file. I now keep my "library" organized on Calibre (backup to an external hard drive). This has solved the problem, except for when I turn on the wireless (see related question).

I also purchased a paper white and I have never had more then a couple dozen books on it at a time, though I have had several hundred in and out of it. The wireless is on 24/7 and I have not had an issue.

In the end, if it was the something about one or two of the books, or just the volume of books stored on the kindle, removing most of the books solved the issue for me.

Community
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James Jenkins
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Could the problem be the charger? Do you still use your old charger with the new Kindle? If the charger is flaky, it could have damaged both Kindles.

Also, it could, of course, just be a coincidence. People's Kindles die all the time. Two dead Kindles isn't really enough to be sure of a trend.

TenMinJoe
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  • Welcome to ebooks Joe. Do you have a reason to suspect the charger? – James Jenkins Mar 06 '14 at 13:47
  • I'm using different chargers, I would exclude to be that one the cause. Besides, Amazon doesn't provide but a cable, therefore I used the USB chargers I had at hand. – clabacchio Mar 06 '14 at 14:29
  • Hi James - I was just trying to think of things that the two devices had in common, besides the books loaded onto them. – TenMinJoe Mar 06 '14 at 16:10