Tracking down a 'broken' indexing book

reech · 03-29-2011, 12:41 PM

Hello all,

My Kindle has suddenly decided to start indexing all the books it holds again, causing great battery drain.

For the past hour or so, it has got 390 left to index.

How do I find out which one is causing it to do this?

I am just testing to remove an amazon book I bought and which was delivered wirelessly last night (Star Trek: Indistinguishable from Magic) - but I was curious; I mean I can see how many are left to index by doing a 'junk search' but I was wondering if we can be any more precise...

J.

Yolina · 03-29-2011, 12:51 PM

I've seen on the UK Amazon forum that a few people have started to have "sudden re-indexing" too afer having their K3 for 6 months and when speaking to CS, were apparently told that this is something that will happen occasionally (maybe twice a year) as a kind of self-housekeeping.

After doing the junk search, if you click on the line that says "X books still not indexed" (I can't remember the exact way it's phrased) then it will bring up the list of the books not indexed yet.

reech · 03-29-2011, 12:55 PM

Yup, I can see the lsit of unindexed, but couldn't locate if there was one specific one that had 'got stuck'.

However, just searching again now, and it's moved down to 385, so it's got past the indigestible chunk

Yolina · 03-29-2011, 01:02 PM

I think the rate of indexing is roughly 1 minute per book so you probably need to leave it to do its thing for quite a while longer and only then check that nothing is still stuck.

reech · 03-29-2011, 05:39 PM

152 a few hours later. Hopefully this means that, if I leave it plugged in overnight, it's not going to leak power when I'm on train tomorrow

terencek · 03-30-2011, 07:19 AM

Judging by my own experience and the many many comments about indexing on this forum over the months, would it not make more sense to have indexing as a selectable option for individual books?

How often does the average user need to search his or her books? I have over a thousand books on my K3 now and have never had the need to search, and though it would be fun to think I'm unique I suspect the reality is more mundane...

Indexing is a nuisance, chews up battery power, knocks your Kindle out of action for hours if you have to leave it on charge while it's indexing, seems to need free storage space if it is not to grind to a halt, and occasionally gets stuck as it did for me yesterday after I put about a hundred new items on the device.

Is there an argument for the next firmware to make it optional on a book-by-book basis for those (few?) who really need it?

reech · 03-30-2011, 05:51 PM

Mine's now caught up, it was fine by the morning.

Dunno what started it, but all sorted now. I think it does happen infrequently, but it's the inconvenience of suddenly finding it flat!

If a user option could be in the settings menu for 'don't reindex' or 'reindex manually only' - that would save that hassle from ever happening.

tomsem · 03-30-2011, 07:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reech

Mine's now caught up, it was fine by the morning.

Dunno what started it, but all sorted now. I think it does happen infrequently, but it's the inconvenience of suddenly finding it flat!

If a user option could be in the settings menu for 'don't reindex' or 'reindex manually only' - that would save that hassle from ever happening.

It will generally re-index your content after every firmware update. Maybe that's what happened in your case.

There is actually a hack that lets you temporarily disable indexing by typing stuff in at the Home screen (there's a thread here or on Kindle Developer's corner about doing this somewhere). But you would not want to have that in effect all of the time, as you would not want to lose Find or dictionary lookup (or maybe not in your case).

Obviously the less content you have on your Kindle, the less time it takes to reindex when that needs to occur (PDFs don't count, as they are not indexed). So apply updates when reindexing is not going to inconvenience you.

hrynkiw · 04-01-2011, 07:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yolina

(...) After doing the junk search, if you click on the line that says "X books still not indexed" (I can't remember the exact way it's phrased) then it will bring up the list of the books not indexed yet.

Ah! That was useful -- thank-you. But am I correct in assuming that there is no way to tell *which* book on the list is causing the process to stall, yes?

(That'll teach me to download all those free books to my Kindle at once. My indexing is stalled at "112 not yet indexed."

)

hrynkiw · 04-01-2011, 07:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PhillipA82

It sounds like a big mess. Good luck with that.

Heh-heh-he! It could have been worse. I think I started with over 300 books.

.
Added later that evening:

Reporting back for the next novice who has this problem -- Starting with 112 books, I made a list of the titles and started deleting them from the Kindle in batches of about 15, in between going back to Home and giving the Kindle a chance to wake up and start indexing again. Got all the way down to 18 titles before the Kindle stopped responding briefly, then started cycling (the twirly in the top left corner started up). Voila! The indexing dam has been busted loose -- one title before the book I'm currently reading. :whew:

It's just about finished indexing the last 18 titles and then I'll start re-downloading the original 111 in batches of about 10 -- letting the Kindle index them all before adding the next batch, leaving the title that caused the stalling to the very end.

Lesson learned.

Thanks for your comments and help in this thread, everyone. They've been extremely useful.

hrynkiw · 04-04-2011, 03:26 PM

Reporting back just one more time with a little more information.

Re-added the books about 10-15 at a time and indexing went fine. Even the book that stalled the indexing the first time around, when added all by itself, indexed fine.

I discovered that you can actually watch the progress of the indexing process Do the junk search as described by Yolina above, including the step of clicking on the line "X books not yet indexed" to bring up the list of books not yet indexed. If you *stay* on that page during a regular indexing session, it appears that the book currently being indexed will be greyed out, and will disappear from the list when completed. You can watch the list grow shorter. I had my Kindle propped up on the end-table next to my chair and it caught my eye each time the page flashed to refresh the list.

waller4343 · 04-04-2011, 03:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hrynkiw

Reporting back just one more time with a little more information.
You can watch the list grow shorter. I had my Kindle propped up on the end-table next to my chair and it caught my eye each time the page flashed to refresh the list.

LOL - I thought I was the only who would watch my Kindle index.

hrynkiw · 04-04-2011, 03:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by waller4343

LOL - I thought I was the only who would watch my Kindle index.

What else is there to do when it's a slow night for TV or too dark outside to go and watch the grass grow?

Bricorn · 04-05-2011, 03:37 PM

Me too.

We are sad people.

03-29-2011, 12:41 PM	#1
reech Connoisseur Posts: 97 Karma: 132 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: Sony eReader PRS-600	Tracking down a 'broken' indexing book Hello all, My Kindle has suddenly decided to start indexing all the books it holds again, causing great battery drain. For the past hour or so, it has got 390 left to index. How do I find out which one is causing it to do this? I am just testing to remove an amazon book I bought and which was delivered wirelessly last night (Star Trek: Indistinguishable from Magic) - but I was curious; I mean I can see how many are left to index by doing a 'junk search' but I was wondering if we can be any more precise... J.

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03-29-2011, 12:51 PM	#2
Yolina Wizard Posts: 1,179 Karma: 11573197 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: London, UK Device: Voyage	I've seen on the UK Amazon forum that a few people have started to have "sudden re-indexing" too afer having their K3 for 6 months and when speaking to CS, were apparently told that this is something that will happen occasionally (maybe twice a year) as a kind of self-housekeeping. After doing the junk search, if you click on the line that says "X books still not indexed" (I can't remember the exact way it's phrased) then it will bring up the list of the books not indexed yet.

03-29-2011, 12:55 PM	#3
reech Connoisseur Posts: 97 Karma: 132 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: Sony eReader PRS-600	Yup, I can see the lsit of unindexed, but couldn't locate if there was one specific one that had 'got stuck'. However, just searching again now, and it's moved down to 385, so it's got past the indigestible chunk

03-29-2011, 01:02 PM	#4
Yolina Wizard Posts: 1,179 Karma: 11573197 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: London, UK Device: Voyage	I think the rate of indexing is roughly 1 minute per book so you probably need to leave it to do its thing for quite a while longer and only then check that nothing is still stuck.

03-29-2011, 05:39 PM	#5
reech Connoisseur Posts: 97 Karma: 132 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: Sony eReader PRS-600	152 a few hours later. Hopefully this means that, if I leave it plugged in overnight, it's not going to leak power when I'm on train tomorrow

03-30-2011, 07:19 AM	#6
terencek Groupie Posts: 170 Karma: 1010944 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: The African bush Device: Kindle 3	Judging by my own experience and the many many comments about indexing on this forum over the months, would it not make more sense to have indexing as a selectable option for individual books? How often does the average user need to search his or her books? I have over a thousand books on my K3 now and have never had the need to search, and though it would be fun to think I'm unique I suspect the reality is more mundane... Indexing is a nuisance, chews up battery power, knocks your Kindle out of action for hours if you have to leave it on charge while it's indexing, seems to need free storage space if it is not to grind to a halt, and occasionally gets stuck as it did for me yesterday after I put about a hundred new items on the device. Is there an argument for the next firmware to make it optional on a book-by-book basis for those (few?) who really need it?

03-30-2011, 05:51 PM	#7
reech Connoisseur Posts: 97 Karma: 132 Join Date: Sep 2009 Device: Sony eReader PRS-600	Mine's now caught up, it was fine by the morning. Dunno what started it, but all sorted now. I think it does happen infrequently, but it's the inconvenience of suddenly finding it flat! If a user option could be in the settings menu for 'don't reindex' or 'reindex manually only' - that would save that hassle from ever happening.

04-04-2011, 03:26 PM	#11
hrynkiw Connoisseur Posts: 74 Karma: 154 Join Date: Mar 2011 Location: Greater Vancouver, Canada Device: Kindle Paperwhite 10, iPhone, iPad	Reporting back just one more time with a little more information. Re-added the books about 10-15 at a time and indexing went fine. Even the book that stalled the indexing the first time around, when added all by itself, indexed fine. I discovered that you can actually watch the progress of the indexing process Do the junk search as described by Yolina above, including the step of clicking on the line "X books not yet indexed" to bring up the list of books not yet indexed. If you stay on that page during a regular indexing session, it appears that the book currently being indexed will be greyed out, and will disappear from the list when completed. You can watch the list grow shorter. I had my Kindle propped up on the end-table next to my chair and it caught my eye each time the page flashed to refresh the list.

04-05-2011, 03:37 PM	#14
Bricorn Addict Posts: 289 Karma: 7788748 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Fun Town, Thailand Device: Kindle DXG	Me too. We are sad people.

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