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cejaxon · 02-28-2009, 08:45 AM

First, I want to thank folks in this forum & in others I read for helping me troubleshoot the same problem I experienced with my husband's new Kindle 2 (I'm a tech writer, so he lets me solve all his toys' tech problems). We experienced this problem (of the computer not recognizing the Kindle via the USB connection) on both of our Macs & on my office's PC (Windows XP). Per other places on the web, I've seen it has happened to Vista users as well.

Using the reset button was -- for us -- the solution. I did have to reset it more than once, so for those of you who may not yet have had success, be sure to fiddle a bit. Assuming you have the USB hooked up to both your Kindle & computer while you hold the reset button (try counting slowly to 20), on your Kindle, you should see an image of the USB cable when the Kindle is in the correct state of "resettedness." Shortly after that, I saw the Kindle appear in the Finder window. Happy day!

My question/beef is: what's up with Kindle support? & what's up with Kindle documentation? I emailed Amazon a query about this issue before I did the online research & the reply I got from them was that I had to call them personally. Huh? This is clearly a common problem & (for most people) one with a simple, easy-to-describe-solution. Per the online fora, this was a problem for Kindle 1, also. So why doesn't the documentation contain a little troubleshooting tip to this effect & why aren't the support people aware of this simple trick to resolve a seemingly pervasive & common problem? Since it seems to be an intermittent problem also (per what I've read, if you "solve" it once, it may recur but the solution will work again), I recognize that it may be difficult to fix on the Kindle itself, but fixing the documentation & training the support team is comparatively cheap.

This isn't something Amazon can or should hide because they want to pretend the Kindle is problem-free -- iPods have a similar issue & Apple takes the lead in informing users about the "the 5 R's." I hope Amazon fixes its response to this issue since Bezos is betting the store -- so to speak -- on Kindle's success.

02-28-2009, 08:45 AM	#9
cejaxon Junior Member Posts: 7 Karma: 10 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: kindle 2	Problems with connecting to PC or Mac First, I want to thank folks in this forum & in others I read for helping me troubleshoot the same problem I experienced with my husband's new Kindle 2 (I'm a tech writer, so he lets me solve all his toys' tech problems). We experienced this problem (of the computer not recognizing the Kindle via the USB connection) on both of our Macs & on my office's PC (Windows XP). Per other places on the web, I've seen it has happened to Vista users as well. Using the reset button was -- for us -- the solution. I did have to reset it more than once, so for those of you who may not yet have had success, be sure to fiddle a bit. Assuming you have the USB hooked up to both your Kindle & computer while you hold the reset button (try counting slowly to 20), on your Kindle, you should see an image of the USB cable when the Kindle is in the correct state of "resettedness." Shortly after that, I saw the Kindle appear in the Finder window. Happy day! My question/beef is: what's up with Kindle support? & what's up with Kindle documentation? I emailed Amazon a query about this issue before I did the online research & the reply I got from them was that I had to call them personally. Huh? This is clearly a common problem & (for most people) one with a simple, easy-to-describe-solution. Per the online fora, this was a problem for Kindle 1, also. So why doesn't the documentation contain a little troubleshooting tip to this effect & why aren't the support people aware of this simple trick to resolve a seemingly pervasive & common problem? Since it seems to be an intermittent problem also (per what I've read, if you "solve" it once, it may recur but the solution will work again), I recognize that it may be difficult to fix on the Kindle itself, but fixing the documentation & training the support team is comparatively cheap. This isn't something Amazon can or should hide because they want to pretend the Kindle is problem-free -- iPods have a similar issue & Apple takes the lead in informing users about the "the 5 R's." I hope Amazon fixes its response to this issue since Bezos is betting the store -- so to speak -- on Kindle's success.