Warning/Minor Rant: Unable to (re)register older Kindle with Amazon

[MegDreamsofBooks]

So a warning for older Kindles: I have a Kindle 4, with the 5-way navigation button and side buttons which I much prefer over a touch screen. It's been registered to my Amazon account for about 6 months, updated to the newest available software for that version.

Unfortunately over the weekend I wanted to try changing to a new Amazon account for ebooks, and de-registered the Kindle 4 from my main account.

Now it cannot be registered to either my original or new account, the initial attempt goes through and generates the One Time Passcode, but entering the OTP results in the error that the Kindle is "unable to connect" and a prompt to restart.

After resetting the Kindle didn't help, I tried a chat with Amazon support. And their answer is basically "too bad, go buy a new device."

So older Kindle users beware, if you reset your device, you may not be able to add it to your account again.

To quote the agent:

This is because the device software is outdated

Trade in is the only option left

This is especially disappointing for those of us who like to link our books to Calibre and the older Kindles work better for this. But I guess now I have a device I don't have to worry about breaking or losing if I take it out of the house for reading (with books sideloaded from Calibre.)

[tomsem]

Did you add the OTP to end of your password? I think that is what is required.

Customer Service is ignorant most of the time unfortunately. I have yet to see anyone verify older Kindles (with WiFi) cannot be registered.

[MegDreamsofBooks]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Did you add the OTP to end of your password? I think that is what is required.

The instructions from the agent and in the email were to just put it as the password, which is what worked when I originally registered this Kindle last summer. But I did try it with adding the OTP to the end of the password as well, and no luck.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by MegDreamsofBooks

The instructions from the agent and in the email were to just put it as the password, which is what worked when I originally registered this Kindle last summer. But I did try it with adding the OTP to the end of the password as well, and no luck.

Okay, that is new then. I wonder which models are affected?

I have a Kindle Touch and PW4 as backup options, but prefer using the Kindle for PC environments I have set up, for various reasons.

[Frogm4n]

I just tried on a spare K3 running 3.4.3, and using a US Amazon account, and was successful. The only hiccup was that the wifi dropped out in the middle, so I had to toggle wifi off/on in between.

Attempt to log in with password: failed as expected
Recieved SMS with 6 digit OTP
Attempt to log in with OTP in place of password: success

Does your account have 2FA/MFA enabled? That might put a wrench in it.