Oasis 3 not showing Cloud Collections properly

[OtinG]

No matter what I do I can’t get my new Oasis 3 to show my Amazon Cloud Collections properly. Selecting to show All Collections does show all of my 10 collections I’ve got in the Cloud, but none of them show all the books therein. Some are showing 0 books within a collection when there are many therein. I’m getting really frustrated. This function works fine on my iPhone XR and iPad Pro 9.7 apps. But it just won’t work correctly on my new and expensive Oasis 3!

BTW: I followed these instructions.

[OtinG]

I tried adding a few new collections at Amazon website and these are not showing up on my Oasis 3 or my Kindle Basic 10th gen. They do show up in my Kindle iOS apps. WTF! What good is having Cloud Collections that won't work with Kindles?

[tomsem]

It has been a few months since I looked at this systematically but Kindles seems to have issues keeping collections synced. They are slow and it can take many minutes for changes made on other devices to show up. If I remember correctly the Kindles don’t always agree with each other but I’ll check this later.

Comparing my iPad to one of my Kindles, they don’t agree on the number of items in each collection. In one case Kindle has more items and in another fewer. I have synced both devices manually (on iOS there’s a Sync option in Options that takes a couple of minutes versus the pull down sync when in Library view but it didn’t resolve the discrepancy).

Also editing collections on kindle is very slow once there are more than a couple hundred items in them. But I no longer have any larger than 100 items.

This is after updating to The just released Kindle update so obviously it’s not fixed.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by OtinG

I tried adding a few new collections at Amazon website and these are not showing up on my Oasis 3 or my Kindle Basic 10th gen. They do show up in my Kindle iOS apps. WTF! What good is having Cloud Collections that won't work with Kindles?

Are you leaving the WiFi connected and giving it time to sync? It's not immediate, and as fast as it will be on a tablet or smart phone.

I stopped posting on the Amazon forums, but there are long time Kindle users over there who are very knowledgeable with this type of issue.

I don't use the collection feature as much as some...

[OtinG]

I’ve been on the phone with the totally clueless in India CS group for over an hour now. The call was a total waste. I have 15 collections in the cloud, my Oasis can only see three of them, my Kindle Basic can see ten and my iPhone and iPad Kindle apps can see all 15. I did a complete reset of the Oasis 3, then they had me deregister it and reregister it. Still no luck. What a bunch of crap! All I really want to do is have the option to display All for Collections and Books to easily find a book. Then sync that book to my Oasis for reading. I can see All of my Books (and docs etc.), but not via the new collections I want to set up.

Here is a run down of what I’m actually experiencing:

I wanted to set up new collections and reorganize my Library in the Cloud to make it easier to find reading material to sync to my Oasis.

I went onto my Amazon Account page via my computer, went to the Manage Your Content and Devices page, and set up five new Collections in the Amazon Cloud. I want to be able to use these Cloud collections on all my devices.

I synced my Oasis 3 and my Kindle Basic 10th and neither shows the new Cloud Collections. My iPhone and iPad Kindle apps both showed these new Cloud Collections immediately.

I am NOT creating collections on my Kindles, only in the Cloud. Once they are in the Cloud I will sync them to the Kindles, well the Oasis anyway.

I did set up one new Collection on my Oasis per CS request to see if it showed up in the Cloud. It did show up in the Cloud, but new Cloud Collections still don't show up on my Kindles when I select ALL. Very frustrating.

BTW, I manually updated the Oasis to FW 5.12.3 this morning. The Basic is still running 5.12.2.

I can’t help but wonder if the constant use of Kindles from the Kindle 2 in 2007 through the Oasis over the past 12 years has somehow screwed up my Amazon Book Cloud. I’ve had a sh*t load of Kindles that have come and gone, along with a sh*t load of collections, both pre and post Cloud. CS wanted to turn in a work order to have my Cloud refreshed and updated, but I said bleep no because I fear the idiots might blow away a bunch of my purchased books. I simply have zero confidence in the Amazon staff...

And before anyone mentions calibre, no I don’t want that and will not use it. I like simplicity and the Cloud should provide that. Most of my reading material I puchased so I really have no desire for 3rd party intervention.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

Are you leaving the WiFi connected and giving it time to sync? It's not immediate, and as fast as it will be on a tablet or smart phone.

I stopped posting on the Amazon forums, but there are long time Kindle users over there who are very knowledgeable with this type of issue.

I don't use the collection feature as much as some...

Yes WiFi is on and multiple syncs have been manually done. However it is possible that it is taking longer than a few hours to filter down, but I don’t know why it would take longer than for my iOS apps. To be clear, these Collections are only on the Cloud and I currently have no books on the Oasis at all, so indexing should not be an issue. I’m going to resync/load the book I’m currently reading, but otherwise I keep the Kindles fairly empty and uncluttered.

[jhowell]

I have also noticed that some collections do not always appear on my Kindle device although they are present in the iOS and Android apps. This seems to happen mostly for collections created though the web interface. As you have noticed it is a long standing bug.

One thing that usually gets the missing collections to show is to select ALL in the left column and Collections in the Filter column. Unless the Filter is set to Collections some do not appear for me.

[OtinG]

Again, I’m selecting ALL, COLLECTIONS, and a sort option, but they simply don’t show—PERIOD. I’ve done a lot of internet searching today, and this very old buggieness or crappy design still has not been addressed by Amazon.

Apparently any collections made on another device/app will not be visible on the Oasis. Ditto for collections created/renamed on the Manage Your POS page at Amazon.com. Only some existing collections on the Manage Your POS page at Amazon.com will be visible.

If you create collections on the Oasis (or newer Kindles) those will show up, but if you populate them using the Manage Your POS page at Amazon.com none of the books or docs will be visible.

In other words, the Manage Your POS page at Amazon.com is totally useless for creating collections that will be usable on the Oasis. You must create them and populate them on the Oasis which is slow, time consuming, and a royal PITA!

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by OtinG

In other words, the Manage Your POS page at Amazon.com is totally useless for creating collections that will be usable on the Oasis. You must create them and populate them on the Oasis which is slow, time consuming, and a royal PITA!

It is not that simple. I just now created a new collection and added a book to it using the web interface. Then I opened my Oasis, synced it, set the filter to Collections and the new one was there with the expected book.

So it does work sometimes for some people.

[ilovejedd]

You need to favorite/star the collections.

While viewing ALL | COLLECTIONS, long press on each collection without a star and select download to device. This only downloads the collections themselves, not the books inside the collection. Then just leave it charging for a while to let it complete syncing and populate the collections.

Note, e-ink Kindles don’t like collections with more than 999 items.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

You need to favorite/star the collections.

While viewing ALL | COLLECTIONS, long press on each collection without a star and select download to device. This only downloads the collections themselves, not the books inside the collection. Then just leave it charging for a while to let it complete syncing and populate the collections.

Note, e-ink Kindles don’t like collections with more than 999 items.

You can’t do that when the collection isn’t visible. If I could see the collections I wouldn’t be having these issues. But they simply won’t show on the Oasis. I have 15 collections in the cloud, but the Oasis can only see 3 of them. The internet shows a lot of folks having the same issues with newer Kindle models from the past few years.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by jhowell

It is not that simple. I just now created a new collection and added a book to it using the web interface. Then I opened my Oasis, synced it, set the filter to Collections and the new one was there with the expected book.

So it does work sometimes for some people.

Well working sometimes for some people is not good enough, especially when it doesn’t work ever for my two Kindles or for a lot of other peoples Kindles. Heck I created a new collection on my Oasis and it showed up on the web page, so I populated that collection with books. But the Oasis could only see the collection, it can’t see the books in it! Amazon’s coding is total garbage.

[OtinG]

I’ve had more Kindles than I can remember starting with the K2 in 2007. I don’t remember when the Manage your Content and Devices page first arrived, but it has been many years since it did. Over those many years I’ve had collections for many many Kindles recorded on that page. Most of those Kindles have gone to new homes. I can’t help but think that perhaps traces from the ghosts of Kindles past are doing ugly things to the data populating that page. My guess is that when old Kindles get deregistered their data is not getting completely wiped from it and somehow that is causing corruption.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by OtinG

You can’t do that when the collection isn’t visible. If I could see the collections I wouldn’t be having these issues. But they simply won’t show on the Oasis. I have 15 collections in the cloud, but the Oasis can only see 3 of them. The internet shows a lot of folks having the same issues with newer Kindle models from the past few years.

I'm confused. You mentioned this in your post:

Originally Posted by OtinG

Selecting to show All Collections does show all of my 10 collections I’ve got in the Cloud, but none of them show all the books therein.

Note, populating the collections *will* be slow. I think it took a week or so leaving my PW4 charging overnight before all my purchased ebooks were put in the proper collections.

Smartphones and tablets are leagues faster than the processors used in e-ink Kindles not to mention having much more RAM and significantly faster flash storage.

As mentioned, Kindles don't like collections with more than 999 items. It simply won't sync a collection if a collection has 1,000 items or more. iOS and Android apps handle them just fine, of course.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

I'm confused. You mentioned this in your post:



Note, populating the collections *will* be slow. I think it took a week or so leaving my PW4 charging overnight before all my purchased ebooks were put in the proper collections.

Smartphones and tablets are leagues faster than the processors used in e-ink Kindles not to mention having much more RAM and significantly faster flash storage.

As mentioned, Kindles don't like collections with more than 999 items. It simply won't sync a collection if a collection has 1,000 items or more. iOS and Android apps handle them just fine, of course.

I renamed 7 of those 10 collections. Afterwards the Oasis could no longer see those 7 renamed one, it could only see the 3 that hadn’t been renamed. The Basic could still see all 10, but both Kindles were not seeing most of the books contained in those collections. Later I added 5 new collections via the web page. Neither Kindle can see those 5 collections at all. So out of 15 total collections the Oasis can only see 3, and it can only see some of the books therein. Later still I created 2 new collections on my Oasis. Those are viewable on the web page. I then populated both with books using the web page. The Oasis can see those collection, but it cannot see any of the books I moved into them.

By the way, none of the collections have even 100 books much less 1000 or more. Most have a dozen to a few dozen. Most of my books are not placed in any collection. BTW, the Kindles can see the books, all of them, but it can’t see them within collections for some reason. So I can show all books, but I can’t show a collection with its few books.

All of this is now a moot point though since the Oasis developed a defect on the screen late this afternoon and is being replaced. Maybe the replacement will do better at seeing the collections and books therein. I’m not optimistic though.