Troubleshooting Complete Kindle Clean-up

chikkychappy · 01-11-2011, 09:33 AM

Hi everyone,

I'm a Kindle user and recently, I have picked-up a virus which seem to slow down my Kindle. I'm a Mac user as well, and when I try to delete it the virus wouldn't budge because it's locked. However, if I move the file to any folder within my Mac HD (say, desktop), I can delete the file just fine.

I'm no computer geek so I don't know any other alternative. But as a last resort I plan to clean my Kindle up COMPLETELY, as in delete each every single file. My plan is:

1. Copy and paste all the files to my Mac.
2. Using disk utility I'll clean-up my Kindle completely.
3. I'll move all the files back to my Kindle, except the viruses.
4. Delete the kindle files on my mac.

My question is: is this possible? If I completely delete all the files and move them back, would my Kindle suddenly stop operating or something because in the process of cleaning it up completely, I deleted something important?

I'd really appreciate your help, thanks!

waller4343 · 01-11-2011, 10:04 AM

I don't think you have a virus. When I experience slowdowns it's usually an indexing problem. If your Kindle is new you might have a book stuck indexing. Type in a nonsense word like asdfg at the home page and do a find. If you finally get a screen that sez something like "xx items not indexed" then you have a stuck book. Just delete it and reload it.

If you have had your Kindle for a long time, added and deleted lots of books, then you might want to clean up your search indexes. I have been lucky by hooking the Kindle up to the computer and going to the system folder, going to the search indexes and then deleting all the files in the search index folder. If you have lots of books then the reindexing will take a long time. I have 1,300 books and it takes me about 36 hours.

desertblues · 01-11-2011, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by waller4343

I don't think you have a virus. When I experience slowdowns it's usually an indexing problem. If your Kindle is new you might have a book stuck indexing. Type in a nonsense word like asdfg at the home page and do a find. If you finally get a screen that sez something like "xx items not indexed" then you have a stuck book. Just delete it and reload it.

If you have had your Kindle for a long time, added and deleted lots of books, then you might want to clean up your search indexes. I have been lucky by hooking the Kindle up to the computer and going to the system folder, going to the search indexes and then deleting all the files in the search index folder. If you have lots of books then the reindexing will take a long time. I have 1,300 books and it takes me about 36 hours.

Yes, I agree. I've had a lot of problems indexing my books. Even one from Amazon got stuck (Anna Karenina, yes serious reading).
As I've lots of books, it also took my Kindles several hours to index. I didn't load all the books at once, but in portions of 100/150-----check if indexing is done-----whoosh: not indexed books deleted----and on to the next. So I've got two Kindles with several hundreds of books safe and sound, and working like a charm. Indexing is the weak point.

Perhaps a reboot/restart is in order as well. Mac's don't have virusses easily. Or phone Amazon for advice.

wvcherrybomb · 01-11-2011, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by waller4343

If you have had your Kindle for a long time, added and deleted lots of books, then you might want to clean up your search indexes. I have been lucky by hooking the Kindle up to the computer and going to the system folder, going to the search indexes and then deleting all the files in the search index folder. If you have lots of books then the reindexing will take a long time. I have 1,300 books and it takes me about 36 hours.

I'm just curious as to the reason for doing this.

Also, can Kindles actually get a virus?

abookreader · 01-11-2011, 05:27 PM

If a Kindle had a virus, it would be the first time I've ever heard of it, especially rare for a Kindle that is hooked up to a Mac.

Welcome to MobileRead chickychappy, hopefully somebody here can help you with your problem but I agree that the most likely culprit is a file that is stuck on indexing.

waller4343 · 01-11-2011, 05:27 PM

wvcherrybomb, as I understand it, when you add books the Kindle will put all the words in its index, creating a new file for that book in the search folder. When you delete a book the index for that book isn't deleted. When you do a search for anything in My Items the Kindle will look in every one of the files in the search folder, whether the book is on the Kindle or not. And in my case I notice slower page turns, the dictionary seems slower, I am charging it more than usual and a couple of other little things. If I remove the search files and do a restart I immediately notice an improvement in the features I use most. It's not as quick as when I only had a couple of hundred books, but it is a lot quicker with the books I decided to keep on the Kindle. Bottom line - if you do a lot of adding and deleting of books then this is probably a good habit to get into, if you add lots of books and only delete a couple it really is worth the hassle. I only use it when I have been going crazy with adding and deleting, or if I decide to cut my library down to one page or something. And I do it only if I'm somewhere I can keep it plugged in for a day or so - indexing is a big drain on the battery.

I haven't heard of anyone really getting a virus on the Kindle. I guess that if you opened an email on the Kindle it could get transferred to your computer and do harm, but I haven't heard of this either. Right now I would say it can't be done, but I would also bet that there are enough nuts out there that like to disrupt other people's enjoyment that it will happen someday and we will have to get anti-spyware and antivirus for the Kindle. I just hope it is a long time from now.

wvcherrybomb · 01-11-2011, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by waller4343

When you delete a book the index for that book isn't deleted. When you do a search for anything in My Items the Kindle will look in every one of the files in the search folder, whether the book is on the Kindle or not.

That makes sense. Thanks.

chikkychappy · 01-11-2011, 07:33 PM

Hi everyone! Thanks for the responses, I really appreciate them.

For the record my Kindle is fairly new (October 2010), and I have added no more than 50 books into it. I also tried searching for a random string and no book appear to be unindexed.

Here's a screenshot of the page:

What I suspect to be a virus is Flashy.exe (my biggest problem), documents.exe and system.exe. I think they're viruses because I have encountered these viruses in the past. Back in the middle of October, I hooked my Kindle to a PC laptop which turned-out to be infested with a very strong virus. Even after we reformatted the laptop the virus persisted. This virus also deleted all my USB files and some files in my external drive, including some graduation photos. So while the virus did not do anything as drastic as my Kindle as the virus did to my laptop, USB, and EHD, I was thinking that perhaps it's still affecting the performance of my Kindle.

jlmwrite · 01-11-2011, 09:32 PM

Flashy is an older trojan from 2006, and will attempt to copy itself to all drives connected to your computer. It changes the administrator password (to 'hacked', if memory serves) and usually disable regedit and taskmanager on your PC while making sure it starts itself after a reboot. But darned if I knew this one affected Macs. Flashy was/is definitely a PC loving kinda guy.

Edited to add the comment: The system.exe is usually indicative of a much nastier spybot that spreads by network shares, and will copy itself onto shared/networked drives -- including what it believes are flash drives -- the same way as does flashy.

BTW, the code can't execute on your Kindle. It just copies itself on there; with the logic being that the copy of itself may be on a flash drive, and an unwitting user might plug the flash drive into a fresh computer and infect it by clicking on the flashy.exe file. So your Kindle is a carrier, and I agree with the other posters that the slowness is probably due to indexing.

So if you are sure your Kindle isn't indexing, first reset it to factory defaults (meaning that you are wiping it clean). Upload your books to Dropbox or something similar, download 'em from there onto your Kindle, and DO NOT connect your Kindle to your computer. That way, you simply can't get infected.

I'd be very interested in your final outcome...

Bricorn · 01-12-2011, 03:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by waller4343

wvcherrybomb, as I understand it, when you add books the Kindle will put all the words in its index, creating a new file for that book in the search folder. When you delete a book the index for that book isn't deleted. When you do a search for anything in My Items the Kindle will look in every one of the files in the search folder, whether the book is on the Kindle or not. And in my case I notice slower page turns, the dictionary seems slower, I am charging it more than usual and a couple of other little things. If I remove the search files and do a restart I immediately notice an improvement in the features I use most. It's not as quick as when I only had a couple of hundred books, but it is a lot quicker with the books I decided to keep on the Kindle. Bottom line - if you do a lot of adding and deleting of books then this is probably a good habit to get into, if you add lots of books and only delete a couple it really is worth the hassle. I only use it when I have been going crazy with adding and deleting, or if I decide to cut my library down to one page or something. And I do it only if I'm somewhere I can keep it plugged in for a day or so - indexing is a big drain on the battery.

I haven't heard of anyone really getting a virus on the Kindle. I guess that if you opened an email on the Kindle it could get transferred to your computer and do harm, but I haven't heard of this either. Right now I would say it can't be done, but I would also bet that there are enough nuts out there that like to disrupt other people's enjoyment that it will happen someday and we will have to get anti-spyware and antivirus for the Kindle. I just hope it is a long time from now.

Useful info, thanks.

Bricorn · 01-23-2011, 12:35 PM

OK, I just thought I'd update this.
I was having about 5 days battery life on my DXG. Nothing stuck indexing, whispernet off, autorotation off, about 2-3 hours daily usage (say 3 books).

Tried waller4343's suggestion. Left it plugged in while it re-indexed everything, doing the "search for nonsense" while it did that so that I could see when it was finished (300ish books - 6 hours or so). Then unplugged and did a restart.

It's now 8 days and I'm only down about 2 bars on the power meter (75% plus left).

I don't know why, but this seems to have been the problem.

Thanks SO much.

I'm purposely NOT connecting it to power or PC for now because I want to see how long it lasts now.

Deleting the indexes is going to be a regular part of my Kindle Maintenance in future.

Not long after I got my DXG, I had a problem adding a couple of large books - 1 pdf & one mobi - and had to connect via usb to delete them. They were then reformatted with Calibre and re-added without problems. I'm wondering now if they were the ones that caused the trouble, maybe they left something in the indexes that the reader didn't like.
Most of my books are DRM free mobi format if that helps anyone.

waller4343 · 01-23-2011, 01:22 PM

Bricorn, glad to see it worked for you as well. I usually only clean out the search indexes after I have deleted a lot of books. I tend to add and delete a lot lately since it is so easy to do with Calibre. And you are probably right about the large PDF and Mobi books being your culprits. Some formatting seems to cause havoc with my Kindles as well.

silasgreenback · 01-23-2011, 04:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by waller4343

Bricorn, glad to see it worked for you as well. I usually only clean out the search indexes after I have deleted a lot of books. I tend to add and delete a lot lately since it is so easy to do with Calibre. And you are probably right about the large PDF and Mobi books being your culprits. Some formatting seems to cause havoc with my Kindles as well.

You can mark me down as another. I've done quite a few deletions and didn't realize that may have something to do with the noticeable lag with the full definition look up in the dictionary.

Pushka · 01-23-2011, 07:54 PM

Gosh, this is something that should be publicised more as with Calibre, people are constantly fiddling (well, I am anyway!) So, the process is on a regular basis, remove the "search file" whereever that is, reindex while being plugged in, and then restart?

waller4343 · 01-23-2011, 08:50 PM

Pushka, I don't know about "regular basis". I add a lot of books cuz Calibre makes it so easy and I have a couple of DVD ebook collections with tens of thousands of books and I want to read them all. Then I feel the need to trim the collection down to what I really can read. So I delete a lot of books and that leaves the search indexes for the deleted books causing slowdowns.

If all you do is add to your Kindle then you don't need to remove the indexes. Even if you have deleted a few books it might not be worth the time and effort. But if you delete 50, 100 or more books over time then it might be worth the indexing time it takes. And you probably already know that indexing is a battery drainer, that is why I leave it plugged in. If I am reading by an outlet it is just as easy to read with it plugged in. It will still index unplugged but you won't have much charge by the time it is done.

Yes, you would remove the files in the search index folder. On my Kindle it's Kindle O:\system\Search Indexes. Open the Search Indexes folder and delete all the files in it. There should be a .db, .lg and a file for every book on your Kindle. Delete them all. The .db and .lg will be recreated when you eject the Kindle and it starts to index. Bricorn indexed for 6 hours for about 300 books. I indexed for 36 hours for 1300 books. YMMV if you have mostly large books, I have a broad mixture of pulp novels, historical fiction, encyclopedias and graphic intensive books. My Que software books seem to take forever.

01-11-2011, 09:33 AM	#1
chikkychappy Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 556 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: Kindle	Complete Kindle Clean-up Hi everyone, I'm a Kindle user and recently, I have picked-up a virus which seem to slow down my Kindle. I'm a Mac user as well, and when I try to delete it the virus wouldn't budge because it's locked. However, if I move the file to any folder within my Mac HD (say, desktop), I can delete the file just fine. I'm no computer geek so I don't know any other alternative. But as a last resort I plan to clean my Kindle up COMPLETELY, as in delete each every single file. My plan is: 1. Copy and paste all the files to my Mac. 2. Using disk utility I'll clean-up my Kindle completely. 3. I'll move all the files back to my Kindle, except the viruses. 4. Delete the kindle files on my mac. My question is: is this possible? If I completely delete all the files and move them back, would my Kindle suddenly stop operating or something because in the process of cleaning it up completely, I deleted something important? I'd really appreciate your help, thanks!

01-11-2011, 09:32 PM	#9
jlmwrite Zealot Posts: 143 Karma: 13398 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Golden, Colorado Device: Samsung Tab S8.4, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge	Flashy is an older trojan from 2006, and will attempt to copy itself to all drives connected to your computer. It changes the administrator password (to 'hacked', if memory serves) and usually disable regedit and taskmanager on your PC while making sure it starts itself after a reboot. But darned if I knew this one affected Macs. Flashy was/is definitely a PC loving kinda guy. Edited to add the comment: The system.exe is usually indicative of a much nastier spybot that spreads by network shares, and will copy itself onto shared/networked drives -- including what it believes are flash drives -- the same way as does flashy. BTW, the code can't execute on your Kindle. It just copies itself on there; with the logic being that the copy of itself may be on a flash drive, and an unwitting user might plug the flash drive into a fresh computer and infect it by clicking on the flashy.exe file. So your Kindle is a carrier, and I agree with the other posters that the slowness is probably due to indexing. So if you are sure your Kindle isn't indexing, first reset it to factory defaults (meaning that you are wiping it clean). Upload your books to Dropbox or something similar, download 'em from there onto your Kindle, and DO NOT connect your Kindle to your computer. That way, you simply can't get infected. I'd be very interested in your final outcome... Last edited by jlmwrite; 01-12-2011 at 05:26 PM.

01-23-2011, 12:35 PM	#11
Bricorn Addict Posts: 289 Karma: 7788748 Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Fun Town, Thailand Device: Kindle DXG	OK, I just thought I'd update this. I was having about 5 days battery life on my DXG. Nothing stuck indexing, whispernet off, autorotation off, about 2-3 hours daily usage (say 3 books). Tried waller4343's suggestion. Left it plugged in while it re-indexed everything, doing the "search for nonsense" while it did that so that I could see when it was finished (300ish books - 6 hours or so). Then unplugged and did a restart. It's now 8 days and I'm only down about 2 bars on the power meter (75% plus left). I don't know why, but this seems to have been the problem. Thanks SO much. I'm purposely NOT connecting it to power or PC for now because I want to see how long it lasts now. Deleting the indexes is going to be a regular part of my Kindle Maintenance in future. Not long after I got my DXG, I had a problem adding a couple of large books - 1 pdf & one mobi - and had to connect via usb to delete them. They were then reformatted with Calibre and re-added without problems. I'm wondering now if they were the ones that caused the trouble, maybe they left something in the indexes that the reader didn't like. Most of my books are DRM free mobi format if that helps anyone. Last edited by Bricorn; 01-23-2011 at 12:53 PM.

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01-11-2011, 10:04 AM	#2
waller4343 Enthusiast Posts: 46 Karma: 16090 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Colorado, USA Device: Kindle DX, K3, iPad	I don't think you have a virus. When I experience slowdowns it's usually an indexing problem. If your Kindle is new you might have a book stuck indexing. Type in a nonsense word like asdfg at the home page and do a find. If you finally get a screen that sez something like "xx items not indexed" then you have a stuck book. Just delete it and reload it. If you have had your Kindle for a long time, added and deleted lots of books, then you might want to clean up your search indexes. I have been lucky by hooking the Kindle up to the computer and going to the system folder, going to the search indexes and then deleting all the files in the search index folder. If you have lots of books then the reindexing will take a long time. I have 1,300 books and it takes me about 36 hours.

01-11-2011, 05:27 PM	#5
abookreader Wizard Posts: 1,516 Karma: 2567610 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: Kindles - Keyboard, Fire, 2-US, iPhone, iPAD	If a Kindle had a virus, it would be the first time I've ever heard of it, especially rare for a Kindle that is hooked up to a Mac. Welcome to MobileRead chickychappy, hopefully somebody here can help you with your problem but I agree that the most likely culprit is a file that is stuck on indexing.

01-11-2011, 07:33 PM	#8
chikkychappy Junior Member Posts: 2 Karma: 556 Join Date: Jan 2011 Device: Kindle	Hi everyone! Thanks for the responses, I really appreciate them. For the record my Kindle is fairly new (October 2010), and I have added no more than 50 books into it. I also tried searching for a random string and no book appear to be unindexed. Here's a screenshot of the page: What I suspect to be a virus is Flashy.exe (my biggest problem), documents.exe and system.exe. I think they're viruses because I have encountered these viruses in the past. Back in the middle of October, I hooked my Kindle to a PC laptop which turned-out to be infested with a very strong virus. Even after we reformatted the laptop the virus persisted. This virus also deleted all my USB files and some files in my external drive, including some graduation photos. So while the virus did not do anything as drastic as my Kindle as the virus did to my laptop, USB, and EHD, I was thinking that perhaps it's still affecting the performance of my Kindle.

01-23-2011, 01:22 PM	#12
waller4343 Enthusiast Posts: 46 Karma: 16090 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Colorado, USA Device: Kindle DX, K3, iPad	Bricorn, glad to see it worked for you as well. I usually only clean out the search indexes after I have deleted a lot of books. I tend to add and delete a lot lately since it is so easy to do with Calibre. And you are probably right about the large PDF and Mobi books being your culprits. Some formatting seems to cause havoc with my Kindles as well.

01-23-2011, 07:54 PM	#14
Pushka Wizard Posts: 1,119 Karma: 1019140 Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Australia Device: kindle, Ipad, Iphone, Nexus and PPW	Gosh, this is something that should be publicised more as with Calibre, people are constantly fiddling (well, I am anyway!) So, the process is on a regular basis, remove the "search file" whereever that is, reindex while being plugged in, and then restart?

01-23-2011, 08:50 PM	#15
waller4343 Enthusiast Posts: 46 Karma: 16090 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Colorado, USA Device: Kindle DX, K3, iPad	Pushka, I don't know about "regular basis". I add a lot of books cuz Calibre makes it so easy and I have a couple of DVD ebook collections with tens of thousands of books and I want to read them all. Then I feel the need to trim the collection down to what I really can read. So I delete a lot of books and that leaves the search indexes for the deleted books causing slowdowns. If all you do is add to your Kindle then you don't need to remove the indexes. Even if you have deleted a few books it might not be worth the time and effort. But if you delete 50, 100 or more books over time then it might be worth the indexing time it takes. And you probably already know that indexing is a battery drainer, that is why I leave it plugged in. If I am reading by an outlet it is just as easy to read with it plugged in. It will still index unplugged but you won't have much charge by the time it is done. Yes, you would remove the files in the search index folder. On my Kindle it's Kindle O:\system\Search Indexes. Open the Search Indexes folder and delete all the files in it. There should be a .db, .lg and a file for every book on your Kindle. Delete them all. The .db and .lg will be recreated when you eject the Kindle and it starts to index. Bricorn indexed for 6 hours for about 300 books. I indexed for 36 hours for 1300 books. YMMV if you have mostly large books, I have a broad mixture of pulp novels, historical fiction, encyclopedias and graphic intensive books. My Que software books seem to take forever.

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