Troubleshooting My Kindle Touch Lost All Of My Purchases

[Lima Bean]

After not using my Kindle for a couple of months, I turned it on today to discover the menu is gone. The menu to shop at Amazon is there. I can browse at the store, but the menu where I can sync and look at previous books, stuff like Thread Words and such, is gone.

I tried purchasing a book. It let me, says it downloaded, but it's not accessible on my Kindle device.

Any ideas as to what is going on?

[eschwartz]

Can you provide a screenshot? I am having a hard time visualizing what you are seeing.

[Lima Bean]

When I hit the Home key, it would only take me to the Amazon store. I couldn't access the menu that has Turn Off Wireless, Create New Collection, Sync and Check for Items, Settings, etc. I tried shutting it off and on a zillion times...to no avail. But I did some digging. All I had to do with hold the power button down for 30 seconds. That seems to have reset everything. Hurrah!

Thank you for trying to help me though. Sorry I wasn't clearer. I didn't know how to explain what was missing because I couldn't recall exactly what it was that was missing. Doh!

[eschwartz]

Thinking back, I believe I actually had the exact same problem -- at least, the Kindle was stuck in the Store and couldn't find its way out, even when pressing Home. Other than that, it looked perfectly normal...


A reboot fixed it for me too. Note that rebooting means holding the power down for ~20 seconds. Simply clicking the power button (even for ~6-7 seconds) is simply putting it in sleep mode, even if the screensaver doesn't pop up.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Lima Bean

Thank you for trying to help me though. Sorry I wasn't clearer. I didn't know how to explain what was missing because I couldn't recall exactly what it was that was missing. Doh!

That would be really weird. It's got to be a glitch -- either on Amazon's website or your device. If it doesn't come back after the reset, I would get hold of Amazon right away.

When I first signed up for an Amazon account, I accidentally put in the wrong password when I first signed back in (a shorter version of the one I normally use) so I have two accounts with the same email address. Every now and then I enter the wrong password and all my content is "gone." It's not a good feeling -- fortunately it doesn't take long for me to figure out what I've done now (since I seem to do it more often as I get older). I would really like to get rid of the empty account, but I keep imagining that they'll accidentally delete the wrong one -- since they both have the same email address. So I just let it go.

[eschwartz]

Change the password on the empty one to something random, then forget it.

[pssquirrel]

Originally Posted by rcentros

When I first signed up for an Amazon account, I accidentally put in the wrong password when I first signed back in (a shorter version of the one I normally use) so I have two accounts with the same email address. Every now and then I enter the wrong password and all my content is "gone." It's not a good feeling -- fortunately it doesn't take long for me to figure out what I've done now (since I seem to do it more often as I get older). I would really like to get rid of the empty account, but I keep imagining that they'll accidentally delete the wrong one -- since they both have the same email address. So I just let it go.

That is so bizarre. I'm trying to wrap my brain around this. If you accidentally entered the wrong password the first time, wouldn't it just throw an error and ask for the right password? It frightens me that this could happen.

[eschwartz]

At one point, Amazon allowed multiple accounts to have the same email address.

[pssquirrel]

Ohhhhhh. So it can't happen now?

Still, it's confusing. What was the reasoning behind allowing multiple accounts with the same email address?

[eschwartz]

Very possible a bug.

[Notjohn]

Originally Posted by Lima Bean

All I had to do with hold the power button down for 30 seconds. That seems to have reset everything. Hurrah!

Yes, a reboot seems to solve many problems. For a long time I had problems with pages simply disappearing. Even when I went back a few pages and then paged forward, the same one would be skipped. It got worse and worse, but a reboot solved the problem.

It's not easy to remember that when one turns the Kindle (a Fire HD in this case) off, it's not really shut down. Only the lengthy press, followed by a confirmation of Do You Want To Shut Down?, seems to suffice. (That, or running the battery dead.)