Troubleshooting The only person with this problem--EVER

[Rellwood]

Ok, That might be an overstatement, but apparently since the first of April, this problem cannot be solved by the Amazon Kindle Engineer department. According to them, this has never happened before.

One day out of the blue my collections disappeared of my Kindles and the cloud. No warning, no user error. Just one day one Kindle stopped showing them, and the next day the other one followed suit. So, my 1000 plus book library is just out there with no organization. I have not only the cloud books, but a large ammount of downloaded from PC books.

I have tried everything, and have reset, restored, tried various techniqes for finding them. Can't find the old collections at all. Amazon has not deleted them either. They show up on my other devices. Devices I don't read on, but have the Kindle app. (although I have never been able to get them on my PC). Initially, when Amazon was trying to fix the problem they basically pushed through every collection I have ever made (deleted or not) and the populations within them and they showed up on these devices but not the two Paperwhites.

I can create new collections and they show up on the device it was made on as well as the cloud and other devices, but not the other Paperwhite. So, it's kind of pointless. No syncing defetes the purpose of having two devices (I just ended up with two because one got lost and then returned after purchasing a new one)

This would not be a huge problem except I have a vast library and I read my books daily. Without collections I am forced to rely on memory rather than Slooooowwwly wade through 1000+ books, both in the cloud and downloaded from my computer. Have you ever tried to browse your Kindle Paperwhite manually? Impossible.

This is why I use the collections (clunky and completly inefficient as they are already). I cannot jailbreak the devices to install Calibre Kindle Collections manager due to the new OS and firmware. I have been forced to generate a catalog from Calibre to refer to so that i know what I have and where I need to get it. This is an endevor that is ongoing, as now i have to completly edit each book in Calibre for tags, metadata, etc. before generating the catalog.

The Kindle Engineer department at Amazon hasn't figured it out, or hasn't tried hard enough because it has been ongoing. I suspect they think it is a problem with user error and I am dumbwit who just needs to do something to access them. I have actually been receiving regular updates from Customer Service Representative from Amazon for the past oh, two months now...He is so nice, he keeps telling me that he wish he could call and say "We did it!", but its been more of, "sorry, they still haven't figured it out yet."

I still can sync reading progress on the books, and have discovered a new perk that until now has never been able to be done before. Downloaded books from other devices (not in the cloud) sync between the two. I can read a book I downloaded off my computer that isn't in the cloud, and pick up the other device and the reading progress syncs.

OK, I know this isn't a rants forum, but I am hoping someone here can come up with a solution, or at least has gone through this.

[Barbara1955]

WOW that's what happened to me on the New Touch Basic! I had backup storage & re-downloaded 1400 books and 2 days Later they vanished AGAIN! Amazon couldn't explain it so I sent it back. Back to using my K3. So No your Not Alone!!!

[tomsem]

Amazon does not care at all about your side-loaded content when it comes to Cloud Collections. If you want it to track your personal content in collections, use Send To Kindle and store it in the cloud. Otherwise it is vulnerable to getting disassociated from the collection you try to put it in, since it is not something Amazon keeps track of. If you have calibre inserting ASINs to trick Amazon into syncing those side-loaded books between devices (even though it is not stored in the cloud), that may be another variable and I don't know what effect it would have on this one way or the other, since I don't use that calibre feature.

But first, a reality check: when you tap the Content filter/Views dropdown selector (with All Items, Books, Periodicals, Docs, Collections, Active Content) and select Collections, do you see your collections listed? if so, all is well, or as well as it can be given there may be issues with side-loaded content. Select one of those and you should see what is in them (greyed out if they are not on the device). If you want the collection to 'Show in all Views' then select that option from the menu. Show In All Views is a tricky feature that only occurs on Kindles, so it can be a little confusing or obscure if you are used to how it works on all other devices/apps. But assuming your collections are NOT showing there....

The next thing to check is that I thought that there was a firmware update for the current Kindles which made it possible to 'hide' any cloud collection from displaying on a particular Kindle. So there was a way to 'remove' it (from the device) as well as to 'delete' it (from the cloud). And there was a way to un-hide it (restore it from the cloud). However I do not have a current generation Kindle to check this on, and cannot find any actual reference to such a feature here or anywhere else, so it is entirely possible that this is a false memory or a true memory about some discussion of a hypothetical feature, albeit one which if it were to actually exist, could totally explain what you are seeing. Surely someone with a current Kindle will read this thread and can confirm if it is a real feature.

Did you ever de-register the 'problem' kindles? I would do that, then Reset. In theory, Reset de-registers as well, but it might be worth trying explicit de-register first. That will clear out pretty much everything for a fresh start. It will download and index the default dictionary for the language you choose when setting it up. Then you can add something to the device (from the cloud) and see what collections it is in.

I have never done a Reset myself until just now, but it is probably not a bad idea to do one once in awhile just to clean up garbage files. A few months after I got my Paperwhite 1, I ran out of space and discovered a bunch of zombie files that were chewing up several hundred megabytes. I deleted the files 'manually', but I'd probably use Reset next time. Of course this only works well if you have collections set up that can manage your reading workflow (To read, reading now, reading complete, reading suspended etc.)

[Barbara1955]

My collections WERE in the Amazon Cloud as was 400+ ebooks they Vanished TWICE! Not only did I do a Hard re-set I also De-register it & Re-formatted it on my own & with the Amazon Tech online! I reloaded for Amazon Cloud them my backup added the files Not on amazon. 1 week later they VANISHED again! We tried everything AGAIN! When they VANISHED the third time I formatted it dereg & sent it back for Full refund Clearly marking all papers invoice & making sure when they got it Amazon would know it was defective. The Only thing I never understood is WHY didn't they offer me an exchange? I figured Others were having the same problem. So why exchange a defective product with another defective product. The last time they were on sale I called an asked if the problem of the Vanishing ebooks had been fixed they said NO!

BTW I had No Problems with the K3 nor my Amazon Phone nor my PC app while this was going on Nor have I had problems with them.

[Barty]

My friend bought a kindle voyage and said her collection is gone. She just assumed that amazon does not care about her sideloaded books. I don't use collection at all so I had no advice for her. Seems something has changed.

[fendesa]

the problem and solved as @tomsem wrote, without deleting anything, maybe you have just hidden collections. Even when I could not find more e-books, and had accidentally disabled collections

[Barbara1955]

My were Not on the Basic! When I Put the books on it was 1/2 full via my pc when the Vanish I thought they were there but hidden NOT The only space taken on the HD was org software space!