Problem opening specific books

Hollow Man · 05-30-2022, 03:38 PM

I'm having an issue, which I've seen mentioned on Amazon forums and Reddit, where some Amazon purchased books that used to open on my original Oasis will not. Restarting doesn't work. Deleting and resending doesn't work. Finding the book in the Kindle store and opening from there seems to be the only workaround other than the "fix" of resetting back to factory settings (I have too many sideloaded books to make this viable).

The two books I have with this issue are Troubled Blood (Galbraith) and Fire and Blood (Martin). It seems that the issue may have to do with the book itself, since another person also mentioned issues with Troubled Blood. I suspect this is a Kindle update issue.

Anyone else experience this and have ideas of what to try to fix it?

cvkemp · 05-30-2022, 03:41 PM

This actually the reason I use Calibre and only have the 6 to 8 books that I am reading on at any one time.

tomsem · 05-30-2022, 03:56 PM

I encountered this issue with one of my books a couple of weeks ago (on 3 different Kindles; the Kindle app was fine), but it seems to be working now. [Edit: it is not fixed. It ‘downloads’ but I cannot open the book and read it.]

I own Troubled Blood, and it downloaded without an issue for me.

Hollow Man · 05-30-2022, 03:57 PM

I assume Amazon will eventually fix this. A few years back there was a serious issue where certain books would never get delivered at all then one day, poof, the floodgates opened. But in the meantime this is very annoying...

Hollow Man · 05-30-2022, 05:50 PM

Btw, another piece of weird behavior: normally when you long press on a downloaded book you get lots of options of what to do with it. For the two books this is a problem, the only options I have when I long press are "mark as read" and "permanently delete." Options such as "see in store," add to/remove from collection," "go to," and "search this book" are missing.

tomsem · 05-30-2022, 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hollow Man

Btw, another piece of weird behavior: normally when you long press on a downloaded book you get lots of options of what to do with it. For the two books this is a problem, the only options I have when I long press are "mark as read" and "permanently delete." Options such as "see in store," add to/remove from collection," "go to," and "search this book" are missing.

Yes.

Actually I still have the problem with the one book: it acts like it downloads, but does not Open. To safely remove it, I have to go to Manage Content page and then Sync the Kindle.

Another issue is that Print Replica books show up in collections but not in regular list/grid. Since they cannot be read on Kindles, so they should not show up anywhere.

Hollow Man · 05-30-2022, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomsem

Yes.

Actually I still have the problem with the one book: it acts like it downloads, but does not Open. To safely remove it, I have to go to Manage Content page and then Sync the Kindle.

Another issue is that Print Replica books show up in collections but not in regular list/grid. Since they cannot be read on Kindles, so they should not show up anywhere.

Thanks for responding. I just want to keep something going here so if/when someone finds a fix, or Amazon finally admits this is an issue and puts out an update to solve it, we can all be aware of it.

tomsem · 05-30-2022, 06:09 PM

I think it might take a customer service call to fix these: they can at least try to remove it and re-add it from your library. It seems something more to do with the version of the book your account points to.

For example, I have a book that is supposed to support Advanced Typography, but doesn’t. Others checked the sample and they don’t see this issue.

Hollow Man · 05-30-2022, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomsem

I think it might take a customer service call to fix these: they can at least try to remove it and re-add it from your library.

From other things I've read the only thing customer service has recommended to people is to reset the Kindle. Which solves it, but blows away all content from it.

tomsem · 05-30-2022, 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hollow Man

From other things I've read the only thing customer service has recommended to people is to reset the Kindle. Which solves it, but blows away all content from it.

It is something they like to suggest, but reveals their cluelessness about what is actually going on: reset fixes very few issues. But the average CS person is not going to escalate it, they probably get scolded for doing it until they’ve made the customer go through the inconvenience of this unnecessary troubleshooting step.

In this case, I would be confident Reset does not fix this issue, as it is on 3 different Kindles (one of which has no content on it).

They need to re-think Kindle support somehow. You should be able to file an incident on the Kindle itself that captures logs and sends them in for automated analysis and triage, rather than having that done by ill-trained and un-empowered humans (a thankless job as well). They’ve got the AI/ML tech, and the scale needed to pull this off. Have a couple of interns put it together for their summer project.

Hollow Man · 05-30-2022, 06:39 PM

Agreed! In the meantime, the workaround of finding it in the store and launching from that page works, it's just very cumbersome.

tomsem · 05-31-2022, 05:42 PM

So Troubled Blood cannot be opened by me either

As you’ve said, a workaround is to (always) go to Store to open. So it appears it is not account specific.

Hollow Man · 05-31-2022, 05:51 PM

I found another book with the issue: Count Zero by William Gibson.

tomsem · 05-31-2022, 08:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hollow Man

I found another book with the issue: Count Zero by William Gibson.

Same for me. I have all three books of Sprawl Trilogy and they all have the issue.

And there’s a variant: after downloading Count Zero, Neuromancer appears in List view with NEW badge but without the downloaded checkmark, when Downloaded filter is applied (the context menu has Download in it).

So back to Digital Content page to remove them.

I tried Restart, and turning off Series Grouping, no change.

One of my Kindles had zero content on it so I am trying Reset to see if it helps. It’s nice they have added Amazon Device Simple Setup, it just took a couple of minutes to get it registered and on WiFi. (But any themes, preferences, dictionaries, downloaded fonts etc will need to be restored)

Surprise: I’m still waiting for the library to fully sync but Count Zero has a normal menu, downloads and opens normally, and after closing it, it again has a normal menu. Same with the other book I had an issue with.

It does take awhile to sync my 3500+ library (at least 30 minutes now). This is on Kindle 10th generation.

But apparently Reset will fix this.

I guess I’ll go ahead and Reset the other 2 Kindles at some point.

acprinter · 06-01-2022, 11:15 AM

I have 3 Kindle Paperwhites, a 6th generation, a 7th generation and a 10th generation. Only the 7th generation exhibits this behavior. If I download direct from Amazon no problem, but side load using Calibre some will not open. To fix this I converted the book to EPUB and then back to AZW3. It has worked every time.

05-30-2022, 03:38 PM	#1
Hollow Man Evangelist Posts: 402 Karma: 2000000 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Connecticut Device: Kindle Colorsoft, Oasis, Keyboard; iPhone 13 Pro, Air	Problem opening specific books I'm having an issue, which I've seen mentioned on Amazon forums and Reddit, where some Amazon purchased books that used to open on my original Oasis will not. Restarting doesn't work. Deleting and resending doesn't work. Finding the book in the Kindle store and opening from there seems to be the only workaround other than the "fix" of resetting back to factory settings (I have too many sideloaded books to make this viable). The two books I have with this issue are Troubled Blood (Galbraith) and Fire and Blood (Martin). It seems that the issue may have to do with the book itself, since another person also mentioned issues with Troubled Blood. I suspect this is a Kindle update issue. Anyone else experience this and have ideas of what to try to fix it?

05-30-2022, 03:56 PM	#3
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,928 Karma: 27013865 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	I encountered this issue with one of my books a couple of weeks ago (on 3 different Kindles; the Kindle app was fine), but it seems to be working now. [Edit: it is not fixed. It ‘downloads’ but I cannot open the book and read it.] I own Troubled Blood, and it downloaded without an issue for me. Last edited by tomsem; 05-30-2022 at 06:08 PM.

05-30-2022, 06:09 PM	#8
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,928 Karma: 27013865 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	I think it might take a customer service call to fix these: they can at least try to remove it and re-add it from your library. It seems something more to do with the version of the book your account points to. For example, I have a book that is supposed to support Advanced Typography, but doesn’t. Others checked the sample and they don’t see this issue. Last edited by tomsem; 05-30-2022 at 06:11 PM.

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05-30-2022, 03:41 PM	#2
cvkemp Loving life Posts: 1,430 Karma: 7991496 Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Hot Springs Village, Arkansas Device: PaperWhite 6 SE, Fire HD8	This actually the reason I use Calibre and only have the 6 to 8 books that I am reading on at any one time.

05-30-2022, 03:57 PM	#4
Hollow Man Evangelist Posts: 402 Karma: 2000000 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Connecticut Device: Kindle Colorsoft, Oasis, Keyboard; iPhone 13 Pro, Air	I assume Amazon will eventually fix this. A few years back there was a serious issue where certain books would never get delivered at all then one day, poof, the floodgates opened. But in the meantime this is very annoying...

05-30-2022, 05:50 PM	#5
Hollow Man Evangelist Posts: 402 Karma: 2000000 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Connecticut Device: Kindle Colorsoft, Oasis, Keyboard; iPhone 13 Pro, Air	Btw, another piece of weird behavior: normally when you long press on a downloaded book you get lots of options of what to do with it. For the two books this is a problem, the only options I have when I long press are "mark as read" and "permanently delete." Options such as "see in store," add to/remove from collection," "go to," and "search this book" are missing.

05-30-2022, 06:39 PM	#11
Hollow Man Evangelist Posts: 402 Karma: 2000000 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Connecticut Device: Kindle Colorsoft, Oasis, Keyboard; iPhone 13 Pro, Air	Agreed! In the meantime, the workaround of finding it in the store and launching from that page works, it's just very cumbersome.

05-31-2022, 05:42 PM	#12
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,928 Karma: 27013865 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	So Troubled Blood cannot be opened by me either As you’ve said, a workaround is to (always) go to Store to open. So it appears it is not account specific.

05-31-2022, 05:51 PM	#13
Hollow Man Evangelist Posts: 402 Karma: 2000000 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Connecticut Device: Kindle Colorsoft, Oasis, Keyboard; iPhone 13 Pro, Air	I found another book with the issue: Count Zero by William Gibson.

06-01-2022, 11:15 AM	#15
acprinter Groupie Posts: 163 Karma: 3141364 Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: California Gold Country Device: Paperwhite 11th generation	I have 3 Kindle Paperwhites, a 6th generation, a 7th generation and a 10th generation. Only the 7th generation exhibits this behavior. If I download direct from Amazon no problem, but side load using Calibre some will not open. To fix this I converted the book to EPUB and then back to AZW3. It has worked every time.

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