Kindle Paperwhite not discovered

[stevene]

I'm trying to connect an 11th generation Kindle Paperwhite, running firmware 5.19.6, but it doesn't show up in the Calibre interface. This is running on Ubuntu 26.04 with latest updates, and Calibre 9.13.0

Running device connection diagnostics I get the following output (serial number censored). Anyone encountered anything similar?



calibre 9.13 embedded-python: True
Linux-7.0.0-30-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.43 Linux ('64bit', 'ELF')
('Linux', '7.0.0-30-generic', '#30-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Fri Jul 31 18:22:54 UTC 2026')
Python 3.14.6
Linux: Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
Interface language: None
EXE path: /opt/calibre/bin/calibre
USB devices on system:
[['0x408', '0x5390', '0x10', 'Quanta', 'HP Full-HD Camera', '01.00.00'],
['0x6cb', '0xb7', '0x164', '', '', 'XXXXX'],
['0x8087', '0x29', '0x1', '', '', ''],
['0x1949', '0x9981', '0x223', 'Amazon', 'Kindle', 'XXXXXX']]

No disabled plugins
Looking for devices of type: MTP_DEVICE
MTP devices connected:
USBDevice(busnum=1, devnum=7, vendor_id=0x1949, product_id=0x9981, bcd=0x0223, manufacturer=Amazon, product=Kindle, serial=XXXXX)

Trying to open: USBDevice(busnum=1, devnum=7, vendor_id=0x1949, product_id=0x9981, bcd=0x0223, manufacturer=Amazon, product=Kindle, serial=XXXXX)
Opening device failed:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre/devices/mtp/unix/driver.py", line 226, in open
File "calibre/devices/mtp/base.py", line 22, in synchronizer
File "calibre/devices/mtp/unix/driver.py", line 179, in create_device
libmtp.MTPError: Unable to open MTP device with busnum=1 and devnum=7, tried 1 such devices

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "calibre/devices/mtp/unix/driver.py", line 154, in debug_managed_device_detection
File "calibre/devices/mtp/driver.py", line 184, in open
File "calibre/devices/mtp/base.py", line 22, in synchronizer
File "calibre/devices/mtp/unix/driver.py", line 229, in open
calibre.devices.errors.OpenFailed: Failed to open USBDevice(busnum=1, devnum=7, vendor_id=0x1949, product_id=0x9981, bcd=0x0223, manufacturer=Amazon, product=Kindle, serial=XXXXX): Error: Unable to open MTP device with busnum=1 and devnum=7, tried 1 such devices


Looking for devices of type: SMART_DEVICE_APP
All IP addresses {'lo': [{'addr': '127.0.0.1', 'netmask': '255.0.0.0', 'peer': '127.0.0.1'}], 'wlp108s0': [{'addr': '192.168.0.50', 'netmask': '255.255.255.0', 'broadcast': '192.168.0.255'}], 'virbr0': [{'addr': '192.168.122.1', 'netmask': '255.255.255.0', 'broadcast': '192.168.122.255'}], 'docker0': [{'addr': '172.17.0.1', 'netmask': '255.255.0.0', 'broadcast': '172.17.255.255'}]}
No device is connected

Looking for devices...

Devices possibly connected: None

[DNSB]

It looks as if your Kindle is being automounted as an MTP device. Since you can only have one connection to an MTP device, calibre is unable to use it. I'll leave it to you to find out how to dismount the Kindle before running calibre.

[JSWolf]

Why would the PW5 mount as MTP?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Why would the PW5 mount as MTP?

I suspect the OP made a mistake in his generation. AFAIK, the 11th gen Paperwhite is still using 5.19.2 which lead me to suspect they had a 12th gen Paperwhite when I first read the original message. This is supported by the ids for the MTP device (vendor_id=0x1949, product_id=0x9981, bcd=0x0223 belongs to a 12th gen Paperwhite).

Though Amazon did move the original Scribe from being a USBMS connection to an MTP connection in a firmware update.

[stevene]

Thanks for the replies. The Kindle is an 11th gen, as reported by "About device" on the Kindle itself anyway. The comment about the MTP device having been automounted was absolutely correct, I thought it wasn't mounted until I clicked on it in the file browser, but turns out I was wrong when I looked closer.

For the reference of others, here are the commands I ran in order to disable automount (for a Gnome based desktop)

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.media-handling automount false
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.media-handling automount-open false

This disables automounting for all devices I plug in, not just for the Kindle, I could have done something more selective via udev but automount isn't actually that useful for me anyway so happy with this solution.

Calibre has now successfully detected the Kindle, thanks everyone.