Troubleshooting Random rebooting in sleep mode

Rob Y · 11-08-2010, 04:04 PM

I have searched through this and many other forums, been on the phone with customer service but am still yet to see another person with the issue I have been having. I am now on my 3rd Kindle that I just got on Friday and the same issue is occuring and it is driving me insane.

The problem is when the Kindle goes into sleep mode, it will just randomly reboot itself and when I go back to it, it will be on either the home screen or the first sleep mode "wallpaper". Then when I go back to the book I was reading, the spot where I was is lost.

Since this is now happening to a 3rd brand new Kindle and I seem to be the only person experiencing this, it has to be something I am doing wrong and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated (it seems to happen mostly after I have been walking with it, but it also happens when it has just been sitting). I've also done everything from restarting by holding the sliding bar for 30 seconds, restarting from the Settings, holding the slide bar for at least 2 seconds when waking it, sliding it to put it to sleep, not sliding it to put it to sleep, restoring to factory default and updating with the latest software releases but nothing has worked so far. Also I have less than 20 books on it, so it can't be that it is over loaded with information.

I really would like to find a better solution then just getting another Kindle sent to me or even getting a refund for it because I really do like the device. it is just this one very annoying issue that I cannot seem to solve.

Solicitous · 11-08-2010, 04:55 PM

Check out this thread (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=101734) I had the same problem. I tried firmware updates, restore to factory settings and re-setup the kindle, wifi on/off. No difference. I spoke with Amazon and their solution (as I had gone through all the steps they would have suggested anyway) was to replace the Kindle.

I am not sure what causes it. Our second Kindle does it occasionally but the wife is happy to leave it for now. I did catch it the other day doing a reboot, essentially all that happened was the screen flickered a few times then started up, so the Kindle isn't doing a proper shutdown/reboot, it appears to be a hard reboot. Her Kindle is running 3.0.3 so no doubt a hardware problem.

desertblues · 11-08-2010, 05:05 PM

It can't be that one of those 20 books gets stuck on indexing? Perhaps you could try to load one book and see wether the Kindle still acts weird------than then next--- etc.
That's all I can think of. But I hope someone on MR recognizes the problem.

Rob Y · 11-08-2010, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Check out this thread (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=101734) I had the same problem. I tried firmware updates, restore to factory settings and re-setup the kindle, wifi on/off. No difference. I spoke with Amazon and their solution (as I had gone through all the steps they would have suggested anyway) was to replace the Kindle.

I am not sure what causes it. Our second Kindle does it occasionally but the wife is happy to leave it for now. I did catch it the other day doing a reboot, essentially all that happened was the screen flickered a few times then started up, so the Kindle isn't doing a proper shutdown/reboot, it appears to be a hard reboot. Her Kindle is running 3.0.3 so no doubt a hardware problem.

Thanks for the link. Looks like I've had (3 times now) the same problem you had and it seems like there is no solution outside of getting a new Kindle. And right on cue, just as I get home I checked out my newest Kindle and it is in the middle of another reboot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by desertblues

It can't be that one of those 20 books gets stuck on indexing? Perhaps you could try to load one book and see wether the Kindle still acts weird------than then next--- etc.
That's all I can think of. But I hope someone on MR recognizes the problem.

Yeah, I've seen the indexing thing as a possible solution or problem source of some other issues so I have tried to see if anything is still indexing, but there aren't any.

Ugh, oh well. I guess before I call CS again to get a new one, I'll try a factory reset and put only the book I am currently reading on it.

joobies · 11-08-2010, 07:00 PM

I have an original Kindle that is doing this sort of thing. Was making me nuts to continue to lose my place in the book I was reading. We have since come to terms and are living in harmony again. The kindle does what it needs to do... and I bookmark my page when I am done reading. I can return to the bookmarked page with relative ease.

The book I am having issues with is a library book.... I was really hoping it was related to that.

Good luck to you and your Kindle(s).

DiapDealer · 11-08-2010, 07:05 PM

My Kindle 2 did this several times. It puzzled me for a while, but then... it stopped doing it. And I forgot all about it... until now.

bliink · 11-09-2010, 08:43 AM

Could this be related to the books you've been trying to load?

I was having a similar issue with one particular book I had on my Kindle. I'd converted it from HTML to mobi and emailed it over, had no problems reading it but if I put the Kindle into sleep mode halfway through the book I'd come back to see it restarting!

Took me a few restarts to realise the book was the issue, deleted it and haven't had the problem since.

Rob Y · 11-09-2010, 12:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bliink

Could this be related to the books you've been trying to load?

I was having a similar issue with one particular book I had on my Kindle. I'd converted it from HTML to mobi and emailed it over, had no problems reading it but if I put the Kindle into sleep mode halfway through the book I'd come back to see it restarting!

Took me a few restarts to realise the book was the issue, deleted it and haven't had the problem since.

It is very possible that it was one of the books that I had loaded on there that was causing the problems for me. Last night I put everything, except for the book I am currently reading, in archives and so far (knock on wood) it seems to be running smoother with no rebooting issues. I even checked out my iPhone Kindle app and it was finding and syncing to the last page read a lot better then it was without all the books archived.

Of course it hasn't been even a full day yet so it could go right back to the random rebooting, but for some reason I do feel the slightest bit of confidence that this was the source of the problem.

I'll check back in with this thread in a couple days to give an update and hopefully it is a positive one. Thanks to all for the suggestions.

desertblues · 11-09-2010, 01:50 PM

Good for you; keep your fingers crossed.

I read once about a book somewhere in the forum that kept indexing till Doomsday and caused instability of the Kindle.
And indexing is a weak point of the Kindle.
Could also be caused a badly formatted book.
Good luck.

Rob Y · 11-09-2010, 03:04 PM

Unfortunately I don't have to wait a couple days for an update. Just as I stepped out for lunch I went to my Kindle and found it was on the home page after rebooting once again. So it is not an indexing or faulty book situation since the only book I had on there was new and not on any of the previous 2 Kindles that was giving me problems. Looks like it is a hardware issue like Solicitous was saying and I just happened to receive a 3rd device with hardware issues.

Oh well, looks like another call will be going into CS who thankfully have been very nice and helpful so far.

chilady1 · 11-09-2010, 03:54 PM

I have been experiencing the random re-boot since downloading the firmware 3.0.3 version. I had this problem early on when I first got my Kindle but 3.0.1 fixed that but now with 3.0.3 - it's back! In addition, it loses my place when it reboots, driving me crazy! Ugh!

Before calling Amazon, I am going to track this more.

phineas · 11-10-2010, 05:27 PM

Quote:

I am now on my 3rd Kindle that I just got on Friday and the same issue is occuring and it is driving me insane.

I have also been through three Kindle 3 Wi-Fi units. After the third one went into a spontaneous-reboot loop 5 hours after I got it (and 5 minutes into use), I had had enough. I asked for a refund and was promptly given one. (I have no complaints about Amazon C.S. except that they can't really do anything but authorize a replacement or refund.)

In my case the problems varied slightly on each of the three units. All three experienced spontaneous restarts and freezes. All regularly required me to do a 15-second hard reset if I hadn't used the Kindle in more than 30 minutes or so. I also experienced blank screens, rapid battery discharge while in sleep mode, loss of proper time, loss of last page read, and so forth. If you read other people's accounts, all but the rapid battery discharge is described fairly similarly. I don't believe that anything the user does precipitates the problems. It acts like a bad memory chip, random corruption of data or code in memory.

I've got some experience testing beta computer hardware, apps and operating systems. I tried everything looking for an operational or usage pattern, including checking the validity of the indexing and only keeping one book at a time on the Kindle. Amazon support told me they were sure it was not any usage pattern of mine, anything about my profile, or anything about my books. I don't store anything but books and I've never performed unsupported customizations. I also experienced these problems with firmware versions 3.0.1, 3.0.2 and 3.0.3 early preview, so it's not a faulty firmware patch. (Although I fully believe people who say their experience changed one way or another after a firmware update -- for me there was no change.)

I have a suspicion: I believe that Amazon is fulfilling support replacements out of its returns. They are aware of this problem but they don't know for sure what's causing it. They go through a checklist and diagnostics on each return and then recertify it if it passes. It's an intermittent problem, though. So their check-in might not catch it.

My guess is that there was a hardware issue with an internal component. If you ordered anywhere from August through most of October, they were on back order then. Not everyone got this "bad batch" of Kindles. But if you're relying on support replacements, you're more likely to get a bad one. That's my theory, anyway.

As mentioned above, I just returned my third Kindle latest generation for a refund. My plan is to wait until the credit appears and keep watching the forums like this one -- looking to see when the complaints die down -- then I'm going to reorder it. What I've noticed is that the complaints have already begun to diminish. My hope is that that's an indicator that the problem has been resolved with units manufactured after a certain date.

Despite all the problems I've had, I vastly prefer the design and screen of the Kindle 3 over all previous models.

It might be useful if those people with Kindle 3 problems posted the dates they ordered or received their Kindle 3s. I received my first one on Sept. 16.

CJCinIL · 11-11-2010, 12:22 PM

I'm happy (in a way) to have finally found someone else who was experiencing the weird reboot phenomenon. I was getting so frustrated with losing my page! I too have just been utilizing the bookmark feature, so no more lost pages.
I'll be watching this forum to see if there is a software fix down the road. I expected bugs like this to be ironed out and fixed my Kindle 3. I guess not.

desertblues · 11-11-2010, 03:36 PM

I ordered my Kindle first chance I got and Amazon shipped it to me by the end of August (Netherlands). It had softwareversion 3.0.0.

Apart from instability in the beginning, due to indexing a lot of books and a heavy batterydrain because of it, I never had any real problems.
I now have 3.0.3.

phineas · 11-11-2010, 09:16 PM

For what it's worth, I leave most of my books in the archive at all times. I rarely have more than a dozen or two on the Kindle itself at any one time. I also received my first Kindle with 3.0.0. While 3.0.0 was installed, I only had one issue. It was an isolated two or three spontaneous reboots the first day. A few days after that I installed 3.0.1. I got almost 10 days of trouble-free operation after that first day. Then the problems began in earnest.

One interesting thing I've noticed: A lot of people who have the battery discharge problem note that they leave the Wi-Fi off unless they need to synch. Initially I operated that way too. I changed the usage pattern and left Wi-Fi on all the time. The battery discharge problem went away. But this is over the span of three different Kindles. It's purely anecdotal.

11-08-2010, 04:04 PM	#1
Rob Y Member Posts: 10 Karma: 102 Join Date: Nov 2010 Device: Kindle	Random rebooting in sleep mode I have searched through this and many other forums, been on the phone with customer service but am still yet to see another person with the issue I have been having. I am now on my 3rd Kindle that I just got on Friday and the same issue is occuring and it is driving me insane. The problem is when the Kindle goes into sleep mode, it will just randomly reboot itself and when I go back to it, it will be on either the home screen or the first sleep mode "wallpaper". Then when I go back to the book I was reading, the spot where I was is lost. Since this is now happening to a 3rd brand new Kindle and I seem to be the only person experiencing this, it has to be something I am doing wrong and any suggestions would be greatly appreciated (it seems to happen mostly after I have been walking with it, but it also happens when it has just been sitting). I've also done everything from restarting by holding the sliding bar for 30 seconds, restarting from the Settings, holding the slide bar for at least 2 seconds when waking it, sliding it to put it to sleep, not sliding it to put it to sleep, restoring to factory default and updating with the latest software releases but nothing has worked so far. Also I have less than 20 books on it, so it can't be that it is over loaded with information. I really would like to find a better solution then just getting another Kindle sent to me or even getting a refund for it because I really do like the device. it is just this one very annoying issue that I cannot seem to solve.

11-09-2010, 01:50 PM	#9
desertblues Home for the moment Posts: 5,127 Karma: 27718936 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: travelling Device: various	Good for you; keep your fingers crossed. I read once about a book somewhere in the forum that kept indexing till Doomsday and caused instability of the Kindle. And indexing is a weak point of the Kindle. Could also be caused a badly formatted book. Good luck. Last edited by desertblues; 11-09-2010 at 01:59 PM. Reason: grammar and haste= chaos

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11-08-2010, 04:55 PM	#2
Solicitous Wizard Posts: 1,434 Karma: 1525776 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: TAS, Australia Device: Astak Pocket Pro (Black), 2 x Kindle WiFi (Graphite), iPod Touch 4G	Check out this thread (https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=101734) I had the same problem. I tried firmware updates, restore to factory settings and re-setup the kindle, wifi on/off. No difference. I spoke with Amazon and their solution (as I had gone through all the steps they would have suggested anyway) was to replace the Kindle. I am not sure what causes it. Our second Kindle does it occasionally but the wife is happy to leave it for now. I did catch it the other day doing a reboot, essentially all that happened was the screen flickered a few times then started up, so the Kindle isn't doing a proper shutdown/reboot, it appears to be a hard reboot. Her Kindle is running 3.0.3 so no doubt a hardware problem.

11-08-2010, 05:05 PM	#3
desertblues Home for the moment Posts: 5,127 Karma: 27718936 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: travelling Device: various	It can't be that one of those 20 books gets stuck on indexing? Perhaps you could try to load one book and see wether the Kindle still acts weird------than then next--- etc. That's all I can think of. But I hope someone on MR recognizes the problem.

11-08-2010, 07:00 PM	#5
joobies Addict Posts: 234 Karma: 1856 Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: Midwest USA Device: Kindle 1, Sony PRS-505	I have an original Kindle that is doing this sort of thing. Was making me nuts to continue to lose my place in the book I was reading. We have since come to terms and are living in harmony again. The kindle does what it needs to do... and I bookmark my page when I am done reading. I can return to the bookmarked page with relative ease. The book I am having issues with is a library book.... I was really hoping it was related to that. Good luck to you and your Kindle(s).

11-08-2010, 07:05 PM	#6
DiapDealer Grand Sorcerer Posts: 28,361 Karma: 203720150 Join Date: Jan 2010 Device: Nexus 7, Kindle Fire HD	My Kindle 2 did this several times. It puzzled me for a while, but then... it stopped doing it. And I forgot all about it... until now.

11-09-2010, 08:43 AM	#7
bliink Junior Member Posts: 6 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2006 Device: Kindle 3, RIP Sony PRS-500	Could this be related to the books you've been trying to load? I was having a similar issue with one particular book I had on my Kindle. I'd converted it from HTML to mobi and emailed it over, had no problems reading it but if I put the Kindle into sleep mode halfway through the book I'd come back to see it restarting! Took me a few restarts to realise the book was the issue, deleted it and haven't had the problem since.

11-09-2010, 03:04 PM	#10
Rob Y Member Posts: 10 Karma: 102 Join Date: Nov 2010 Device: Kindle	Unfortunately I don't have to wait a couple days for an update. Just as I stepped out for lunch I went to my Kindle and found it was on the home page after rebooting once again. So it is not an indexing or faulty book situation since the only book I had on there was new and not on any of the previous 2 Kindles that was giving me problems. Looks like it is a hardware issue like Solicitous was saying and I just happened to receive a 3rd device with hardware issues. Oh well, looks like another call will be going into CS who thankfully have been very nice and helpful so far.

11-09-2010, 03:54 PM	#11
chilady1 I devour books! Posts: 789 Karma: 1285226 Join Date: Mar 2009 Device: iPad Air, Kindle 3/Kobo Aura HD, iPhone 6	I have been experiencing the random re-boot since downloading the firmware 3.0.3 version. I had this problem early on when I first got my Kindle but 3.0.1 fixed that but now with 3.0.3 - it's back! In addition, it loses my place when it reboots, driving me crazy! Ugh! Before calling Amazon, I am going to track this more.

11-11-2010, 12:22 PM	#13
CJCinIL Junior Member Posts: 1 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2010 Device: Kindle 3	I'm happy (in a way) to have finally found someone else who was experiencing the weird reboot phenomenon. I was getting so frustrated with losing my page! I too have just been utilizing the bookmark feature, so no more lost pages. I'll be watching this forum to see if there is a software fix down the road. I expected bugs like this to be ironed out and fixed my Kindle 3. I guess not.

11-11-2010, 03:36 PM	#14
desertblues Home for the moment Posts: 5,127 Karma: 27718936 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: travelling Device: various	I ordered my Kindle first chance I got and Amazon shipped it to me by the end of August (Netherlands). It had softwareversion 3.0.0. Apart from instability in the beginning, due to indexing a lot of books and a heavy batterydrain because of it, I never had any real problems. I now have 3.0.3.

11-11-2010, 09:16 PM	#15
phineas Member Posts: 10 Karma: 10 Join Date: Nov 2010 Device: Kindle 3 Wi-Fi, Kindle 2 and iPad	For what it's worth, I leave most of my books in the archive at all times. I rarely have more than a dozen or two on the Kindle itself at any one time. I also received my first Kindle with 3.0.0. While 3.0.0 was installed, I only had one issue. It was an isolated two or three spontaneous reboots the first day. A few days after that I installed 3.0.1. I got almost 10 days of trouble-free operation after that first day. Then the problems began in earnest. One interesting thing I've noticed: A lot of people who have the battery discharge problem note that they leave the Wi-Fi off unless they need to synch. Initially I operated that way too. I changed the usage pattern and left Wi-Fi on all the time. The battery discharge problem went away. But this is over the span of three different Kindles. It's purely anecdotal.