Amazon removed books from my Kindle

[CamilleScholtz]

A quick summary of the thread from what I gather, correct me if I'm wrong: AZW3 and KFX books that are marked with EBOK rather than PDOC get removed after a device comes online after having been offline for an extended amount of time.

Does anyone actually know what this timeframe is? Days? Weeks?

Also I saw someone ask if there are any differences between EBOK and PDOC, for me the reason to use EBOK is because generated x-ray files (using calibre's WordDumb plugin) only work with EBOK.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by CamilleScholtz

Does anyone actually know what this timeframe is? Days? Weeks?

Weeks, it looks like. No one knows exactly.

[slm]

Some of the speculation was that this happens when the kindle's clock is too far out of sync with the network clock. A Kindle with the wifi on updates its time from the network regularly. A Kindle with the wifi off, relies on the internal timekeeping chip. This tend to drift slowly, but the drift is not very predictable, which would be consistent with the observations that the time is not very predictable.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by slm

Some of the speculation was that this happens when the kindle's clock is too far out of sync with the network clock. A Kindle with the wifi on updates its time from the network regularly. A Kindle with the wifi off, relies on the internal timekeeping chip. This tend to drift slowly, but the drift is not very predictable, which would be consistent with the observations that the time is not very predictable.

Not totally certain but back when this was still a big issue, I tried taking my Kindle offline, setting the clock about 26 hours ahead and then turning WiFi back on. No effect. The time that I left it in Airplane mode for 5 weeks, the time had drifted by less that a minute before I turned WiFi back on and the books were removed.

I still tend to suspect that after a Kindle has been offline for an extended period, Amazon checks the books to see if any books are present that are no longer in your Amazon account, whether they be returned KU, deleted purchases or sideloaded books with an ASIN, so any books with a valid ASIN that are not present in your books are removed.

[roddy20]

Originally Posted by roddy20

hello!
maybe, someone knows how to remove this dialog?
since amazon blocked my account I don't want to deal with them anymore
or point to the right topic, please
Thanks

I mean, maybe its possible to edit/replace some files on kindle filesystem?
if you don't know how really to do this, please don't write idiotic answers to register again or buy a new device
thanks

[texasnightowl]

I swear. Amazon is pushing me into switching little by little. I just had 20 or more books deleted. I had some KU books I wanted to download so turned off airplane mode and synced. Big mistake. All sideloaded books...including some that are just fanfic from Ao3...got deleted. Poof.

To be fair, I probably converted them to azw3 and so were ebok type instead of kfx/pdoc. But still. Amazon is pissing me off. ��

It had only been about 2 weeks since I last synced too! So not a long time!

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by texasnightowl

To be fair, I probably converted them to azw3 and so were ebok type instead of kfx/pdoc. But still. Amazon is pissing me off. ��

You can get AZW3 with PDOC type if you check the 'enable sharing' export option. These will not get removed.

[texasnightowl]

Originally Posted by tomsem

You can get AZW3 with PDOC type if you check the 'enable sharing' export option. These will not get removed.

oh really? did not know that. good to know.

I actually loaded about a dozen books the other night but started converting to kfx. So they are on my PW5 and are labeled as Personal Documents. So time will tell. I haven't taken my PW5 off airplane mode yet.

[odamizu]

FYI, there appears to be a related(?) issue where sideloaded books are now getting an "Invalid ASIN" error, even, apparently, when a book has a valid ASIN. I'm curious how this relates to the PDOC/EBOK issue and why this ASIN check was even introduced.

from Reddit:

So I can now confirm that version 5.18.4.0.1 has the Invalid Asin issue on my Kindle. As mentioned before, originally I wasn't having issues. Put my Kindle to sleep for several hours and then later I sideloaded two more books (AZW3, both with valid ASINs) using Calibre to see what would happen. Sure enough, my Kindle threw a wobbly when I tried to open the newest books, and I got stuck in an endless loop of Invalid ASIN error messages. Had to restart the Kindle to escape the loop.

Using the three dots menu and selecting Go To is the only way to open those books without an error coming up.

[Quoth]

What happens if there is no ASIN?

[KrystalMass]

Originally Posted by Quoth

What happens if there is no ASIN?

Excellent question, and I've just tested it by sideloading an AZW3 without any kind of ID. It opened without any issue. And that's good news, I guess.

Steps I took in Calibre:

1. Removed IDs from the metadata from original epub.

2. Edit Book, run check on epub to fix any errors. Saved.

3. Converted epub format to AZW3.

4. Polished Book with "Update Metadata in the book files" checked (plus a few others, "Remove unused CSS" and "Add soft hyphens")

5. Connected 5.18.4.0.1 Kindle to Calibre and sent AZW3 to it over USB.

6. Eject device.

After all this, a normal tap on the book cover in the Kindle works fine - no errors. Maybe later I should try this process on one of the sideloaded books that did give me errors and report what happens. I'm not an expert on any of this stuff, but I do want to help resolve this problem for all those affected.

[KrystalMass]

Originally Posted by KrystalMass

Maybe later I should try this process on one of the sideloaded books that did give me errors and report what happens.

I re-sideloaded one of the books that previously had given the Invalid ASIN error, this time using the steps to remove all of the IDs as per my earlier comment. And it opened just fine this time, no error.

So, this process seems to work. I don't know what this potentially breaks, if anything. Obviously no X-ray / About This Book (which I believe Amazon uses its ASIN for along with book covers).

[KrystalMass]

Originally Posted by KrystalMass

I re-sideloaded one of the books that previously had given the Invalid ASIN error, this time using the steps to remove all of the IDs as per my earlier comment. And it opened just fine this time, no error.

So, this process seems to work. I don't know what this potentially breaks, if anything. Obviously no X-ray / About This Book (which I believe Amazon uses its ASIN for along with book covers).

Last comment for a while - sorry, I can't edit my earlier comments. Removing IDs breaks book covers showing on the sleep screen. You do see the book covers in the Kindle's library. I know that Standard Ebooks uses a mobi-asin as an ID and the filenames for their book cover thumbnails seem to use that mobi-asin. I have no idea how mobi-asins are created. Is that something Calibre can do? Maybe during Polish Book and having the Update book cover box checked?

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by KrystalMass

Excellent question, and I've just tested it by sideloading an AZW3 without any kind of ID. It opened without any issue. And that's good news, I guess.

I'll remove ASIN on any Calibre content that has it, though I've never ever added ASINs.

[shamanNS]

@Quoth Calibre adds book's GUID as value for ASIN for each conversion it does.