Troubleshooting Is Amazon preventing me from downloading?

[deb27]

Once upon a time I used to use the download and transfer via USB to put my books in calibre and then transfer to my kindle. And life was good. But with all the recent changes Amazon has made, this is no longer a viable option. So I decided to suck it up and do exactly what Amazon wants.

• I have a paperwhite gen 11.
• I have purchased (i.e. the content license) approximately 1800 books from Amazon.
• I want my ENTIRE library on my kindle

So, I did a factory reset. Which wiped out everything on the Kindle.
And then, using Amazon's Digital content page started selecting all purchased books and chose to download them to my device.

I reached a little over 600 books and then the downloads effectively stopped. In the last two days, no matter how many books I've selected I get nothing.

Books I select directly on the device just stay Queued.

The "pending deliveries" page on Amazon shows books which have been there for 2 days. They haven't been delivered.

I have restarted the device. I've done a hard reset. I've check the wifi connection.

I think amazon may be blocking my downloads. I've spoken to support. They told me to wait. I asked how many days I needed to wait. Didn't get an answer.

I'm stuck. Has anyone else seen this? Has anyone else solved this?


Yes I've read the threads about workarounds to side loading. At this point, I'm tired of fighting. I've been beaten into submission. I just want to download the books I've paid for.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by deb27

Once upon a time I used to use the download and transfer via USB to put my books in calibre and then transfer to my kindle. And life was good. But with all the recent changes Amazon has made, this is no longer a viable option. So I decided to suck it up and do exactly what Amazon wants.

• I have a paperwhite gen 11.
• I have purchased (i.e. the content license) approximately 1800 books from Amazon.
• I want my ENTIRE library on my kindle

So, I did a factory reset. Which wiped out everything on the Kindle.
And then, using Amazon's Digital content page started selecting all purchased books and chose to download them to my device.

I reached a little over 600 books and then the downloads effectively stopped. In the last two days, no matter how many books I've selected I get nothing.

Books I select directly on the device just stay Queued.

The "pending deliveries" page on Amazon shows books which have been there for 2 days. They haven't been delivered.

I have restarted the device. I've done a hard reset. I've check the wifi connection.

I think amazon may be blocking my downloads. I've spoken to support. They told me to wait. I asked how many days I needed to wait. Didn't get an answer.

I'm stuck. Has anyone else seen this? Has anyone else solved this?


Yes I've read the threads about workarounds to side loading. At this point, I'm tired of fighting. I've been beaten into submission. I just want to download the books I've paid for.

Here's what you should do.

Install calibre and the DeDRM plugin as well as the KFX Input plugin.

Configure the DeDRM plugin by adding your Kindle's serial number. Plug your Kindle into your calibre library. Drag/drop the .KFX or .AZW files into your calibre library. Only do so some at a time. Maybe 20 at a time until you are done. Then check each eBooks to make sure the DRM has been removed. Once validated, do the next batch until you have them all done.

This way you'll get to keep the eBooks you've already downloaded to your Kindle.

Here is the link to the latest version of the DeDRM plugin. https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools_autorelease/tags

[deb27]

Been there. Done that.

I used to do that so that each time I upgraded my device all I had to do was copy the books from Calibre to the Kindle.
And then Amazon cracked down on the process. You can read the threads on the Calibre forum if you'd like details. But in summary, they got rid of the download and transfer via USB and then they changed the format of the new books so you can't even download them using old versions of Kindle for PC. But worse than all of that, every time I turn the wifi on on the kindle, they delete all the side loaded books.

Hence the reason I said I've given up on side loading.
I'm willing to simply use the process that Amazon wants us to use. buy the books and have them download to the kindle via Wifi.

BUT I can't even do that!!!! Because I can't seem to download the books I've already purchased. Which is why I posted here.

[DNSB]

One question out of curiosity. If you remove the books from your Kindle, can you then download books past the point where your downloads stopped? At one time, when I was trying to download a mass of books to my PaperWhite 4, it showed a bunch of downloads as queued and they seemed to be stuck there forever.

With the current tools, you can add the books to calibre from the downloads on your Kindle ereader. The easiest way to do this is to add the books from documents/Downloads\Items01 directory on your Kindle (select the books not the subdirectories). If some of them import as KFX-ZIP, you can try removing the download, re-downloading on your Kindle and then adding them to calibre.

Basically, make sure you have the KFX Input plugin and the latest autorelease of noDRM's fork of DeDRM before getting started.

Note that unless you have a Colorsoft, any images will be in greyscale and the image size will be limited.

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by deb27

... So, I did a factory reset. Which wiped out everything on the Kindle. And then, using Amazon's Digital content page started selecting all purchased books and chose to download them to my device.

I reached a little over 600 books and then the downloads effectively stopped ...

Could the Kindle be busy indexing? Or stuck on one title with an indexing problem?

This is just a wild guess because I rarely have more than one or two books downloaded at a time, so no first-hand experience with this problem, but I have vague memory about people reporting problems related to indexing when a lot of books are downloaded in a short period of time.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Note that unless you have a Colorsoft, any images will be in greyscale and the image size will be limited.

Or a Paperwhite 1 and earlier, but not the K1, K2, or any variation of DX/DXG. Those get colour and AZW3/KF8, assuming that K3 and other early ones got the FW updates (still available to download).

I use a K3 since the end of D&T. The important thing is always download/sync after purchase and if you can't then Amazon do refund.

I check the Kindle is working and connecting to WiFi before I buy from Amazon now.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Basically, make sure you have the KFX Input plugin and the latest autorelease of noDRM's fork of DeDRM before getting started.

You should use the URL I posted above for the autorelease. With your link, you have to click the tag link and some may find that a problem because the link that's obvious is not the link to click.

[JSWolf]

@deb27 after you follow my directions and have all of the downloaded eBooks in calibre without DRM, delete them all from the Kindle. Then when the rest or the next batch downloads, do the same thing until you have them all. Then you can use calibre to put them all on your Kindle if that's what you want.

[ElizabethN]

On my oasis when this happens I usually have a stuck or corrupted download blocking everything. Plug into computer via usb, do not use calibre, go to kindle > documents > downloads > Item01

I look for incomplete downloads, which show in the name column as just all or part of the ASIN. Delete those.

I may also delete downloads which the kindle is showing as a future date or ones that show as downloaded but can't be opened on the kindle itself.

That will often fix the problem.

You may have to download fewer books at a time as every now and then there will be a poorly configured ebook (from amz, not sideloaded) that will hang up the kindle and stop further downloads. Probably an indexing issue.

Unfortunately this doesn't fix all download issues, my husband's scribe hasn't been able to "see" alot of books in his library since the february 2025 cut off. Sending them from the library to the scribe never results with them showing up. But that's an issue for a different thread.

[deb27]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

@deb27 after you follow my directions and have all of the downloaded eBooks in calibre without DRM, delete them all from the Kindle. Then when the rest or the next batch downloads, do the same thing until you have them all. Then you can use calibre to put them all on your Kindle if that's what you want.

Prior to the loss of download and transfer via USB, that's exactly what I was doing. However every time I turned on Wifi on the kindle all my side loaded books would get deleted. Which was really annoying. I tried using Kindle for PC to download new books and then side load them. But newer books can no longer be dowloaded into Kindle for PC.

So at this point, I'm trying to do this the way Amazon wants me to. Just download my purchased books onto my kindle without side loading or stripping DRM etc. And that's what's failing.

[deb27]

FYI for anyone following this thread. I've talked with Amazon tech support twice and they've finally admitted they have an open ticket regarding issues with downloading books from Amazon. i.e. it's THEIR problem.
That doesn't help me much at this point. In theory I should now be contacted when(if?) that ticket ever gets updated.

[deb27]

Originally Posted by ElizabethN

On my oasis when this happens I usually have a stuck or corrupted download blocking everything. Plug into computer via usb, do not use calibre, go to kindle > documents > downloads > Item01

I look for incomplete downloads, which show in the name column as just all or part of the ASIN. Delete those.

I may also delete downloads which the kindle is showing as a future date or ones that show as downloaded but can't be opened on the kindle itself.

Can you elaborate a bit on this? I looked at the folder you suggested and I do see quite a few files with a .partial extension at the end of the file name. But there are also folders for some of those same books. I don't know how the file system works on the kindle. Do you just delete the *.partial files? Or do you also delete the folder associated with the same book?

Also, how do you look for "...[downloads] kindle is showing as a future date or ones that show as downloaded but can't be opened on the kindle itself..."?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by deb27

Prior to the loss of download and transfer via USB, that's exactly what I was doing. However every time I turned on Wifi on the kindle all my side loaded books would get deleted. Which was really annoying. I tried using Kindle for PC to download new books and then side load them. But newer books can no longer be dowloaded into Kindle for PC.

So at this point, I'm trying to do this the way Amazon wants me to. Just download my purchased books onto my kindle without side loading or stripping DRM etc. And that's what's failing.

What format are you side loading to your Kindle? If it's KFX, you can set them as pdoc and they should not get removed. If it's KF8, you'd have to find a program to change the header to set them as pdoc.

[deb27]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What format are you side loading to your Kindle? If it's KFX, you can set them as pdoc and they should not get removed. If it's KF8, you'd have to find a program to change the header to set them as pdoc.

Looks like most of the side loaded books I have are currently in MOBI format and some are AZW3. Are you saying I should convert them to another format? What exactly is "pdoc"?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by deb27

Looks like most of the side loaded books I have are currently in MOBI format and some are AZW3. Are you saying I should convert them to another format? What exactly is "pdoc"?

pdoc stands for personal document and ebok stands for eBook. The declaration is in the header of the Kindle eBook. If it's pdoc, Amazon will not remove them. If it's eboc, then Amazon can remove them as you've seen. This is only an issue with side loaded eBooks.

You should convert all of those Mobi to Kf8 (AZW3) as you get more features on your Kindle such as you can use a font you've added to your Kindle.