Troubleshooting Paperwhite 2018 Battery Issues

MorganM · 01-20-2019, 12:08 AM

I bought the new Kindle Paperwhite 2018 2 weeks ago and for the last couple of days the battery has been running down to nearly flat after I have charged it, read for a while and come back to it the next day.

Any helpful tips?

ilovejedd · 01-20-2019, 01:16 AM

Did you load a bunch of books on it? Indexing uses up quite a bit of power. I usually leave mine to charge overnight for a couple of days after loading a lot of books.

Also, it seems to me that wifi uses more power on the PW4 compared to older models so I'm more mindful to keep airplane mode enabled on the PW4.

MorganM · 01-20-2019, 01:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Did you load a bunch of books on it? Indexing uses up quite a bit of power. I usually leave mine to charge overnight for a couple of days after loading a lot of books.

Also, it seems to me that wifi uses more power on the PW4 compared to older models so I'm more mindful to keep airplane mode enabled on the PW4.

No I didn't actually. I only turn on wifi when I download books and then turn it off straight away

barryem · 01-20-2019, 02:57 PM

It might be that you have a book stuck indexing. You can test that by doing a search from the home screen of some nonsense word such as "zizicoot". If it tells you that's indexing that's your answer. If not then I don't know.

I have 2 of the new Paperwhites and they did get a little less battery life but not much. Then I did the latest updates on my Paperwhite 3's last week and they also now get a little less battery life. So that's part of it. But battery life isn't bad. Just not as good as the older firmware.

Another thing I've noticed is that after I updated the Paperwhite 3's their touch screens were less sensitive. That's been true of the Paperwhite 4's also. This, to me, is a good sign because if it's a firmware issue they can fix it.

Barry

NiLuJe · 01-20-2019, 05:19 PM

FWIW, the search trick might not catch every kind of indexing shenanigans.

I recently updated my PW2 from 5.8.1 (

) to 5.9.7 to test some stuff, and it spent a couple hours indexing... stuff? that never showed in a search, but I definitely saw in the logs (which lead me to realize that the indexer was hilariously struggling with those files, given the amount of segfaults

).

DuckieTigger · 01-21-2019, 10:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

FWIW, the search trick might not catch every kind of indexing shenanigans.

I recently updated my PW2 from 5.8.1 (

) to 5.9.7 to test some stuff, and it spent a couple hours indexing... stuff? that never showed in a search, but I definitely saw in the logs (which lead me to realize that the indexer was hilariously struggling with those files, given the amount of segfaults

).

How do you get segfaults under linux unless there is a horrible bug in the indexer? Nevermind, I probably just answered that myself. The indexer has a giant bug. But in all seriousness, shouldn't the compiler have caught that?

NiLuJe · 01-21-2019, 11:33 PM

It was also throwing vast amounts of undefined instructions before that, because the more the merrier, I guess? ;D.

j.p.s · 01-21-2019, 11:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

How do you get segfaults under linux unless there is a horrible bug in the indexer? Nevermind, I probably just answered that myself. The indexer has a giant bug. But in all seriousness, shouldn't the compiler have caught that?

Segfaults can can come from operating on bad data. Compilers can't tell whether there is code in place to guard against out of range input or whether the algorithm is correct.

NiLuJe · 01-22-2019, 03:42 AM

Which is why fuzzing is all the rage these days

.

j.p.s · 01-22-2019, 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Which is why fuzzing is all the rage these days

.

Yeah, but like most companies, amazon is more interested in adding new misfeatures than fixing bugs. I wasn't excusing segfaults, just saying don't expect compilers to find the causes.

Hmm, so the term fuzzing dates to 1988, but I had never seen that name for the concept, which goes back much earlier. (But it came up as the first hit on a web search on fuzzing.)

01-20-2019, 12:08 AM	#1
MorganM Fanatic Posts: 563 Karma: 1089963 Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Libra H2o	Paperwhite 2018 Battery Issues I bought the new Kindle Paperwhite 2018 2 weeks ago and for the last couple of days the battery has been running down to nearly flat after I have charged it, read for a while and come back to it the next day. Any helpful tips?

01-20-2019, 05:19 PM	#5
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,477 Karma: 26012494 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	FWIW, the search trick might not catch every kind of indexing shenanigans. I recently updated my PW2 from 5.8.1 () to 5.9.7 to test some stuff, and it spent a couple hours indexing... stuff? that never showed in a search, but I definitely saw in the logs (which lead me to realize that the indexer was hilariously struggling with those files, given the amount of segfaults ).

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01-20-2019, 01:16 AM	#2
ilovejedd hopeless n00b Posts: 5,111 Karma: 19597086 Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: in the middle of nowhere Device: PW4, PW3, Libra H2O, iPad 10.5, iPad 11, iPad 12.9	Did you load a bunch of books on it? Indexing uses up quite a bit of power. I usually leave mine to charge overnight for a couple of days after loading a lot of books. Also, it seems to me that wifi uses more power on the PW4 compared to older models so I'm more mindful to keep airplane mode enabled on the PW4.

01-20-2019, 02:57 PM	#4
barryem Wizard Posts: 2,459 Karma: 68781975 Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Arkansas Device: Paperwhite 4	It might be that you have a book stuck indexing. You can test that by doing a search from the home screen of some nonsense word such as "zizicoot". If it tells you that's indexing that's your answer. If not then I don't know. I have 2 of the new Paperwhites and they did get a little less battery life but not much. Then I did the latest updates on my Paperwhite 3's last week and they also now get a little less battery life. So that's part of it. But battery life isn't bad. Just not as good as the older firmware. Another thing I've noticed is that after I updated the Paperwhite 3's their touch screens were less sensitive. That's been true of the Paperwhite 4's also. This, to me, is a good sign because if it's a firmware issue they can fix it. Barry

01-21-2019, 11:33 PM	#7
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,477 Karma: 26012494 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	It was also throwing vast amounts of undefined instructions before that, because the more the merrier, I guess? ;D.

01-22-2019, 03:42 AM	#9
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,477 Karma: 26012494 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	Which is why fuzzing is all the rage these days .