Troubleshooting Kindle DXG slow PDF and invisible pages: cause and solution

[vmz]

I noticed that gradually (during months/years) I started to get slow page switches in PDF. First for some files, which was newly published, while old PDFs worked okay. Then I noticed it even for very old PDFs which worked perfectly before. The slowness increased to the point of tens of seconds, and I also started to notice that some pages cane be not displayed at all (they are switching, very slowly, but the screen is blank). Slowness didn't affect mobi books at all. Finally Kindle just got frozen during PDF page switch.

I held power slider for 30 seconds (15 seconds is required in manual) then released it, to do some "reset". Device restarted with some progress bar. Books, collections, highlights and books progress persisted, but books were unsorted as they were never opened before, I guess some timestamps got reset.

More importantly: all PDFs started to work perfectly again, fast page turns even on "new" PDF files (I first thought the problem was because of some "modern" internal PDF markup for recently published files).

I never did such reset during my Kindle use before (I used Kindle for couple of years, before that it was unused for years since the purchase in 2011). It looks like some internal caches were gradually filled with some accumulated data which caused PDFs to become slow. Then these caches were purged on reset and PDFs became fast again. This is my theory but of course I don't know anything about Kindle firmware.

Now I wonder how long PDFs will remain fast, will the reset work again, and what is the actual cause of this.

[Quoth]

Yes, it can slow down. Maybe memory leaks or something and a reset fixes it. However it's still deadly slow.

My Kindle DGX has been slow and pathetic for PDFs since new. The PW3 is better (300 dpi vs 150 dpi), though the text might very small.

The Kindle UI messes up if the Kindle time & date isn't set. On the DXG that can only be set either by 3G/Edge connection (gone some places), or a jailbreak (all can be jailbreaked, so most recent FW is a good idea, 2.5.8?), then USB networking.

If you think the PDFs are fast, you must only have a DXG. Save up for a real ereader or Nxtpaper 14.

[vmz]

My reasoning is that as long as it's faster than a real book page turn — it's okay, but yeah I don't have any other reader. After a reset, page turns on PDF and mobi are somewhat identical and in a sub-second range, it doesn't look slow at all to me. The main complaint about PDF on DXG for me always was absence of search, links, and highlights

I use 2.5.8 official FW and I thought how I could adjust time (but at least it is set and I have no problems with it, it is just off), AFAIK any networking was switched off by Amazon few years ago, but I only used USB anyway

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by vmz

I use 2.5.8 official FW and I thought how I could adjust time (but at least it is set and I have no problems with it, it is just off), AFAIK any networking was switched off by Amazon few years ago, but I only used USB anyway

It's your local carriers that turned off 3G, though Amazon disabled Store Access etc.

I still have EDGE here and sometimes 3G, so after 4 to 20 hours the DXG resets the time & date. I did jailbreak it so as to have the current book as sleep screen, but I didn't figure out USB Networking. I might look at that again if the mobile (cell) is gone, but as the Electricity Smart Meters and some traffic lights and alarms systems use EDGE (2G) & 3G it won't be soon in Ireland.

USB Networking lets you set the time & date. Otherwise it's 1970 anytime battery goes flat!


Save up for an 8" Kobo Sage or a 7" Paperwhite. Both HUGELY better. Even a S/H Paperwhite 3 or Kobo Libra is far far better.