Screen stuck on "critical battery" message.

[Digitalis]

Hello, I only just got my Kindle, it's brand new out of the box on Christmas day. Excited, I started using it to search wikipedia, the purpose for which I got the thing. Naturally, as most devices are not shipped fully charged due to the (presumable) dangers of Lithium ion batteries exploding en route. So the battery seemed to be going down, as it would.

Living in Belgium as I do, I couldn't use the provided mains power two-pin adapter. I instead plugged the USB cable into my iPod's mains charger and tried using that to charge it. As I was using the Kindle the batteries died on me and the "Critical Battery, Your battery is empty... blahdi blahdi blah" message showed up on the screen. Thinking it might be a problem with power and voltage and all that I plugged the Kindle into a USB slot on my laptop, where I left it for several hours whilst I did other things.

On returning the battery message was still very much in evidence, despite doing the usual holding the power button for 15-20 seconds. The Kindle turned off and back on but still the same battery message. On all occasions that I plugged the device to a power source the orange charging light was on the whole time. It hasn't gone green as of yet despite several repeated attempts to charge it.

This is obviously very frustating indeed so any help, advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Digitalis]

Okay, I just bought an adapter for switching between U.S. two pin to round two pin sickets and it's charged and working now. If only I could get the USB cable to work with my computer too my life would be complete.

[daffy4u]

In the future if you have a stuck screen you can try these instructions (I had to do this myself an hour ago) :

Before doing this it's a good idea to make sure your Kindle 2 is completely charged. Even if it is "frozen" it should still charge - that is the charging indicator should light when the charger is connected. If the charging indicator does not light-up check your plug and if that's OK contact Amazon Kindle support.

Once you are satisfied that your Kindle 2 is charged it's time to reset. To do this -

1. Remove your Kindle 2 from the charger.

2. Slide the power switch to the right and hold it there.

3. SLOWLY count to 15 (the switch has to be held in-place for at least 15 seconds).

4. Release the switch.

5. What will happen? At first NOTHING so don't panic.

6. After about 5 to 10 seconds the Kindle 2 will flash on and off several times.

7. The Amazon logo will appear along with a progress bar showing the Kindle is restarting.

8. Next the Home page will load with the ebooks, audio books, and other media you've loaded onto your Kindle.

That's it! You should be back in business ready to read another book.

A few things to remember:

If you only hold the Power button to the right for five to 10 seconds you'll just turn the unit OFF. You have to hold the power button to the right for at least 15 seconds.

If the process above does not work - contact the Amazon Kindle support team. They are very helpful and may be able to do some other trouble-shooting on your device.

[Pushka]

The iphone and related chargers will not charge the kindle. You need to find an adaptor to fit the supplied wall charger into a European plug point. Check a travel store, they will have universal adaptors. Ok, I see you have already done this now.

[Mike L]

Digitalis,

Good to see you managed to charge the Kindle using the AC lead and two-pin adapter. You shouldn't have any further problem charging it that way.

As far as the USB charging is concerned, it could be that the fault lies with the USB port on the computer rather than with the Kindle. If possible, try charging it from another computer. You'll know if it's charging because you'll see a little lightning flash icon against the battery indicator.

[Digitalis]

Thanks everyone, the problem is all fine now. The USB thing was just a matter of restarting the kindle and laptop at the same time like it says on the troubleshooting page of amazon and the non-recognition was just a matter of finding the correct drivers.

[allenlux]

Digitalis, the problem you experienced on Christmas Day is the classic symptom of attempting to charge your Kindle 2 with the "wrong" kind of USB charger. I had exactly the same problem on my first day of Kindle ownership. As you discovered, it is fixable.

I live in Luxembourg and in fact there are USB chargers in the shops here which do work with the Kindle 2. This is documented - with some technical explanations - in the thread
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59692

I've just found another USB mains charger which works in the local Darty under the brand "QDOS" - I'll post a picture in the other thread.

As we now have 2 Kindles (my wife got one for Christmas) we now have in the house 2 original Amazon chargers plus 2 third-party chargers which work fine, so we are not likely to find ourselves without a charger. But we both travel a lot so it was important for me to have some extra chargers to hand, preferably ones which also work for iPods, GPS etc.