Kindle Oasis - books in memory but not displaying on device

[orlok]

My Oasis rebooted itself last night, and this morning I was presented with a blank screen. All my books had gone. I managed to download most of them again from the Amazon cloud, but some I have sideloaded via Calibre were not there. Through Calibre I can see that they are still showing up in the device memory, but will not display on the Oasis home screen. I have tried:

- restarting the Oasis
- checked that I have selected Downloaded documents, and show All on the main screen
- I have deleted a book from the Oasis memory, then loaded via Calibre (send to device), but it still does not display

Is there a way of forcing the Oasis to rebuild the index (I though the restart would do that)? I am particularly concerned about one book that has a lot of notes I have added, and I'm afraid I might lose these.

[filipbg]

I have exactly the same problem with my Paperwhate, thought it might be better to post here than to open a new topic.
So suddenly my Kindle started showing that there are 0 files on the device. However, when I connect it to PC all the files are there and I am able to open them in calibre (so they are not corrupted). I am also able to transfer new files to kindle without any problem, but when I manually delete and send (via calibre) books that I have already had on my device, they still do not show up. I guess indexing is also a problem here.

Is there any way to restore my previous library without losing highliths and metadata? Is it ok if I just try to manually backup all the files that are on kindle, reset it, and put them back again?

[orlok]

Here's a bit of an update. I have finally managed to get a previously side-loaded book to show up again on the home page of my Kindle by going through the following steps:

- connected the Kindle via USB to my computer
- used File Explorer to locate the documents folder on my Kindle
- manually deleted the folder for my book (within the documents folder)
- restarted the Kindle
- deleted the book from my Calibre library
- reloaded the book into Calibre
- sent the book to my device from Calibre
- restarted my Kindle
- book now showing up

The real downside of this is that I've lost my notes. As it was a copy of the first draft of my own novel, with my revision notes, it's a bit of a blow (to put it mildly...). Anyone know where the Notes file is normally located, or what it might be called?

EDIT: I've tried a second time without restarting the Kindle and it also worked (seems the key bit is removing the book using File Explorer, and then reloading it into Calibre).

Second EDIT: the notes file has the extension mbp1. I had taken a backup of my book's folder on the Kindle before I deleted it, and restored this file. My notes are back! (For completeness, note that there are another two files with the extensions apnx and mbs which I also restored, just in case. Not sure if they were necessary, but may be needed too).

[knc1]

Just be very careful, if using the settings menu to restart the device, that you do not touch "Reset". Those entries are one right above the other.

Which is shorthand for "Reset to factory defaults".

That translates to: "Erase everything the user has put on the device".
(Including books, notes, bookmarks, etc. etc.)

The "factory defaults" only included one book: "The Kindle User's Guide" and that is the only one that will be on it when the erasing is done.

[orlok]

Originally Posted by knc1

Just be very careful, if using the settings menu to restart the device, that you do not touch "Reset". Those entries are one right above the other.

Which is shorthand for "Reset to factory defaults".

That translates to: "Erase everything the user has put on the device".
(Including books, notes, bookmarks, etc. etc.)

The "factory defaults" only included one book: "The Kindle User's Guide" and that is the only one that will be on it when the erasing is done.

Good advice. I would hope Amazon have included a "do you really want to do this message", but for obvious reasons I haven't tried it.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by knc1

Just be very careful, if using the settings menu to restart the device, that you do not touch "Reset". Those entries are one right above the other.

Which is shorthand for "Reset to factory defaults".

That translates to: "Erase everything the user has put on the device".
(Including books, notes, bookmarks, etc. etc.)

The "factory defaults" only included one book: "The Kindle User's Guide" and that is the only one that will be on it when the erasing is done.

How often is something like that required for a rather casual user of a Kindle? If I recall, the only time I ever had to reset my Sony was after I had let the battery go dead for a long time. After charging, it acted squirrelly until I did a reset.

Is there some approved way to back up and restore your Kindle? Is copying the folders to and from your computer's HD enough?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Is there some approved way to back up and restore your Kindle?

Amazon's documented way of backing up is by sending your personal documents (books not purchased through Amazon) to your account so that they are saved along with your purchases. The syncing process backs up notes, highlights and last reading position both for purchased books and personal documents. That allows everything to be restored if you do a reset and even if you break your Kindle and get a new one.

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Is copying the folders to and from your computer's HD enough?

I believe that is sufficient if you do it regularly, but I don't think Amazon would consider that to be the approved method of backup.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

How often is something like that required for a rather casual user of a Kindle?
- - - -

Rare,
should be never, but this is the real world we are talking about.

If the Kindle was jail broken, it also does serious damage to the jail break (which can now be fixed).

Originally Posted by orlok

Good advice. I would hope Amazon have included a "do you really want to do this message", but for obvious reasons I haven't tried it.

It varies with the firmware version running and how you reach the choice to Reset or Restart.
So all I can reasonably do is write the warning, the user has to read what they are pressing.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

How often is something like that required for a rather casual user of a Kindle? If I recall, the only time I ever had to reset my Sony was after I had let the battery go dead for a long time. After charging, it acted squirrelly until I did a reset.

Is there some approved way to back up and restore your Kindle? Is copying the folders to and from your computer's HD enough?

You would be amazed at the number of people that get reset/restart confused.
No, reset isn't needed very often but it is handy when one must do it.