CC, Kindle Fire, and last read position

[MidwestJen]

I've recently noticed an issue on my Kindle Fire - that I'm almost positive is 'newish', but not 100%. I can't imagine not noticing this before the last few weeks, but I won't rule it out completely (even if I really am sure I used to be able to open a file and have it pop to the most recent page read).

When I open a book in CC, it always opens to the first readable page (ie not the cover, but the summary title page/ToC/Chapter 1). For a new book, this is perfect - but for a book I've been reading and had exited, it's very annoying.

I realize that the Go To --> Furthest Page Read will work to move me back to where I was - assuming of course that I haven't finished the book previously. I usually use my Fire at bedtime, which means I'm frequently starting and stopping books and may not remember that I had already read part of it. My memory is pretty good, but as of this writing my Calibre library tells me it has over 9k books.

A few things to hopefully trace down either what's changed or what I'm doing wrong.

1. These are all downloaded fanfiction stories - some source files are html/zip, others are epub, but all have been converted into mobi using calibre's conversion tools. I have also tried a few in azw3 just to see if it makes a difference.
2. Both mobi and azw3 act the same way on the Kindle Fire.
3. My Kindle Paperwhite and the Calibre e-Reader on my PC both keep track of last page read without any issues. Amazon e-books on the Fire go to last page read (using native Kindle reader).
4. Testing has been done on various configurations for conversion settings and formats to see if it's a setting issue. Typical testing is to delete a book from CC on Fire, use Calibre on PC to convert file (one change at a time), connect Fire to Calibre and redownload book (typically using content server), disconnect from Calibre and use CC to open book, page to some random page, exit book, re-enter book (and get frustrated that it's the same first page). Going to furthest page read, exiting the book and re-entering also takes you back to that first page, not the furthest.
5. Plugins - I am using FanFictionDownLoader (v2.0.6), Find Duplicates (v1.6.2), Generate Cover (v1.5.15), Kindle Collections (v1.7.15, only with ebooks, so not relevant) and Reading List (v1.6.5).
6. Versions - CC is version 3.3.5, Kindle Fire system version is 8.4.9, Calibre version is 2.5.0.
7. I will admit to recently reorganizing some parts of my library and configurations for various things (both plugins and calibre itself) - but I have tried to ameliorate that by testing old settings (see 4).

Since I don't use CC on any other device (I sideload onto the PaperWhite), I can't say for sure that this is a CC issue, but since I can't find anything on this using google (which rarely fails me!), I'm hoping someone can help. I did find lots on how to synch with multiple devices - but it wasn't relevant to what I am trying to fix.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or explanations! =)

[chaley]

First, thank you for all the information you included in your post!

Unfortunately we can't do anything about the problem. There is no way for CC to tell the amazon native reader app to open the book at anywhere except the beginning. At least we can open the book, which is better than we can do for the Kindle for Android app where we can only launch the app.

Other reader apps like moon+ do the right thing when CC launches them, but that doesn't help much if you want to use the native amazon reader. However, since a lot of what you are reading isn't Amazon content, you could put an epub reader on your fire and avoid the problem.

There is a CC dialog box that opens when you "read" a book using the native amazon reader that tells you that the book will reset to the beginning and asks if that is OK. That dialog has a "don't ask again" checkbox that I assume you checked sometime in the past. You can uncheck it by going to CC settings and choosing "Clear default reader apps". (I think that dialog was in version 3.3.5, but I could be wrong.)

Also note that your CC is out of date. Version 3.4.4 was released in early September. See the change log for details about what has changed since V3.3.5. In particular look at V3.4.1, which contained a lot of new features.

[MidwestJen]

Stupid Amazon didn't push down the app updates ... *mutter mutter*. Thank you for catching that, I had to manually push it to my Fire.

I probably did check that checkbox at some point, so I can see how I got myself confused on what was and wasn't possible. I'm pretty sure before I used to read everything using the Books library that's native to the Fire (which does save last read position even on CC loaded books). I do know that between now and then I had changed the save to folder in CC, which meant that CC was the only way I had to read stuff since it didn't exist in the 'right' folder (you probably don't want to know how I figured that out - it's sad and pathetic).

*cough* So that long winded reply was basically - thanks, I think I figured it out with your help. I appreciate it and thanks for working so hard for all of us!

[chaley]

Glad you worked it out.

We will be releasing V3.5.1 sometime in the next few weeks. It has a lot of new stuff such as user-defined information on the book list and two-level hierarchical groups (see this thread). I mention this in case Amazon doesn't tell you. If you haven't heard anything from them by the end of November, do the manual check.