non-kindle unlimited books not opening

[sherri0629]

Just starting earlier today, almost all of my books that I have loaded from calibre to kindle are getting errors that say "An Error occurred. If you purchased this item from Amazon, remove the downloaded item and download it from the cloud." I have about 300 books on there.

I restarted my kindle and I've removed some newly loaded books and reloaded them thinking that maybe there was some transfer errors yesterday but that didn't work. I removed some older calibre loaded books and reloaded but they still won't open either.

The handful of Kindle unlimited books I have loaded will open. But other books that have been on my kindle for months won't even open. They all get that same error. I've also noticed that if I look on Amazon and my Collections, most won't show up either. It just sits there spinning.

I have the latest Paperwhite and the software is updated. Calibre is updated.

Anyone have any ideas?

[sherri0629]

After digging through my On Device list in calibre, the books that loaded as mobi will open. But the majority of the books that loaded are azw3 and will not open. And the kindle unlimited books will load. I was reading the kindle earlier today and then it just stopped opening books.

I did remove a few azw3 books and converted them to mobi and reloaded them. Now they will open.

I'm hoping this is a fluke or maybe a setting somewhere that got changed. Or has Amazon decided to start controlling where you get your AZW3 files?

Is there a setting in calibre that will auto convert the files to mobi when I send the books to kindle rather than azw3?

[haertig]

Originally Posted by sherri0629

I restarted my kindle...

By "restarted my kindle", do you mean that you held the power button down for a long time (like 30 seconds or a minute - I can't remember how long it takes) until the screen goes blank and the Kindle restarts automatically (or maybe it prompts you to do a restart at that point?) It's been years since I had to restart mine and I can't remember the details of what happens on-screen. I just remember that to initiate the restart, you hold the power button down for a long time. If this is not what you meant by "restarted my kindle", try it now and see if that fixes the problem.

[kags]

I noticed this issue today as well. Kindle Oasis -> Calibre/Dedrm - > Convert to AWZ3 -> Calibre send to Kindle Paperwhite (2024) === Error

Anything else I send to my Kindle works.

Other things I have tried:
- The offending file opens up in the Calibre ebook reader fine.
- The offending file also opens up in MoonReader on Android.

Seems like the latest update to Kindle devices (that are still receiving updates) has not only closed egress (as has been extensively documented on this forum) but has also impacted ingress as well.

Has anyone tested with a Kobo -> Kindle (on latest update)?

[kags]

Please disregard my earlier post --- I observed some inconsistent behavior with existing AZW3 files on my Kindle Paperwhite (2024). Here is a new version after more testing
----------------------------
I noticed this issue today as well. Kindle Oasis -> Calibre/Dedrm - > Convert to AWZ3 -> Calibre send to Kindle Paperwhite (2024) === Error

Even random documents created just for testing are failing (txt file -> import into Calibre -> convert to AWZ3 -> send to Kindle Paperwhite (2024) === Error).

Other things I have tried:
- The offending file opens up in the Calibre ebook reader fine.
- The offending file also opens up in MoonReader on Android.

Seems like the latest update to Kindle devices (that are still receiving updates) has not only closed egress (as has been extensively documented on this forum) but has also impacted ingress (via AZW3) as well.


UPDATE:
- Converting the offending AWZ3 file to MOBI works
- Converting the offending AWZ3 file to KFX works

[Quoth]

Use USB transfer and stop giving Amazon copies.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Use USB transfer and stop giving Amazon copies.

That's what they did. You cannot send AZW3 via Send to Kindle.

[DiapDealer]

If you were using calibre's "Send to Kindle" to send to your Kindle's email address, you might want to take into account the massive AWS outage that disrupted global services last night.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

If you were using calibre's "Send to Kindle" to send to your Kindle's email address, you might want to take into account the massive AWS outage that disrupted global services last night.

Though why was UK HMRC using AWS US-EAST-1?

The Cloud is someone else's server. Sometimes that's a good solution.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Though why was UK HMRC using AWS US-EAST-1?

No clue. It may not be related at all. Just didn't want to ignore the massive network related elephant in the room.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

No clue. It may not be related at all. Just didn't want to ignore the massive network related elephant in the room.

It seems that even if you are using AWS elsewhere the IAM (Identity and Access Management) or DNS is in US-EAST-1. Oops!
https://www.theregister.com/2025/10/...on_aws_outage/

As ever the comments can be amusing.

[sherri0629]

yes, I held down the power button until it restarted.

I spent a while last night removing some books from my kindle. Then I converted the azw3 formats to mobi and reloaded them. ALL of those will open now. But I sure don't relish the idea of doing that 300 times. Especially since they are all sorted into collections right now.

I also get this message when I moved books from one collection to another:

"Content Not Synced
The item you added to this collection was added to this device directly from a computer. Adding it to a collection will not sync the item to the Cloud, so you may not see this item in your other Kindle devices or apps."

Has anyone else experienced this? Is Amazon changing something that will only let you read azw3 books that came from them?

[kags]

To be even more clear, I used Calibre's send specific format to device feature (selecting the AWZ3 format) with a USB connected Kindle. As best I can tell, this should have nothing to do with networking/cloud. The outage was a coincidence but a non-factor in this observation (I did have to wait the outage out to get some other Kindle Unlimited books to download on my device though).

Re the Content Not Synced message that sherri0629 is encountering --- this is something commonly encountered when dealing with sideloaded books and trying to add them to a collection (going from one collection to another is included in that bucket). I've been seeing that message for a while now ---essentially since I started using my Kindle Paperwhite (2024). I was getting that message when AZW3 books were still opening correctly, so that definitely predates the new observed behavior of AZW3 books erroring out.

Therefore, I will now be converting everything to KFX. Probably for the best-ish.... as you do enable all the Kindle's features when on this format (such as the upgraded page scroll).

[sherri0629]

This just now seems to have resolved itself. Maybe it did end up being the outage issue. I'm just relieved I didn't have to convert 300 books!

Thanks for all the help and ideas.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by sherri0629

This just now seems to have resolved itself. Maybe it did end up being the outage issue. I'm just relieved I didn't have to convert 300 books!

Thanks for all the help and ideas.

You should be able to read your eBooks with the WiFi off. Can you do this?