Kindle 5.20.1 sync problems

[Vroo]

It seems like hardly a month goes by these days without another Kindle software issue. Well, here's another one.

Some users have noticed that syncing between Kindle devices stopped working in early October. I've experienced this myself. I can still download new books from the cloud, but reading positions and highlights are no longer syncing.

When I try to manually sync to the last reading position using "Sync to Furthest Page Read", I get the error message.

The issue affects all books, both those uploaded via Send to Kindle and those purchased from the Kindle Store. It appears that data is neither being downloaded from Amazon's servers nor uploaded from the devices, as highlights made on these Kindles don't show up in the Kindle apps for Android or PC either.

Which Kindle models are affected? Apparently, all those that recently received firmware version 5.20.1. I've confirmed the issue on my Kindle 11 (2024), Paperwhite 6, first-generation Colorsoft, and Scribe Colorsoft.

The only exception is the Kindle 2026 Aluminium. Syncing works fine on this device, but it's running firmware 5.20.1.0.1, which appears to be a slightly revised version.

In my case, Kindles running older firmware versions are not affected. My Scribe 2022 running 5.19 and Oasis 3 running 5.18 still sync without any problems. Even my Kindle Voyage, which hasn't been updated in ages and is still running 5.13, works fine.

I hope Amazon will finally fix this. In any case, this bug strikes at the very heart of the Kindle ecosystem: syncing between devices. Amazon's e-readers have had their share of problems over the years, but one thing I could always count on was opening a book on a 2026 Kindle and still seeing highlights I made back in 2015. If this doesn't get fixed, there will be one less reason to stay in the Kindle ecosystem.

(Disclaimer: This is an automatically translated and slightly revised excerpt from my blog post in Polish.)