Kindle Paperwhite for Dummies (42 page)

An e-book won’t open or stops responding

If your Kindle Paperwhite freezes or starts behaving strangely when you’re reading a particular e-book or other content, try a menu restart and then, if necessary, a hard restart. For directions, see “The device freezes or is very slow” section, earlier in this chapter.

Figure 10-3:
The Sync screen between a Paperwhite and an iPhone.

If those solutions don’t work, the file might be corrupted. If that is the case, remove the item to see whether that solves the problem. Remember, if you bought the book from Amazon, it will be stored in the Cloud and you can redownload it to your device. If the book came from another source, make sure you have a backup before removing it.

Remove the item from your Kindle Paperwhite by following these steps:

1. From the Home screen, tap and hold down on the item.

A pop-up menu appears, with several options.

2. Tap the Remove from Device option or the Delete This Sample option (for samples).

The e-book or sample is removed from your Kindle Paperwhite.

3. Restart your Kindle Paperwhite by pressing and holding the power button for 45 seconds.

Try reading other content to see whether the symptoms have cleared up. If so, you can try downloading the e-book again from Amazon by selecting it from the Cloud on your Home screen or sideloading it to your device from your computer.

A downloaded item doesn’t appear on the Home screen

At times, an item you’ve downloaded wirelessly or transferred by USB to your Kindle Paperwhite doesn’t appear on your Home screen. Usually the Kindle Paperwhite refreshes its content listing immediately when new content is added. But if that doesn’t happen, from the Home screen, tap Menu and then tap Sync and Check for Items. If that doesn’t work, try a menu restart, as we describe in “The device freezes or is very slow” section, earlier in this chapter. This action forces your Kindle to refresh its content listing.

If you’ve transferred content to your Kindle via USB, make sure the content is in the right folder (directory) on your device. For example, e-books must be placed in the documents folder. If you’ve inadvertently placed an e-book in the root directory, it won’t appear on your Home screen.

The Home screen displays items out of order

You can display items on your Home screen by Recent, Title, Author, or Collections. Occasionally, items aren’t displayed in the correct order.

To resolve this problem, do a quick resync:

1. From the Home screen, tap the Menu icon.

2. Tap Sync and Check for Items.

Sync and Check for Items is the fifth option on the drop-down menu. Your Home screen displays items in proper order.

Make sure the clock on your Kindle Paperwhite is set to the correct time. If the clock is not accurate, the device will not sync properly, resulting in a Home page with books not listed in the proper order. To set the time, tap Menu⇒Device Options⇒Device Time.

You can set the Kindle Paperwhite 3G to update the clock automatically. On a Wi-Fi–only Kindle Paperwhite, you must set the clock manually. Keep this in mind when traveling or if you live in an area with daylight savings time.

The device doesn’t recognize your password

You can use a password to protect access to your Kindle Paperwhite. If the password that you set for your device isn’t working, you have some troubleshooting options:

Be sure you enter the password correctly.

Try some variations of the password.
Maybe you mistyped it (twice) when you originally set it up.

If you have more than one Kindle in your household, make sure you enter the password on the right device.
Sorry, we have to include this one!

We hope one of these troubleshooting steps helps because the next remedy — resetting your password — is drastic. This solution wipes all content from your Kindle Paperwhite and deregisters it from Amazon. Reinstalling all your books, personal documents, and collection can be done, but it takes time.

To reset your password, type
111222777
in the Password field and then tap OK. Your Kindle is wiped clean. You now have to register the device again with Amazon (as detailed in Chapter 2) and download content again as desired from your Amazon archive, either by using the Cloud or pushing content to your Kindle Paperwhite from your Kindle Library at Amazon (see Chapter 6).

An e-book you purchased hasn’t downloaded from the Kindle Store

You’ve purchased an e-book
— or some other content — from the Kindle Store, and it hasn’t appeared on your Home screen. Or perhaps your subscription content doesn’t load automatically.

If you don’t see content that should be downloaded, try these tips:

If you have a Wi-Fi–only Kindle Paperwhite, make sure it’s connected to a Wi-Fi network.
If it is, you’ll see the Wi-Fi indicator in the top-right corner of the Home screen. The device must be connected to Wi-Fi to download e-books and other content from the Kindle Store.

If you have a Kindle Paperwhite 3G, ensure that it’s either connected to a Wi-Fi network or in a 3G coverage area.
The bars at the top of the Home screen indicate the strength of the 3G signal. If the 3G signal is weak, two bars or less, Kindle Store connectivity may be slow or disrupted.