Amazon Kindle discussion

Hi All,
My Kindle Paperwhite battery has suddenly started draining quite quickly, compared to how long it used to last. I read for about an hour or two each day (more at weekends), and am having to charge it about twice a week now. I have tried the suggestions like rebooting, and keeping on Airplane mode, but it has made very little or no difference. Is this normal for a 4 year old Kindle Paperwhite? I only used to have to charge it about every 3 weeks or so.
Strangely, I got a new cover for it for Christmas, which puts it into sleep mode when I close the cover, and am wondering if something is going wrong. I think the Kindle would automatically go to sleep after a while though wouldn't it? My old cover didn't do this, and I never used to put my Kindle to sleep before I got this cover, I just used to close the lid, and the battery lasted ages. When I open it now, it appears to be in sleep mode, with the background pictures of keyboards etc showing. Any help or advice would be appreciated. thanks Carole

Yes, the Kindle should automatically go to sleep after a certain amount of time. And, no, what you're experiencing isn't normal, even for a a 4 year old Kindle.

Have you tried calling customer service?

I had a similar issue a few years back and they said I had a book stuck in indexing, and the processor continuously working was what was draining the battery. They walked me through deleting a few hidden files, told me to leave it plugged in overnight while it re-indexed everything, and after that it was back to normal.

Melanti wrote: "Yes, the Kindle should automatically go to sleep after a certain amount of time. And, no, what you're experiencing isn't normal, even for a a 4 year old Kindle.

Have you tried calling customer ser..."

Thanks for your reply. I haven't yet, but I will do. I did have a look to see if anything was indexing, but there may possibly be hidden files. Thanks for your help.

If you figure out a solution, please update this thread! I think I might have the same issue, but I have to keep a bit more track of my battery usage to say definitely.

Tobias wrote: "If you figure out a solution, please update this thread! I think I might have the same issue, but I have to keep a bit more track of my battery usage to say definitely."

I will do.

I suggest you go to your Home page and search for a nonsense phrase. If you see a list of books with nothing found, select the Search or See All option because you're looking for Text in Books (XX). If the XX is not zero, then you have a book stuck indexing

I have contacted Amazon by chat, and they were very helpful. The filmware needed updating, so they helped me do that manually. I did look on my device page last week and it said it was up to date, but it obviously wasn't. They said it normally resolves this type of issue. Tobias, I will let you know in a few days' time if it has resolved it. The most current filmware version is 5.9.4

CBRetriever wrote: "I suggest you go to your Home page and search for a nonsense phrase. If you see a list of books with nothing found, select the Search or See All option because you're looking for Text in Books (XX)..."
I did that and nothing found, but thanks (see my other post above)

it could be Tobias' problem, hence my post

Tobias wrote: "If you figure out a solution, please update this thread! I think I might have the same issue, but I have to keep a bit more track of my battery usage to say definitely."

Tobias, since updating the software on Tuesday there has definitely been an improvement in battery life. It would normally be on less than half by now, but it's still at least 3/4 full. The most up to date software is 5.9.4 , so make sure that's what your Kindle is on.

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Glad this has been resolved for you. One thing that is a big perk of the Paperwhite is the battery.

I found a suggestion in another forum that helped with my 5 year old Paperwhite. They suggested backing up then deleting your My Clipping file (where all your highlights and notes go). It can be quite large and reindexes everytime you highlight something new. Improved by battery life and functionality greatly!

Carole wrote: "Tobias wrote: "If you figure out a solution, please update this thread! I think I might have the same issue, but I have to keep a bit more track of my battery usage to say definitely."

Tobias, sin..."

actually, there's a new update: 5.9.5

Thank you all for your responses. I have discovered that the cover which I got for Christmas was definitely causing this problem. Even after updating the software, the battery was still draining far too quickly, so I started to investigate the issue with the cover a bit more. I discovered that the closing mechanism was completely faulty and the Kindle was continually going in and out of sleep mode. I looked at reviews of the cover, and many other people have reported this problem too. So I bought a genuine Kindle cover, and now the battery is lasting a couple of weeks, just like it used to :-)

Hey guys! Has anyone ever had some battery issues with a kindle fire hd 6? I had my kindle for about 3 years now and I usually read about 1 to 2 h a day. Normally the battery would still last for atleast a week or even longer but just recently it dropped and I need to charge it every third day. Do you guys think the problem is caused by it's age or is there maybe something else wrong with it. Thanks in advance :)

you may have left an app still running by not exiting it properly - I have one Card Game app, that, if I swipe and go to my Home page, continues to run. I always go back to the home page of the app on my Fire before going to the Device home page

Charlie wrote: "Hey guys! Has anyone ever had some battery issues with a kindle fire hd 6? I had my kindle for about 3 years now and I usually read about 1 to 2 h a day. Normally the battery would still last for a..."
Hi Charlie, it's probably better to post your question as a new topic, rather than a reply to mine, you might get more responses. I hope your issue is resolved soon.

I also just had this issue where my battery drained over the course of 6 hours. Everything was turned off inc. WiFi & the kindle itself. Amazon said it had to do with the software update (inc. 'Alexa') the past week or so Sept. 2018 & that there was a conflict with the Kindle Fire HD 7 -4th Generation...I'm not sure thats the issue because 2 separate techs from Amazon told me 2 different things. Still waiting for another call from them for Amazon to reset back to factory settings & for them to reload what I have from the 'Cloud' back onto my kindle..........Not happy they better resolve it. I have not had any issues since I got this in 2014...It just died yesterday

you can reset it back to factory defaults your self via the menus and redownload your items from the Cloud

CBRetriever wrote: "you can reset it back to factory defaults your self via the menus and redownload your items from the Cloud" .not everything because Amazon has to re-register & they assign u a new number. I already asked them that question twice today because while I was on the phone with them they were doing remote assistance. Still think the 'Alexa' part of the software update is the problem. There was also a problem with Overdrive App after that too

no, you yourself can reregister your device. I've done it multiple times. Here are Amazon's instructions on how to register and deregister a Fire yourself:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...

If they had to do it themselves, then those instructions would not be on their website along with how to download your Cloud items yourself:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...

The people you talked to didn't request access to your computer or ask for money did they?

No I had Amazon reregister the device they bypassed the Alexa on it and it is deactivated.we did this on the phone together...I dumped everything on the Kindle except Overdrive & just use it for books.

How long is a battery supposed to last before you have to charge it? I bought a new one a month ago and I charged it a couple days ago. When I finish reading I had been pushing the off and on button but just held it for a couple seconds when wanting to shut it down. When I open it up, flip the cover back, it has a dark screen and I swipe it and comes up with some image and tells me to swipe my finger over. I do and it shows some books on the front of it.
I'm guessing I'm not turning it off when I push the button and it is staying on, but in sleep mode.
How long does it stay charged if it is in sleep mode all day and night?

sleep mode, unless the wifi/wireless is on or you have a book stuck indexing will not use any battery power

I am noticing increased drain on my Kindle (7th Generation) which is updated to 5.11.1.1. I have actually had the battery warning reset occur twice in the last few days. I've had it for a few years and I'm worried that the battery may be failing as the drain rate seems to be very fast.

the 5.11.x.x update added a lot of functionality and that might be what's causing the drain. Try a reboot and check for books still to index;

search on a nonsense word like gkfk on the Home page
tap on Search Everywhere
look at text in Books - if it's greyed out, then all the books are indexed, if not, then tap on it and see what books need indexing.

I have a 10 year old device that still has its original battery and works fine. Myself, I think something in this update is causing more battery usage.

My kindle has been going through a power drain process too until I read somewhere the other day that it could be from the brightness setting. I lowered the "brightness" enough where I could still read it comfortably and it has helped immensely with the power drain. I didn't realize that was the problem. I use my kindle for other things besides reading as I have other apps on there, so didn't know that the kindle would drain with the bright setting up! :) My kindle is a kindle fire 7 and I have had it since 2014. Never no problems with it till just recently when I had adjusted the bright settings to see some of my apps more clearly. Thankfully I figured it out. :)

I found my Kindle to be draining in less than 3 hours and realized that it was because I had turned the time on. Once I turned that off I was back to normal.

Have had my Paperwhite for 9 months and over the last week the battery has started losing charge after now only an hour or so.
Contacted Amazon and they could not have been more helpful.
I would assume that this is a known problem with some units as without any fuss a replacement has been arranged. Should arrive in 2 days. 100% to Amazon.

I have a Kindle 7 Generation, and it started to lose juice really fast 😢 I wasn't using it for some time, but recently I charged it to 100 percent, and uploaded a book on it using send to Kindle. This brought me to circa 90 percent. But later I bought two new books and uploaded them using the same method, by send to Kindle. In maybe five minutes I had the wifi on to download these books to the Kindle, it went down to 70 percent, and now it seems that one percent goes down for every minute I have the wifi on. I turned the wifi on to check for updates, I have the version 5.10.3, but the update menu is greyed out, as if no updates were available.

the update menu is only active when you've copied an update file to your Kindle And you really need an update as the current level is 5.12.1 so it probably is trying to download and run an update:

Updates are here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custom...

Instructions on how to manually update kindle are here: https://www.howtogeek.com/187748/ask-...

Thanks for all the helpful info, folks. I just ran into the same problem with my older Kindle. I keep it in Airplane mode to save battery and turn on WiFi whenever I want to upload a new book. Turns out I had put it in Airplane mode before it was finished loading a book I recently purchased, and it must’ve been trying to load (or something like that) thus draining the battery. I simply turned off Airplane mode, the book finished loading, I turned it back onto Airplane mode, and that fixed the problem.

I have a nearly two year old 2nd generation Oasis and it seems to me the battery drain is very extreme. Today, off and on, over several hours, I read a little over 400 locations and the battery drained 7%. I think that’s a huge drain. I’m thinking about contacting Amazon if though it’s probably out of warranty. Does this seem extreme to others?

Anyway, here are the settings:

WIFI off
Time display off
Bluetooth off
No current indexing
Light level 14 out of 24
Text Bookerly
Bold 1 out of 5
Size 5 out if 14

your Oasis says "A single charge lasts up to six weeks, based on a half hour of reading per day with wireless and Bluetooth off and the light setting at 10. Battery life will vary based on light settings, wireless usage. Audible audiobook streaming over Bluetooth will reduce battery life." on the product page

6 weeks X 7 days X .5 hours = 21 hours

7% of 21 hours = 1.47 hours of continuous reading

you had the light set at 14, not 10. And you didn't say if you highlighted or looked up words as those can also use a bit extra battery power. I use a font size of 4 and Caecilia, but I read very fast so we're probably about equal there.

So, no, it doesn't seem extreme to me.

I start experiencing power draining issue with my Oasis. I believe it has to do with the router. My original router was a 5-year old duo-band. I upgraded to a tri-band model last month and immediately I experienced issues with Kindle Oasis and HP printer. Both devices were constantly adding and dropping connection. I did further research and realized that HP printer can't work with tri-band. Interesting enough, after I add a mesh node which is a duo-band, and when my Oasis is connected to the duo-band node, the battery stays on like it used to. Just want to share this info.

did you do what zI suggested in post 26?

This thread is very helpful! I recently started experiencing severe battery drain on my kindle paperwhite 2. I thought it was the battery so I changed it, but that didn’t solve the problem. I checked for the newest software update, which I think I have. I deleted “my clippings” which is enormous. Someone mentioned enabling time. I am not sure what that means, time reading?

While checking everything I noticed that my kindle is sent to connect to our old WiFi network. I think this might be the problem. A couple of weeks ago the network went down. It coincides with the timing of the problem. Putting my kindle in airplane mode has helped a lot. I have to check with my in-home tech support to know for sure.

Thank you, everyone for your suggestions!

Candice

I recently purchased a Kindle Oasis. The first one they sent me would not wake up, and needed to be reset multiple times a day. That one was sent back, and the new one seemed to have battery issues. I have one kindle book loaded, and the light set to the recommended level 13. Bluetooth is disabled, wifi is disabled, and I have the official kindle cover. This one wakes up and goes to sleep just fine. As I read I noticed over a few days that the battery seemed to be draining pretty quickly. None of this 6 weeks 1/2 hour a day rate that they advertise. So I did a test. I even compared the kindle to my 5 year old iPad and a recently purchased Samsung Galaxy Tab 5e. The test goes a s follows: I did not read or use any of the devices for the 24 hour period. The tablets were set to normal, both connected to wife. As I said above on the kindle, wifi and bluetooth were disengaged, and there was only one book, purchased through the kindle store loaded on the kindle.

Results after 24 hours:
iPad: 98%
Tab 5e: 99 %
Kindle Oasis (brand new): 79%

This means that if i leave the kindle sitting for 5 days, the battery will go down to zero with no reading or interaction with the device at all. This does not seem like it is a workable situation. So back went the second one, along with the cover for a full refund. Could I have gotten two lemons in a row?

I have also heard that the supply of Kindles has been low. Maybe they sending out devices that other people had returned, hoping I wouldn't notice.

Too bad, because I really like the form factor and the physical build quality and feel of the latest Kindle Oasis. It also gets pretty good reviews.

I suppose that is it for me and Kindle until I get some clarification. Any other people experiencing similar issues?

David

not me but make sure that one book has completely indexed. Supposedly there's at least one bible that takes about 13 hours to index.

How do you know if it is still indexing?

go to the Home page
type in a nonsense word in the search box like lkjgfkj
when the results cove up, if you don't see Text in Books, tap on Search Everywhere

greyed out Search Everywhere = no indexing
black Search Everywhere = tap on it and keep tapping

also do a reboot in case there's some process trying to run - hold power on for a full 30 seconds then wait 1-2 minutes for it to come back up

Thanks