# Kindle3 freezes sometimes when I highlight text



## mlewis78 (Apr 19, 2009)

I am so tired of this happening that I may stop highlighting text.  After I restart, my collections are out of order and my current book is not at the top of the collection.  The only way I know of to fix it is to deregister and register.

It happened just before I went to bed last night.  I reset but didn't go back to reading.  Next time I looked at my Kindle was while waiting for a subway train tonight.  Couldn't find my book.  Did a search but didn't see my book on the first page.  Decided to restart.  Sitting on the train holding the sleep button while a few other people in our car are reading paper books.  Once it start to reset, I put it away and listened to podcasts.  After I got home, collections and books were still out of order, so I deregistered and registered.  Now it's fine.

BTW, I haven't been using the Amazon hinged case.  It's in the Oberon with corners, so the case is not a factor.

Anyone else having this problem while highlighting text?


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## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

I have not run into this problem on my K3. However, I don't really do much highlighting: maybe an average of 3 or 4 per book?


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## mlewis78 (Apr 19, 2009)

I usually only highlight in non-fiction, history books.  I've been reading "Last Call" (rise and fall of Prohibition).  There are so many good tidbits in it and I'd never find them if I didn't highlight.  But I haven't done it any more since I posted here about it.  I just hate to waste the time rebooting, degregistering and registering (especially waiting for it to restart).


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## Annalog (Dec 28, 2008)

When your collections and books are out of order, is the time (and date) correct on your Kindle? I know that happens when I have to reset my K2. If so, maybe it is just the date and time that need to be set on your Kindle instead of deregistering and reregistering. 

I have had a similar problem happen on my K2 where it appears to freeze if I highlight or add annotations frequently. I think it is because it has a conflict between writing to files to add the note or highlight and indexing those files for the search function. It seems to me that sometimes the Kindle 'forgets' to refresh the screen sometimes when that happens and appears to be frozen. I now push the Menu button one time when I think my K2 is frozen and then wait a few minutes (two or three minutes) to see if my K2 is really frozen or just operating VERY SLOWLY. That has saved me from quite a few restarts. Also, I try to remember to go to the Home page periodically when I am adding several notes or highlights so that I lose fewer notes if I do need to restart.


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## mlewis78 (Apr 19, 2009)

When mine freezes, it won't do anything.  Can't even bring up the menu.  I have to hold the sleep button on for a long time and wait for it to restart.  Whenever this happens, the time goes wrong, but I don't think to fix the time until I need to use it when I'm reading late at night.  The freeze comes first and the wrong time follows.  I wasn't highlighting THAT much Saturday night when it happened.


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## Annalog (Dec 28, 2008)

Actually it does not take many annotations for my K2 to freeze, just two close together in time such as two within a minute. The wrong time is due to the time being lost when the Kindle is restarted. (I think the time changes to midnight January 1, 1980.  ) I now try to remember to turn on the wireless immediately after restart anytime I restart my K2 and then turn it off again after the time is set.


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## Morf (Nov 18, 2010)

mlewis78, I think there are two separate things going on here, the freezing and the mixed up books after the restart. 

I think the situation you have is that something related to annotations is causing your Kindle to freeze. Then you restart it, and after the restart the clock is wrong. As a result of the clock being wrong, your books are out of order.

To take the clock wrong/mixed up books first, as Annalog says this is a well known problem: during a restart, the Kindle can lose the time so the clock will be wrong and therefore your books are out of order. With a 3G Kindle, turn on wireless after a restart and the clock will correct itself in a few seconds, getting the time from the phone network. I've never worked out exactly what you need to do on a WiFi only Kindle, you may need to get an active WiFi connection (possibly it gets time from the Internet), or you may have to manually set the time in settings.

The freezing problem, I have no immediate answers but maybe a bit of experimentation might help. The first thing I would do is try a different book and see if you have the problem with highlighting causing freezes in that. The book may be corrupt in some way. 

Also, check whether you have the "Popular Highlights", "Publish Notes" and "Annotations Backup" settings turned on or off. Possibly the freeze is due to the Kindle trying to connect to check for or publish notes.

Maybe also try with wireless on and off, and see if this makes any difference to the problem.


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## mlewis78 (Apr 19, 2009)

I keep the popular highlights off all the time.  I just don't understand why it freezes at all from highlighting.  I have wi-fi only.  Seems to me to be a malfunction of the highlighting feature.


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## telracs (Jul 12, 2009)

mlewis78 said:
 

> When mine freezes, it won't do anything. Can't even bring up the menu. I have to hold the sleep button on for a long time and wait for it to restart. Whenever this happens, the time goes wrong, but I don't think to fix the time until I need to use it when I'm reading late at night. The freeze comes first and the wrong time follows. I wasn't highlighting THAT much Saturday night when it happened.


When you reset by holding the slider for 90 seconds, you need to re-connect to 3G or wi-fi for your time to reset and for stuff to "reload". Be warned, this will also cause a re-indexing, so watch your battery.


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## r0b0d0c (Feb 16, 2009)

Since getting my K3 (3G/WiFi) I've had problems with it freezing with highlighting. If I do one highlight, it's usually OK, but if I do another within a few minutes, the K3 will freeze for a few minutes - and every subsequent highlight again produces the freeze. Same thing happens when I "clip" an article. It's gotten worse since my K3 has gotten more filled with books, to the point that I've given up highlighting altogether - too much down time to be useful. I've checked, and my K3 isn't indexing anything at the time. I've tried doing forced restarts, syncing, etc., and nothing solves this. 

I've never had it lose time or book order, but I leave my 3G/WiFi "on" all the time, so that blogs that I subscribe to get updates whenever they're available.


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## mrscottishman (May 18, 2010)

I am seeing the freezing (then thawing or in other words just stuck for a while) when highlighting on my K2. It takes forever sometimes and then the next highlight is quick. I think it may be the first highlight of the day on the book I am reading. I am trying to narrow it down and find a work around or fix.

We all can meet back here with more info later . . .
Scott


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## shambolic (May 19, 2011)

i can confirm this happens for me as well.  first few highlights are ok, but two or three in, it freezes for a fairly long time.
i have created a new Clippings file, which seemed to reduce the frequency and length of the freezes, but has not eradicated them completely....


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## Annalog (Dec 28, 2008)

My understanding is that multiple highlights in a short period of time can cause the Kindle to freeze because the Kindle is trying to read and write to the same file. Creating a highlight writes to both the MyClippings.txt file and the file associated with the book file, usually .mbp, that holds the highlight, bookmark, and current location information. After the Kindle writes to the two files, then the Kindle will read and index the changes to both of those files and write to the index files. If you highlight again while the Kindle is doing the indexing, it will wait to save the highlight until after it finishes indexing.

When my K2 seems to freeze while highlighting, I push the Menu key one time and then wait (usually less than 2 minutes) for the menu to appear or I push the Home key one time and wait. Do not keep pushing keys. The Kindle is not actually frozen, it is just busy.



shambolic said:


> i can confirm this happens for me as well. first few highlights are ok, but two or three in, it freezes for a fairly long time.
> i have created a new Clippings file, which seemed to reduce the frequency and length of the freezes, but has not eradicated them completely....


Shambolic, smaller Clippings file and fewer books on the kindle will reduce the frequency and length of the time it takes the Kindle to update the index files. I frequently rename my clippings file but I have over 1000 books and other documents on my K2 so I just need to be patient.


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## shambolic (May 19, 2011)

thanks for the insight.  i agree patience is a virtue, but there is almost certainly a workaround that Amazon can implement which will reduce or eliminate the wait.  let's hope they're listening....


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## Annalog (Dec 28, 2008)

shambolic said:


> thanks for the insight. i agree patience is a virtue, but there is almost certainly a workaround that Amazon can implement which will reduce or eliminate the wait. let's hope they're listening....


I did mention this issue when I was asked "Do you have any other issues?" at the end of a call with Kindle Support about something else. The issue is known to them. If their priority for working on existing issues, as opposed to working on new functionality, is based on the number of mentions of the issue bu customers, then those of us who use the annotation features on a regular and frequent basis should mention this issue on all calls to Kindle support as well as in an e-mail. I doubt that they count mentions on KB alone.


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## shambolic (May 19, 2011)

email duly sent.    asked for a timeline to fix.  will let you know if they come back with anything interesting.


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

I have the freezing issue with my K3, too. So far, it's only happened when I've been highlighting passages in the NIV Bible that I use in church. The pattern that I see is along the lines of what others have said. The first couple of highlights are fine, and then then next one hangs the K3 up for awhile (nothing happens at all). After probably a minute or so, all is well. I can often make another highlight or two and no freezing occurs.


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## Neekeebee (Jan 10, 2009)

Same problem with freezing on my K3 (3G/Wi-Fi).  It occurs quite randomly, about 1 out of 3-4 times when I am either making notes or highlighting or adding/deleting bookmark, even looking up a word.  When it happens, my Kindle will freeze for a minute or two.  A couple of times it has frozen completely and required a hard reset.  My wireless is usually off, but this has happened with it on and off.  The process of indexing doesn't seem to be a factor either.  Recently, I had a lot of trouble with a book that's been on the Kindle for months when I tried to do several highlights/notes in succession (and no other books were being indexed at the time).  

Now that I've found this thread, I'm kind of reassured to hear others are having the same issue and that Amazon is working on it.

N


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## fuschiahedgehog (Feb 23, 2010)

same issues here.  Very annoying.


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## valleycat1 (Mar 15, 2011)

My K3 can be really slow if I highlight a long passage; sometimes it seems I've hit the 5-way button too quickly to end it & often if I press it again it'll 'take'.  It also seems to happen mainly when I'm doing a lot of highlighting (frequency or length of highlight).

Instead of actually highlighting the text, you can move the cursor to the beginning of the sentence or phrase & double-click the middle 5-way button, which will set a bookmark that starts at that point, rather than at the top of the page like a regular bookmark.  So when you look at your bookmarks/highlights, the portion you otherwise would have highlighted still displays.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

I have this problem. I started highlighting on my iphone only


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## Cindy416 (May 2, 2009)

I still have this problem, and it's not always when reading and highlighting in my Bible. I hope Amazon comes up with a fix for this. (It's certainly not a big enough deal to make me complain about my Kindle, but it is a bit annoying.)


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

This is a non-issue for me as I pretty much never highlight and rarely bookmark. . . . . BUT. . . .have you all who've experienced the problem alerted Amazon to it?

There's lots of discussion here -- there are at least 2 threads besides this one, I think -- but we're NOT Amazon! 

You should use the kindle feedback email address to let them know. . . .or go to Kindle Customer Support and click the 'contact us' button. They can't fix it and won't even work on it if they don't know about it.

It's easy to assume someone else has told them but if 1 of a million people report it, that doesn't indicate a widespread problem, and could, conceivably, be user error. If 100 people do, they're more likely to take a closer look. . . . .


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## mlewis78 (Apr 19, 2009)

There is also a thread on the Amazon boards.  Many people there have told customer service, but the issue has not been addressed.


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## Tatiana (Aug 20, 2010)

r0b0d0c said:


> Since getting my K3 (3G/WiFi) I've had problems with it freezing with highlighting. If I do one highlight, it's usually OK, but if I do another within a few minutes, the K3 will freeze for a few minutes - and every subsequent highlight again produces the freeze. Same thing happens when I "clip" an article. It's gotten worse since my K3 has gotten more filled with books, to the point that I've given up highlighting altogether - too much down time to be useful. I've checked, and my K3 isn't indexing anything at the time. I've tried doing forced restarts, syncing, etc., and nothing solves this.
> 
> I've never had it lose time or book order, but I leave my 3G/WiFi "on" all the time, so that blogs that I subscribe to get updates whenever they're available.


Yes this freezing has happened to me on my original K3 and the replacements I have had. It also happens when I make notations and when I book mark a page and then try to delete the book mark. It is so difficult to do the highlighting I've given up highlighting in my non-fiction books and also making notes and using the bookmark feature. I have told Amazon Kindle CS a couple of times and the answers were that no one else had reported it. I don't loose my collections or have them reordered after I have to do a restart to get it to "unfreeze" but the collection in which the book I was reading is in always moves to the very end of my collections list.

I have just come to the conclusion that there are certain functions that don't work well and KCS techs aren't going to worry about them.


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## Cathi (Feb 24, 2011)

It happens to mine all the time.. and then when I try to restart it, it takes forever... I get really frustrated.  I may just call


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## fuschiahedgehog (Feb 23, 2010)

Ditto here.  I do lots of highlighting and it's gotten really bad lately.  I think I'll actually call and complain about this issue - if it continues it's a potential dealbreaker for me.


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## Joe Chiappetta (May 20, 2010)

Notes freezing up for me too with K3. Very troublesome. Guess we're all in the same boat.


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