# Unable to read a book w/o wifi?



## ScottinBend (Feb 25, 2012)

So, I got my new Fire last week and purchased a couple of books from Amazon.  I have run across this problem now twice with the book I am reading.  What happens is that sometimes when I go to read the book I get an indicator on the book icon that is either an exclamation point or an X.  It thens wants to try and download something for this book and I am unable to read it.
Any ideas what is going on?

Scott


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

You do need to make sure you've downloaded it before you read.  Sounds like you're pulling something that's not already ON the Fire and it's trying to download it for you, but can't because there's no network.

Go to the Books tab on the fire and see what's listed as on the 'device' vs. the 'cloud'. Anything on the 'device' should be accessible whether there's a network available or not.  Those in the cloud won't be.


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## ScottinBend (Feb 25, 2012)

What happens is that I can read the book during my lunch w/o wifi but if I go to.read it.later in the day it wont allow me to.even open the book. It just tries to.connect and download something. It never takes more than a few moments to download whatever it needs to.


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

You can read anything that has been downloaded - otherwise you do need a wifi connection to get the book from your Archive (Amazon Cloud).


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## HappyGuy (Nov 3, 2008)

Would it maybe be trying to download public comments?


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Curious.  I've not had this happen.  As you say, it sounds like at some point in the book there is something it is trying to download.  Public comments may be one thing, I don't know, I have them turned off.

Does it happen with all books that you try or just some of them?

Can you give an example of a book this has happened with?

Betsy


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## ScottinBend (Feb 25, 2012)

Well out of 6 days of reading The Mistborn Trilogy (from Amazon) during lunch while having no wifi available, this has happened twice.  Everything is fine while reading it during lunch.  I believe that each time I have just let it go to "sleep" (no screen) after lunch.  Then when I go to read some during the afternoon break, again with no wifi, it won't let me open the book as it seems to need to download something.  The book is located on my device.

What are these public comments you refer to?


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## electrojim (May 5, 2011)

ScottinBlend's experience is exactly what I complained about a number of days ago.  My Kindle said that the book (a Lawrence Block novel) was resident on the Device (vs. Cloud), but when I picked it back up to continue the story, it wanted to sync again; that is, nothing in the Kindle memory.  This happened a couple of times with that book only, but not since with other books.  My recollection was that the book disappeared from memory when I hit the Power button quickly and put the Kindle to sleep, instead of turning it off.  Someone responded to my post and said that this sounds like a bug.

I do note that every time I power-up the Kindle and go to a book that I've been reading, the Kindle posts a note to the effect that it can't sync, please try again later, but the book is there in memory and loads okay.


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## Andra (Nov 19, 2008)

I definitely think this is something that you need to report to Amazon since it sounds like the problems are related to particular books.  I keep the WiFi off on my Fire and so far have not run into any problems reading books that are local. 
(Now my Fire tends to lose track of what's in the cloud since I have over 1700 items in my Archive at this point, but that's a separate problem  )


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## ScottinBend (Feb 25, 2012)

Well I am going to make sure and shut off the Fire after reading and see what happens.


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## electrojim (May 5, 2011)

Okay!  I had this happen again last night, with another book purchased, downoladed and read on numerous occasions.  I was about 75% into the book and on next boot-up, Kindle brought up the cover of the book on my carousel, but with an exclamation point in the lower, right-hand corner.  When I tried to open the book, I was told that it wasn't downloaded and that I needed to turn on my Wi-Fi, which, thankfully, I was able to do, being at home, NOT out-of-touch in Yosemite!  So it did download (again!) and I was able to continue reading.  Something is definitely wrong, and I AM going to report this to Amazon.


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## Shastastan (Oct 28, 2009)

I'm a little confused about Amazon diwnloads. I think it defaults to the cloud when you buy something.  Are you saying that after you download it, you have to do it again a 2nd time?

Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk


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## ReneAZ (Jan 1, 2011)

electrojim said:


> ScottinBlend's experience is exactly what I complained about a number of days ago. My Kindle said that the book (a Lawrence Block novel) was resident on the Device (vs. Cloud), but when I picked it back up to continue the story, it wanted to sync again; that is, nothing in the Kindle memory. This happened a couple of times with that book only, but not since with other books. My recollection was that the book disappeared from memory when I hit the Power button quickly and put the Kindle to sleep, instead of turning it off. Someone responded to my post and said that this sounds like a bug.
> 
> I do note that every time I power-up the Kindle and go to a book that I've been reading, the Kindle posts a note to the effect that it can't sync, please try again later, but the book is there in memory and loads okay.


I've had this happen occasionally also. For no apparent reason, a 'sync' message pops up (while reading a book on my device). It was very annoying for a couple of days, but I haven't had it happen the last couple of days.

Update: It did it again yesterday - message at the bottom about archiving, and that sync failed. (I was reading a book on my device at the time). I don't understand it.
Never used to do this.


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## ScottinBend (Feb 25, 2012)

So far all has gone well. I have been making sure to power off the reader instead of just shutting off the screen,


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## WestPointer1968 (Oct 28, 2008)

Glad to see this has happened to others.  Asked the same question back in early January when I had this happen frequently when I was on a cruise.  Same thing.  Had downloaded the book to the device when I had wifi and then was reading it on the ship and when i turned off the Fire and then tried to resume reading later, Fire acted as if I needed to download and wouldn't open the book.  Curiously, when I went to the computer lounge where wifi was available tho I was not logged on, the books reappeared and acted normally!!  The exerts here went on and on about the difference between the cloud and the device and that I had to download so on and so forth, all of which I new and had done properly!  At the time no one else complained of this problem and to be honest it hasn't occurred since the cruise.  Perhaps Betsy's comment that we should report this to the Fire people at Amazon was right on now that it is more widespread than my own Fire!


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