# Kindle PW(2013) update 5.4.2 - GoodReads integration and Cloud Collections



## wilsondm2

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200529680


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## Chad Winters

I have so been waiting for this!! Finally organized!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201384530 takes you to the summary


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## D/W

Here's a link to Amazon's press release: Goodreads and Kindle FreeTime Now Available on the New Kindle Paperwhite



> SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 19, 2013-- (NASDAQ:AMZN)-Amazon today announced a software update for the new Kindle Paperwhite that brings exclusive features including Goodreads integration and Kindle FreeTime. This free, over-the-air software update will be delivered automatically in the coming weeks, or you can visit www.amazon.com/kindlesoftwareupdates to download the software update starting today.
> 
> "The new Kindle Paperwhite is already the best e-reader in the world, and we're excited to make it even better with new features we think readers will love," said Peter Larsen, Vice President, Amazon Kindle. "First, we're combining the world's largest e-reading community and the world's largest community of book lovers with new Goodreads integration. Second, given the great customer response to our tablet version of Kindle FreeTime, we're excited to extend this feature to Kindle Paperwhite, helping parents encourage their kids to read more."
> 
> *Goodreads Integration*
> 
> Goodreads on Kindle Paperwhite brings together the world's largest e-reading community and the world's largest community of book lovers. Join more than 20 million other readers on Goodreads to discover great books and have discussions about what you're reading. Features of the new Goodreads integration, available exclusively from Amazon, include:
> 
> 
> Share favorite passages with your Goodreads friends without leaving the book.
> See what your friends are reading, read their reviews and discover new books to read.
> When you finish a book, immediately rate it without putting down your Kindle.
> Keep track of all your reading activity-update your "Currently Reading", "Read", and "Want to Read" shelves directly from your Kindle. Easily add your Amazon book purchases, print and digital, to your Goodreads account.
> 
> See screenshots: www.amazon.com/kindle-goodreads.
> 
> *Kindle FreeTime*
> 
> Built-in parental controls have been extended to give parents a simple way to encourage kids to spend more time reading. Parents can set daily reading goals for their kids, hand-select books for their kids to read, and track progress against goals. Children earn achievement badges for hitting reading milestones-for example, reaching and exceeding their daily reading goal, and passing big milestones like "Read 1000 pages". A progress report keeps parents updated on total time spent reading, number of words looked up, badges earned and books finished. See screenshots: www.amazon.com/new-kindle-freetime.
> 
> *Cloud Collections*
> 
> Organize your books, newspapers, and magazines in customized collections for easy reference, and Amazon's Whispersync technology synchronizes the collections across your Kindle devices and reading apps so they're available on all of your devices.


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## backslidr

I just installed it and I now have free time, but there is no g in the menu to access goodreads like there is supposed to be. Am I doing something wrong?


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## backslidr

This is bad. I only had 4 collections on my pw2, but now it's showing all my collections on my other kindle's, 7 pages of collections! Can I delete all these other ones without them being deleted on the other kindle's?


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## history_lover

I'm really disappointed this isn't available for the old Paperwhite. They added the PW software upgrades to the KT so why not this for the PW1? I refuse to be manipulated into buying yet another new Kindle and I don't buy the idea that the PW1 hardware couldn't handle the software upgrade. Nonsense - even the KK was capable of playing games and hosted other complicated apps without problem.

I've been a loyal Amazon/Kindle customer since the Kindle Keyboard (before it was even called the Kindle Keyboard) and I feel like Amazon are not just taking advantage of that instead of rewarding me. I realize all devices will eventually become outdated but the PW1 is barely more than a year old. Amazon has been criticized for a lot of things over the years but I've always given them the benefit of the doubt. Not anymore, there's no defending this choice. They just want to encourage people into upgrading their device and I'm NOT going to be suckered into it.


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## Atunah

I am still hopeful they are working on a upgrade for the PW1 and that we get some of the features, or all. I'll give up on that hope if nothing happens by xmas. 

I sure would love to have them.


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## Betsy the Quilter

I've been a Kindle owner since the original Kindle and I'm still annoyed that they stop updating the K1.     But I think it very likely that some of the new features of the PW2 will be applied to the PW1.  Cloud collections would seem to me to be a likely candidate.  But then I'm not a programmer, so what do I know?

Manually installing the update on my PW2....

Betsy


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## Betsy the Quilter

7vn11vn said:


> This is bad. I only had 4 collections on my pw2, but now it's showing all my collections on my other kindle's, 7 pages of collections! Can I delete all these other ones without them being deleted on the other kindle's?


Is this on the device itself, not the cloud?

Hmmmm...I'm not seeing any collections other than the ones I already had on my Kindle, even in my cloud, which is strange. I thought I would see the cloud ones I'd set up and have seen on my Fire.

But the Goodreads integration is there. (Which, frankly, as integrated on the Fire, I'm less than enthralled with. When I reviewed a book on my Fire, yes, it did add it to my Goodreads account, too, but it didn't import the rating I gave it. If it doesn't do any better than that on the PW, I can't see much use for it.)

I'm restarting my PW2 to see if that makes a difference.

Betsy


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## backslidr

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Is this on the device itself, not the cloud?
> 
> Hmmmm...I'm not seeing any collections other than the ones I already had on my Kindle, even in my cloud, which is strange. I thought I would see the cloud ones I'd set up and have seen on my Fire.
> 
> But the Goodreads integration is there. (Which, frankly, as integrated on the Fire, I'm less than enthralled with. When I reviewed a book on my Fire, yes, it did add it to my Goodreads account, too, but it didn't import the rating I gave it. If it doesn't do any better than that on the PW, I can't see much use for it.)
> 
> I'm restarting my PW2 to see if that makes a difference.
> 
> Betsy


Yes. It put all my collections from other kindles on my pw2, but not the books. Problem is, amazon says if I delete them off my pw2 they will be deleted off my other kindles and all the books will go back on the home pages. I put different collections on different kindles and now all the collection names show up on the pw2 with no way of deleting them without deleting them from the other kindles.


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## Betsy the Quilter

OK, I think it just took a while..

I'm seeing everything, both in the cloud and on the device. 

If I try to delete a collection, it says "This collection is synced across all your devices and will be deleted on all of them."

This is very poorly thought out.  Does not allow for different people using different devices.  I think there is going to be a fix for this.

Betsy


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## Tabatha

You may want to check out the comments about this on Mobilereads forum as well as here.


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## backslidr

Thanks for checking it out. This is a very bad update. I've rebooted twice and I still can't even get the g on the menu so I have no access to goodreads. They need a fix quick or they're going to be flooded with complaints. We need a way to turn off cloud collections.


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## kansaskyle

I agree on poorly thought out.

I also don't see how my collections are synced across all devices unless they plan to release firmware updates on the other Kindle versions to get them to pull down the Cloud collections.

My main device now has collections from the Kindles my kids and bride use.  What a mess!


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## kansaskyle

Another thing I noticed is my main '_Reading' collection seems to have every book I've ever had in that collection over time.  Prior to the update, I had two books in there.  Now I have 122!

The non-active ones are grayed out, and it appears I have to download them and manually delete them to remove them from that collection.


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## backslidr

For anybody else that has the no Goodreads problem I tried de-registering it and re-registering it and then the g showed up in the menu and I got access to Goodreads. I checked out Mobilereads and they are complaining about the collections as well.


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## VictoriaP

I suspected when the iOS version of cloud collections was such a mess, this one was going to be just as bad...but it sounds like it's even worse. For now, I'm leaving the PW2 on airplane mode, though obviously that's not a long term solution!

Any incremental improvements (or problems)? Faster, slower, text darker or lighter?


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## Ann in Arlington

Suggest feedback to Amazon -- sounds like they definitely dropped the ball on this one!  I've not gotten the update yet, myself.  Not to concerned about it one way or the other, but still.


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## Betsy the Quilter

Using Kindle for PC and Kindle  for iPhone, I've been creating a lot of collections for organizing the cloud where I have a ton of books; but I didn't want all of those on my actual Kindles, where I only usually have about six collections.

And, normally, an account with a bunch of different Kindles would have different users, who presumably would want different setups on the physical Kindles.

I think this will be rolled back or updated really soon.

Feedback is an excellent idea.

Betsy


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## Betsy the Quilter

Tabatha said:


> You may want to check out the comments about this on Mobilereads forum as well as here.


I'll leave that to others. 

Betsy


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## Ann in Arlington

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Using Kindle for PC and Kindle for iPhone, I've been creating a lot of collections for organizing the cloud where I have a ton of books; but I didn't want all of those on my actual Kindles, where I only usually have about six collections.
> 
> And, normally, an account with a bunch of different Kindles would have different users, who presumably would want different setups on the physical Kindles.
> 
> I think this will be rolled back or updated really soon.
> 
> Feedback is an excellent idea.
> 
> Betsy


this!

I share with my brother but his device is older so I doubt it will ever get any more updates. . . . so it's not an issue in that sense. But I was hoping I could do some more thorough organizing in the cloud and then just keep a few relevant collections on my PW.  As it is, I probably won't bother with the cloud much, except maybe for apps, because I don't want to make things on my PW unwieldy.

Interestingly -- the collections that appeared on my Fire included ones I'd long since stopped using and that were on devices I don't even have any more!


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## Betsy the Quilter

Here's how STOOPID (yes, I said STOOPID) this "update" is; I now have collections on my PW with zero items, because the books that are in those collections are NOT on my PW....

This is incredibily STOOPID.

And I've sent feedback to [email protected], and will probably also contact cs via email in case the feedback email no longer works.

Betsy


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## Ann in Arlington

Oh Oh.  If Betsy thinks it's bad, it's REALLY BAD!


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## Betsy the Quilter

Ann in Arlington said:


> Oh Oh. If Betsy thinks it's bad, it's REALLY BAD!


Yeah, I don't expect most stuff to be arranged to suit me, and can deal with it. But this is STOOPID. 
     

Betsy


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## Ann in Arlington

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Yeah, I don't expect most stuff to be arranged to suit me, and can deal with it. But this is STOOPID.
> 
> 
> Betsy


And, I assume, you can not delete those collections from the PW without also deleting them from the Cloud collections -- where they're not extraneous because you do have actual books in them that are on other devices or none at all.


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## VictoriaP

Ann in Arlington said:


> And, I assume, you can not delete those collections from the PW without also deleting them from the Cloud collections -- where they're not extraneous because you do have actual books in them that are on other devices or none at all.


That's it exactly, according to the Mobile Reads crew. Who also think it's stoopid.


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## Atunah

Oh dear. I take back what I said about wanting this update on my PW1. 

I must have a gazillion ghost collections in the cloud. I had 3 replacements for my K3 and 3 for the paperwhite. And I am collection addicted, which means I easily have 30-40 collections that have changed so many times over all the devices and I renamed every replacement eventually the same once I ended up keeping it. Adding all the books to all the different collections each time. 

And there was a time where I played with the sorting thingy, so I changed collections again and again adding symbols. There must be 100's and 100's of collections somewhere in the cloud if they never deleted the ones from older devices. 

I am trying to imagine them all showing up on my PW.


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## backslidr

I had 2 pages on my pw2. Now I have 17 in list view, 7 of which are old collections and 10 pages of books that weren't there before. When I try to add them back into collections it shows that they already are in them and I can't get them off the home page. What a screwed up mess!


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## Betsy the Quilter

Ann in Arlington said:


> And, I assume, you can not delete those collections from the PW without also deleting them from the Cloud collections -- where they're not extraneous because you do have actual books in them that are on other devices or none at all.


I deleted one that was on my PW with zero books, got the warning that it would be deleted across devices, and it was--including the Cloud (where it had one book in it).

Collections that have books not on the Kindle: for example, my Ed McBain collection shows 41 books in the collection. On my device. But those 41 aren't actually in the collection on my device, and so are greyed out when I open the collection from the device view. Tapping one of the greyed out books downloads it. Then it darkens. And the same collection, viewed from the cloud, has the book that I downloaded in dark with the checkmark, and the rest grayed out. I don't need that list in both places.

Betsy


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## MsScarlett

Well, I am putting my PW in airplane mode and hunkering down until this thing gets sorted out.


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## Betsy the Quilter

It is an argument for connecting via USB. 

One positive thing about the update--I like the new generic covers in cover view better. 


Betsy


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## Betsy the Quilter

If you are the kind of person who has one set of collections that you want to use across all your devices, this is a probably an update (once you get rid of ghost collections, if any).  

The thing that would most bother me in that case is having all the books that are in the collection in the cloud show up grayed out in the "on device" listing.  You may have to have the books within the collection sorted by "Recent" in order to see the books actually on the device if you have more than eight books in the collection.  I have 251 in my Mystery collection, only 17 of which are on my PW.  If I have it sorted by Title, I can't see any of those 17.  If I have author, I can only see three of them.  

The Cloud is for seeing what items are in the cloud.

I always kept a limited number of collections (six) on my home page and then kept the book I'm currently reading outside of any collection so it would be the first thing after the collections.  Now I'll just keep it sorted by most recent and only sort by collections when I'm browsing.  Sigh.

Betsy


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## stevene9

This is a disaster. Hundreds of greyed out bookshave been added to my PW2. I haven't daredgo to my wife's PW1 to see what it does to her reader. This is just awful.

Steve


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## VictoriaP

The greyed out books would drive me up a wall.

And as a side note: pre-update, none of my PW2 collections show up in the collections on iOS. But the ones from both my deregistered K2 and my old Touch do.  Now I really don't dare update the PW2, as those collections took me hours to set up the way I wanted and apparently Amazon hasn't backed them up.


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## Atunah

Do they not realize that some of us have had kindles for a long time and have played around with collections for a long time. Add to that the growth of the archives over the years with 100's, 1000's books being funneled through a variety of collections? 

Did they not test this thing out? Could they not have found a tester that has had a few kindles over the years? 

I try to imagine still how this would look like in my case. I have right now 36 collections. Most books are in multiple collections. So you guys are saying that every book I have ever added to any collection would be in grey on the kindle, even if its just on the cloud? I have like 2000 books in my archive, all of them have been in various collections over the years, on and off the kindles, moved around this and that way. 

Atunah grabs her PW1 and holds it in a death grip. Oh dear.


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## stevene9

I just called Kindle customer support and she knew nothing about this. I suggest people call (866-321-8851) to complain. 

Steve


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## Betsy the Quilter

Steve--Your wife's PW1 should not be affected--this is a PW2 update issue.

While I think feedback is important, I would recommend email [email protected] or the customer service form through Amazon's website.  Surely there are many customers who have technical issues with new Kindles that Kindle CS can actually help with; I'd hate to see those customers waiting for service.  My opinion....YMMV.

Betsy


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## VictoriaP

The other reason to use email--a paper trail can be critical in getting Customer Support to acknowledge a problem, rather than dismiss it. Amazon's CS is generally quite good, but responses can vary widely depending on who takes up the support ticket. Having the problem well laid out in writing means the customer has something to refer back to as needed--and Amazon's CS dept has more thorough documentation they can forward on to the dev team to fix this pile of dog doo, hopefully sooner rather than later.


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## stevene9

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Steve--Your wife's PW1 should not be affected--this is a PW2 update issue.
> 
> While I think feedback is important, I would recommend email [email protected] or the customer service form through Amazon's website. Surely there are many customers who have technical issues with new Kindles that Kindle CS can actually help with; I'd hate to see those customers waiting for service. My opinion....YMMV.
> 
> Betsy


I've sent the email and called. I have about 600 extra greyed out titles on my reader and numerous extra collections. I also turned off synching, just because I don't fully undertand the ramifications of how deep this goes.

If I factory reset my device and then download the 200 odd books I want on my PW2, will that clean it up or will it download the other collections from the cloud anyway because my cloud is now messed up? Any opinions.

Steve


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## VictoriaP

stevene9 said:


> I've sent the email and called. I have about 600 extra greyed out titles on my reader and numerous extra collections. I also turned off synching, just because I don't fully undertand the ramifications of how deep this goes.
> 
> If I factory reset my device and then download the 200 odd books I want on my PW2, will that clean it up or will it download the other collections from the cloud anyway because my cloud is now messed up? Any opinions.
> 
> Steve


I haven't seen where anyone has tried a factory reset & redownload yet--however, doing a reset won't roll the firmware update back. Unfortunately. My best guess, and it really is a guess, is that it won't change anything, but if I were in your situation, I'd be desperate enough to try it. That's a LOT of greyed out titles interfering with your ability to enjoy your device.

Does anyone know if the firmware is signed to be serial number specific in any way? In other words, can we take the 5.4.0 version from an non-updated PW2 and use it to roll back an updated one?


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## Betsy the Quilter

A factory reset is still going to have the updated version.  Factory resets do not remove updates, just data.  So you have to live with it.  I don't see how synching could make any difference at this point; I wouldn't worry about that, unless you are worried about removing collections on another device if you remove them on your PW2.

Betsy


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## stevene9

What if I download a greyed out title to my device and then delete it from the device. Would it still come back greyed out when I connect to the cloud?


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## stevene9

I just answered my own question. When I just finished a book I removed it from the device but it immediately came back as greyed out. It looks like you won't be able to delete any book without deleting it from the cloud also. Not acceptable.

Steve


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## Betsy the Quilter

Yep, the collections on the device will always show you what is in the cloud as well as on the device.  Whether you're using device view or cloud view.  I don't see the point.

Betsy


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## VictoriaP

Answer from mobilereads is more bad news: it doesn't appear that firmware 5.4.0 was released via download (no link) and we can't transfer it from one Kindle to another. (There's also no simple PW2 jailbreak on the horizon.) So this will absolutely require a solution from Amazon, which isn't a real surprise, but a bit nerve wracking when I think about their track record. The software for e-ink Kindles hasn't been a strong suit in my eyes--think user screensavers and fonts.

*starts chewing nails nervously*


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## history_lover

Atunah said:


> Oh dear. I take back what I said about wanting this update on my PW1.
> 
> I must have a gazillion ghost collections in the cloud. I had 3 replacements for my K3 and 3 for the paperwhite. And I am collection addicted, which means I easily have 30-40 collections that have changed so many times over all the devices and I renamed every replacement eventually the same once I ended up keeping it. Adding all the books to all the different collections each time.
> 
> And there was a time where I played with the sorting thingy, so I changed collections again and again adding symbols. There must be 100's and 100's of collections somewhere in the cloud if they never deleted the ones from older devices.
> 
> I am trying to imagine them all showing up on my PW.


I'm a collection minimalist so I'm still annoyed the update isn't available for the PW1, lol!


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## Betsy the Quilter

history_lover said:


> I'm a collection minimalist so I'm still annoyed the update isn't available for the PW1, lol!


If the number of collections were the only problem, that could be dealt with. It would be tedious, and disappointing, but I could deal with it. (I usually only have six collections on my actual Kindles, but I've been using Kindlef for PC and Kindle for iPhone, which already had "cloud collections" to make more collections for the 1800+ books in the cloud, for cloud browsing convenience.)

To me an even more annoying is the fact that every single book in the collection appears in the collection, albeit greyed out if not on the device, both when viewing the cloud and when viewing the device. Cannot imagine what Amazon was thinking with that one.

Betsy


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## history_lover

Betsy the Quilter said:


> If the number of collections were the only problem, that could be dealt with. It would be tedious, and disappointing, but I could deal with it. (I usually only have six collections on my actual Kindles, but I've been using Kindlef for PC and Kindle for iPhone, which already had "cloud collections" to make more collections for the 1800+ books in the cloud, for cloud browsing convenience.)


I never made collections in Kindle for PC/iPhone so I should be okay... if the PW1 ever gets the update, that is.

What I really was looking forward to with this update was the GR integration, the "page flip" feature (where you can browse the book in a popup window so you don't have to leave your place in the book), and inline footnotes. I'll be really disappointed if the PW1 doesn't get at least some of these features.


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## KindleGirl

Glad I didn't get the update yet and I saw this thread first! I've put mine in airplane mode for now. Maybe they'll figure out a solution before I have to turn it back on....I hope. At the very least, I wish they'd stop the roll-out if it isn't working properly. Hard to believe they messed this one up so badly. Maybe their testers need to be people who actually use kindles and have been using them since they came out. 

On the positive side....I'm looking forward to the new generic cover pictures that have been updated!


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## Ann in Arlington

FWIW, my PW2 has not updated automatically. . . . I currently arrange things as Betsy does and really don't want anything further on my home page.  Also, I have a LOT of books that are technically not in any collection because I never really bothered with it.  I 'collect' books I put on the kindle and then take it out of all collections so only the ones I'm currently reading appear on the home page.  When I've read it, I rate and share on FB and then delete it back to the cloud.  I DO NOT WANT to see that title again on my PW. . . . though at least grayed out indicates it's cloud. It sounds, though, like I'd have to adjust my personal organization method so . . . doable, but not desirable.  I guess the 'cloud' vs 'on device' choice on the upper left of the home page is no longer there?  If so, that is STOOPID.

So it will be easy to resist the temptation to do a manual download, but I'm really hoping that it doesn't come automatically -- I can't just turn airplane mode on, though, because I like to get my paper every morning! 

I hope you all who did get it send feedback -- I don't feel like I can do so based on 'hearsay' as it were -- but they need to know this isn't an improvement at all and rework it before they push it out. Has ANYONE, by the way, had it show up automatically, or did you all do it via download and usb transfer? There have been occasions in the past where they announced an update, the first few people got it and discovered it hosed something on the device, and they pulled it and fixed it before sending it out to everyone.  I hope that's what happens here. 

FWIW, I don't care about the GR part,  -- as that worked on my HDX when I was playing yesterday, it seemed kind of useless for me.  It seems to know what you own, per amazon, but even if you rate and leave a review (on the hdx; assuming similar behavior on the PW2) the rating doesn't show up on GR.  So what's the point in that?  And it may 'know' all my Amazon books, but I've rated at least a quarter of them and those ratings didn't show up.  If I were going to embrace GR, I would do so to have a single better place to organize -- one that worked easily with my kindle.  That doesn't happen with the GR integration as it is on the HDX.  

I would expect both the GR and cloud collection "features" to be eventually available for the PW1, but I would NOT expect the in line footnotes and page flipping -- that's much more software intensive and I'm thinking it requires the faster processor the PW2 has. 

They could do a 5.4.2.1 update that rolls back to 5.4.0 equivalent and then work on it some more. . . . . . . .


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## Andra

Atunah said:


> Do they not realize that some of us have had kindles for a long time and have played around with collections for a long time. Add to that the growth of the archives over the years with 100's, 1000's books being funneled through a variety of collections?
> 
> Did they not test this thing out? Could they not have found a tester that has had a few kindles over the years?


I've long thought that there are some things that Amazon just doesn't get and one of them is people with a lot of stuff. I have had a Kindle for over 5 years and I am closing in on 3,000 items and I know there are folks who have a lot more ebooks than I do. But trying to manage them or arrange them even with collections is a major pain. So I quit trying to use collections because they just annoyed me.
Hopefully they will realize that this is a big enough issue that they will fix it - soon!


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## Betsy the Quilter

I think it's working as they intended; how they didn't think about multiple Kindle users on the same account, I have no idea.

Here are some screen caps of how collections look on my Paperwhite:

Here are collections on my home page. Note I have 50 items on my Paperwhite, but no way of knowing how many are really in each collection in the Paperwhite because it shows how many are in the collection in the Cloud, regardless of how many are actually on the PW.









And here are three sorts of my Mystery collection ON the PW, not in the Cloud. Note that if I sort any way but recent, it's hard to see what is on the device. This is the disadvantage of a big library and few collections, under the current Amazon system:























And finally, what the new generic covers look like. I think they're a big improvement...









Betsy


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## Betsy the Quilter

Ann in Arlington said:


> I guess the 'cloud' vs 'on device' choice on the upper left of the home page is no longer there? If so, that is STOOPID.


 It's there, but there is no real distinction in what you see.



> FWIW, I don't care about the GR part, -- as that worked on my HDX when I was playing yesterday, it seemed kind of useless for me. It seems to know what you own, per amazon, but even if you rate and leave a review (on the hdx; assuming similar behavior on the PW2) the rating doesn't show up on GR.


If you actually leave a review, on both the HDX and the PW, that seems to work now, the rating is carried forward. Don't know why that wasn't working for us yesterday, Ann. (See my GR post in Fire Talk.)

Betsy


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## Atunah

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Yep, the collections on the device will always show you what is in the cloud as well as on the device. Whether you're using device view or cloud view. I don't see the point.
> 
> Betsy


So what they really need to fix then is the way you are viewing it. I mean I wouldn't mind seeing the collections in the cloud when I am on the cloud view. I thought that is how it would work. So I could have my collections, but maybe not have all the books on the device, but just pull them in from the collections as needed. But when viewing just device, it should only show those books, no greyed out ones from the cloud.

That needs to be an option for this to work properly. Cloud view, see all the books, bolded on the device, greyed out in cloud. Device view, no greyed out. 
And maybe they need to look into having profiles per account. I am pretty much the only one using the kindles. Hubby uses the app on his ipad when travelling, but he can probably ignore the other stuff. 
But those that have several people on their account, they need to have the option to have their own collections, on device and cloud. To have profiles like netflix. As an option that is.

eta: ok as I was typing, Betsy put up some great screenshots. I would actually like the way it shows there. I mean the idea is to finally be able to see and always know what books one has, outside just the ones on the device. Since there is no way to sort and put collections on the My Account page, this would work for that. But, here is the but, when on device view it shouldn't show everything. Otherwise, what is the point of the cloud view. Cloud is for being able to see everything one has and know what is on the device and what isn't, but still see ones whole catalog. That is a good thing in my view. But not the device view option.


----------



## stevene9

*Possible temporary workaround!!!!*

I have many hundreds of greyed out entries that are driving me nuts. What I am doing to temporarily save my sanity is as follows:

I created a new collection called "Get Rid Of". I then have started to download the greyed out books in lots of 5. I then move the five books to the new collection "Get Rid Of". I then remove those 5 books from the device and the greyed out books are now in one collection and not cluttering everything up. Since I have many hundeds of these entries, this is going to take weeks. I hope Amazon does something before then, but just in case I have started the process. Whenever you finish a book, you have to move it to the new collection before deleting.

Having 600 extra entries does slow down the PW2 noticably in the moving of the books, but I don't see any other way to keep my sanity.

Steve


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Steve, instead of actually downloading them, I'd suggesting moving items to the collection using  Kindle for PC.

If that works for you, fine, but I've already spent a lot of time organizing my cloud and don't want to undo it.

Like  Atunah said, I'm OK with the cloud view...

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 using Tapatalk 4


----------



## Eltanin Publishing

I quickly turned on airplane mode after reading all this...

I can't believe Amazon screwed up so royally. How can they not realize that many accounts have more than one kindle user on them, and they each want different collections? Yes, yes, people asked for some sort of cloud collections, so that viewing books in our cloud storage was a little easier, and that request is more complicated if different kindles on that account have different collections. But this is awful. 

My mom has a K3 and has her own collections - basically ways of sorting the books that I buy, so that she doesn't have to sort through all our cloud books when she's looking for something to read - "not interested", "might like to read", etc. I think we both have "already read" collections, with totally different books in them... How could Amazon be so clueless as to realize that I don't want to see her collections on my PW2? I am understanding this correctly, right? If I get the update, I would see my mom's collections on my PW2, unless I delete the collection, which would delete it from my mom's K3? Wow. That is truly awful.

In all my experiences with kindles (I started with the K2), this is the worst software (user interface) issue that I've ever seen, so I gotta believe Amazon will fix it. It is complicated, though, trying to implement cloud collections in an account where different kindles have different collections. People who want different kindles to have different collections might have to give up the ability to have cloud collections.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

I'm still not clear on how this is working. 

What I can tell from Betsy's screenshots is that she definitely has more collections shown NOW than she did when I saw her PW yesterday -- then there were like 6 and the 7th entry on her first screen was a lone book title.  I'm guessing those are her device collections as well as cloud collections.  Once you page past the collections listings, do you see uncollected titles on your device?

I agree that collections that are 'cloud' should NOT show when the sort is specified as 'on device'.  That's just silly.  I share with my brother and he has a collection called scripts and scores -- because he loads them for when his community theater group does stuff.  I don't give two hoots about such things. And don't want to see that empty collection (he loads such things to his DX manually via USB) on my device.  I can only imagine the problem being even bigger in families with multiple devices in the hands of multiple readers sharing an account! 

A thought: wasn't Kindle Free Time meant to come for the PW2 as well?  Might that solve some problems by restricting what the kindle can see?  Still, it's kindle ooky that one has to turn on Free Time on your own kindle to avoid seeing, say, your husband's fishing and hunting books.

Does any of this affect subscriptions?  I'm guessing not -- it didn't on the HDX.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Eltanin Publishing said:


> I quickly turned on airplane mode after reading all this...
> 
> I can't believe Amazon screwed up so royally. How can they not realize that many accounts have more than one kindle user on them, and they each want different collections? Yes, yes, people asked for some sort of cloud collections, so that viewing books in our cloud storage was a little easier, and that request is more complicated if different kindles on that account have different collections. But this is awful.
> 
> My mom has a K3 and has her own collections - basically ways of sorting the books that I buy, so that she doesn't have to sort through all our cloud books when she's looking for something to read - "not interested", "might like to read", etc. I think we both have "already read" collections, with totally different books in them... How could Amazon be so clueless as to realize that I don't want to see her collections on my PW2? I am understanding this correctly, right? If I get the update, I would see my mom's collections on my PW2, unless I delete the collection, which would delete it from my mom's K3? Wow. That is truly awful.
> 
> In all my experiences with kindles (I started with the K2), this is the worst software (user interface) issue that I've ever seen, so I gotta believe Amazon will fix it. It is complicated, though, trying to implement cloud collections in an account where different kindles have different collections. People who want different kindles to have different collections might have to give up the ability to have cloud collections.


Well, as your mom doesn't have a PW2, I don't think it'll affect her device at all. But I can't be sure of that. Betsy, you've got the cloud collections on your PW2, has that affected the collections you have on your Touch or Basic Kindle? But as time passes, and more and more people have compatible cloud collection devices, it will be come a problem. 

I can't say it's the worst issue I've seen, since I've only read reports here. I trust Betsy, but I've not actually SEEN the update. So I hesitate to make that statement. It does sound, however, like there are some things that they missed. As I said, it's happened before that an update actually messed something else up on a device and they stopped distribution, even removed it from the update page on the site, while they got it sorted and then pushed it out again.

Again. . . . those of you who have got it and have used it, definitely provide feedback and suggestions to Amazon. One might be a toggle in settings that lets you see or not see cloud collections. Grousing here may make people feel better, but if you don't let Amazon know what you are having problems with, they won't know that they need to be fixed.

[email protected]


----------



## Ann in Arlington

So . . . was just reading and this update is supposed to include Free Time. . . . .has anyone checked to see if that would help to work around some of the 'drowning in collections' issues?


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

yes, books not in a collection follow the collections, just as they now.

I tend to agree it's the worst update I've seen.  But that's because it directly would impacts me. 

I didn't check older devices and am out now.  I think there would have to be an upgrade to see them.  The PW2 couldn't see the cloud collections I'd created on the Fire until it was updated.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 using Tapatalk 4


----------



## FearIndex

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I've been a Kindle owner since the original Kindle and I'm still annoyed that they stop updating the K1.  But I think it very likely that some of the new features of the PW2 will be applied to the PW1. Cloud collections would seem to me to be a likely candidate. But then I'm not a programmer, so what do I know?
> 
> Manually installing the update on my PW2....
> 
> Betsy


I was originally quite confident PW1 would get most of the PW2 features, considering even Kindle Touch received a significant update and they are all in the 5.X firmware range. In the past even older devices like Kindle 2 and 3 have received many things later basic Kindles got, not all, but many things.

Two things have shaken my confidence since then:

- The release of 5.3.9 without significant updates for PW1.
- Hearing rumblings that PW2 might actually use a newer version of Linux kernel and a different type of chips compared to past, making it actually more different than shows from the top. Maybe they forked the firmwares too and PW2's 5.4 is more like 6.X than 5.X...

Still, there is hope that some of the new PW2 features will come to PW1. But these two things have shaken my confidence a little.


----------



## FearIndex

Just installed 5.4.2 on my PW2.

Can report that I have Goodreads (the G logo), FreeTime showing even though I am on an "international" Amazon.com account.

I don't see any extra collections, but then I don't use them aside from Dictionary collection.

Is it just me or are the progress bars in the home screen different? I do like the new collection cover.


----------



## history_lover

Ann in Arlington said:


> I would expect both the GR and cloud collection "features" to be eventually available for the PW1, but I would NOT expect the in line footnotes and page flipping -- that's much more software intensive and I'm thinking it requires the faster processor the PW2 has.


I can't see why that would be the case - _maybe _the page flipping would be too much because it has to load more data but the inline footnotes basically work the same as the built in dictionary or any of other other popup features. I can't see how the inline footnotes would be so much more software intensive than the built in dictionary, the translator, the x-ray feature, etc.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Ann, I'm thinking we should thought have waited to get together...we could do some side by side.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 using Tapatalk 4


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## Eltanin Publishing

Ann in Arlington said:


> Well, as your mom doesn't have a PW2, I don't think it'll affect her device at all.


Right. I don't think my mom would see anything different on her K3 once I get this update on my PW2. But from what I'm reading, I think I would see her collections on my PW2.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Ann, I'm thinking we should thought have waited to get together...we could do some side by side.
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 using Tapatalk 4


Yeah. I had that thought too.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

history_lover said:


> I can't see why that would be the case - _maybe _the page flipping would be too much because it has to load more data but the inline footnotes basically work the same as the built in dictionary or any of other other popup features. I can't see how the inline footnotes would be so much more software intensive than the built in dictionary, the translator, the x-ray feature, etc.


I'm not a programmer. I'm only observing that there are some features that are software based and some that are cloud based. Cloud based should be available regardless. Software based, maybe not so much. Processor speed can affect things in surprising ways. Heck, the processors might be just different enough that the OS had to be modified just enough that it would not be cost effective to put resources into updating the prior OS to accommodate things in the current OS. Or the new OS is built on a slightly different set of base code. I don't know. I'm just surmising. But I will be rather surprised, really, if any of the updates for the PW2 come to the PW1 except _maybe_ the cloud based ones. That's just my thinking. I don't KNOW anything.

Having had the thought, though, it occurs to me that it is most likely that cost effectiveness is key. If it's not very expensive in terms of programming resources to update the PW1, they'll probably do it. If it is, they won't. I'm guessing, at bottom, it's just that simple.  And, as they've always stopped updating older models within a few months of newer model releases, I'd say if we don't see anything before the first of the year, that might be all she wrote for updates on the PW1.


----------



## backslidr

I emailed CS and they emailed me back and the guy seemed to agree with how frustrating this would be and he's sending it on to the kindle team. Hopefully more people will complain.

I just finished the book I was reading and it won't go in my Books Read collection. Actually it does, but It also stays right on the home page, too. So frustrating.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

7vn11vn said:


> I emailed CS and they emailed me back and the guy seemed to agree with how frustrating this would be and he's sending it on to the kindle team. Hopefully more people will complain.
> 
> I just finished the book I was reading and it won't go in my Books Read collection. Actually it does, but It also stays right on the home page, too. So frustrating.


Sounds like you don't have it sorted by collections. That would happen before the update, too.

Sent from my Fire HDX7


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Here's what I got from CS:

I've reviewed your email and sorry for any inconvenience caused with the implementation of collections onto kindle paperwhite. I'll make sure your feedback is passed on to the Kindle development team for further improvement. 

Customer feedback like yours really helps us continue to improve our store and provide better service to our customers. 

As being a customer service representative, we are always happy to provide you the service for the features that are available. However for the features that are not available, we collect the feedback and feature request from our customers in our customer service cell and forward it to our kindle technical team and then kindle technical people try to bring it practically. 

Your patience and understanding is highly appreciated till the time our kindle technical team is working onto the feature that is not available. 

Sent from my Fire HDX7


----------



## backslidr

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Sounds like you don't have it sorted by collections. That would happen before the update, too.
> 
> Sent from my Fire HDX7


You're right. Been fooling with it so long I had set it to Recent in order to get my collections on the first page. Problem is, when I set the sort to Collections my pw2 collections are on page 7. I don't know. Guess I'll try renaming them. This update has just taken all the fun out of having my Kindle and I've bought them all since the K1.


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## Betsy the Quilter

Try putting a number before all the names

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 using Tapatalk 4


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## backslidr

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Try putting a number before all the names
> 
> Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S2 using Tapatalk 4


My other kindle collections were numbered 01 - 02 etc. so I had to number these 001 - 002 etc., but now at least they're on Page 1  Thanks for the help!


----------



## stevene9

The thing I'm not getting are the hundreds of greyed out books. I understand the additional collections. About 2.5 years ago I made a "Reading Now" collection. After I finish a book I delete it. If I were to download it again it would go into the "Reading  Now" collection since that's where it was when I deleted it. Suddenly my "Reading Now" collection has 400 entries (as opposed to the 30 or so it normally has). Why is it bringing back every book I've ever had in that collection? I don't get it. Other collection have additional books, but nothing of this magnitude.

Steve


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Because, apparently, every book you've read since you've created the account has been in the Reading Now collection at some point?  But are spread out amongst the other collections.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

The big problem seems to be that "Device" mode also shows collections and books in collections that are in Cloud only. I tested this by creating a collection and putting one book (which is not on the device) there and the collection appears in "Device" mode too with the book greyed out inside.

This is completely contrary to what the "Device" mode should be doing. I can see why this would drive someone with lots of off-device collections crazy.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Yes, that is one of the problems, and for people with only one user or Kindle on an account the biggest problem.
I posted pictures (which don't show the relative darkness well, but you can tell by the check mark which items are on the device and which aren't).


Betsy the Quilter said:


> Here are collections on my home page. Note I have 50 items on my Paperwhite, but no way of knowing how many are really in each collection in the Paperwhite because it shows how many are in the collection in the Cloud, regardless of how many are actually on the PW.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And here are three sorts of my Mystery collection ON the PW, not in the Cloud. Note that if I sort any way but recent, it's hard to see what is on the device. This is the disadvantage of a big library and few collections, under the current Amazon system:


The worst part of this part of the problem is, that if you have a large collection (as I do, of Mysteries), and you sort by anything but recent, the books actually on the device are scattered and you have to page through. But it's annoying no matter what. I don't want my not-on-device books to show when I'm ooking on the device.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

Yes, I get that the other is sharing Kindle account or using multiple Kindles with different collections would suffer too because an on-device book might belong to multiple categories on that account.

But the really big issue is showing Cloud books in "Device" view if they are in a category. That makes absolutely no sense.


----------



## avivs

So, goodreads is here, but it seems like you can only add books that you've bought from amazon. 
I can't search for books and add them to my "reading now" shelve, but i can add books that friends of mine are reading. Why is that?
I should be able to search for books just like on the web site. Not all my books are from amazon.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

avivs said:


> So, goodreads is here, but it seems like you can only add books that you've bought from amazon.
> I can't search for books and add them to my "reading now" shelve, but i can add books that friends of mine are reading. Why is that?
> I should be able to search for books just like on the web site. Not all my books are from amazon.


Like the version on the Fire, it's not meant to replace the entire Android or iOS Goodreads App or the Goodreads site itself; it's specifically designed to work with your Kindle for your Kindle books. There are many things you can do on the site that you can't do with the app, even the one on the Fire. This is just a "shortcut" app to allow you to work with your Kindle books without having to leave the device.

Betsy


----------



## bordercollielady

After reading this thread --- I think I will wait awhile to add this.. until all of you sort this out!!


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Here's my overall take on the update.  If you are a new Kindle owner with a small library and the only user on your account, the update isn't a problem.  All of your books, as you purchase them, are going to end up on your device anyway.  Create a collection on your device that you move books to, like a "Read" collection.

If you have a big library, like many of us here, more than would ever fit on a Paperwhite, or have multiple users or Kindles on your account, like many of us here, this update is not good.  It can be lived with and worked around but creates problems.  If you really, really, really want collections in the cloud, and want the Goodreads integration (limited as it is), the update is an option.  

My personall recommendation, if you are in the second group, is to wait to see if Amazon fixes the issues unless you think you can live with the flaws.

Betsy


----------



## lindnet

I read most of this thread and didn't see this question answered.  If you've never used Collections at all (I just have books in the Cloud and on the Device), is this update going to be a problem?

I just bought some books and I'm afraid to turn on the wireless to download them!


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

No, it shouldn't be a problem.  You (even if you aren't a new Kindle owner, as I know you're not) fall into the first situation.  You're kind of like a new owner, if you've never used collections on your device at all.

Betsy


----------



## VondaZ

After reading through this thread, I think I understand the problem with the way it is displaying/managing collections - but what I am not sure about is whether it forces you to view your collections or does this problem only impact a "Collections View"?

I have collections on my Kindle for PC which I use to organize my library (because Manage Your Kindle has no organizational capabilities). I don't use collections on my device and just keep a few books on the device at a time. Will it force me to view my old collections once it updates or is there an option not to view collections at all? I am fearing from what people say that if my device updates, I will suddenly find my home screen cluttered with every collection I have ever created instead of the nice clean simple list of three books and white space - the way I prefer my device.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

If you have collections already in the cloud (which is what Kindle for PC does, as far as I know), I'm pretty sure when you do the update, all those collections will show up.  I had some collections on my PW, but the first time I synched after the update, all the other collections appeared in the Cloud; I didn't ask for them.  Hmmmm...maybe I'll open up the new PW just for testing.... 

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

VondaZ said:


> After reading through this thread, I think I understand the problem with the way it is displaying/managing collections - but what I am not sure about is whether it forces you to view your collections or does this problem only impact a "Collections View"?
> 
> I have collections on my Kindle for PC which I use to organize my library (because Manage Your Kindle has no organizational capabilities). I don't use collections on my device and just keep a few books on the device at a time. Will it force me to view my old collections once it updates or is there an option not to view collections at all? I am fearing from what people say that if my device updates, I will suddenly find my home screen cluttered with every collection I have ever created instead of the nice clean simple list of three books and white space - the way I prefer my device.


I agree with Betsy, I expect you will see all those cloud collections and all their content even in your "Device" cover view/list view on the PW2 5.4.2.

I certainly haven't selected any "Collections View" and yet in my tests collections even without any on-device books still show in the "Device" view of the homescreen and show all cloud-only books inside them too - which is crazy, because I'm in the "Device" view, not Cloud view.


----------



## VictoriaP

If you look at the first screen cap Betsy posted, Collections view is selected (upper right):



Betsy the Quilter said:


>


Betsy, what happens if you select, say, Recent? Do the collections remain visible? (Cloud or on Device)


----------



## FearIndex

lindnet said:


> I read most of this thread and didn't see this question answered. If you've never used Collections at all (I just have books in the Cloud and on the Device), is this update going to be a problem?
> 
> I just bought some books and I'm afraid to turn on the wireless to download them!


No, if you've never used collections and don't expect to use them, this update doesn't seem to be a problem. I've never used collections over the many, many Kindles I've had, and only keep the few books I read on devices at a time (rest get removed to the cloud without organization, hasn't been a problem in my use), and I didn't see any problems or extraneous content popping up until I started trying adding collections just for testing. Then I removed the collections and the problems went away too. Had I not read about the problems in the forums, I expect I would have just kept on using the PW 5.4.2 without knowing a thing was amiss. As they say, ignorance is a bliss... 

The biggest problems are with people who have a lot of books in the cloud in a lot of collections that suddenly show up on their devices even in the "Device" view, and those who share a Kindle account with different collections for different users or devices, who suddenly see every other user/device's collections - plus all the cloud-only collections and content - on their PW2.


----------



## FearIndex

VictoriaP said:


> If you look at the first screen cap Betsy posted, Collections view is selected (upper right):
> 
> Betsy, what happens if you select, say, Recent? Do the collections remain visible? (Cloud or on Device)


When I tested it, I used "Recent" view - it showed a collection that had only cloud content even in "On Device", but I created the collection on the device.

But now I installed Kindle for PC, created a collection there and put one cloud-only book in there, synced Kindle for PC and then synced PW2.

Curiously, so far this collection is not showing on my PW2 Device mode, in any mode.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

VictoriaP said:


> If you look at the first screen cap Betsy posted, Collections view is selected (upper right):
> 
> Betsy, what happens if you select, say, Recent? Do the collections remain visible? (Cloud or on Device)


It works the same way that it did before the update. The collections are treated as "items" and are sorted along with the books on the device by whichever sort you're using--recent, title, author. If you use recent, on an updated device, all the new collections are treated as the most recent items, so the books will initially be after them all. If you use author, since there isn't an author, the collections come last. If you use title, the collections will be listed alphabetically with the books.

If you choose to only view "books" from that drop down menu, you won't see collections. EDIT: That's true on the un-updated version, but does not seem to be true on my updated PW. If I choose to view only books on the device, I am still seeing the collections in the updated PW. This is definitely different.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

FearIndex said:


> When I tested it, I used "Recent" view - it showed a collection that had only cloud content even in "On Device", but I created the collection on the device.
> 
> But now I installed Kindle for PC, created a collection there and put one cloud-only book in there, synced Kindle for PC and then synced PW2.
> 
> Curiously, so far this collection is not showing on my PW2 Device mode, in any mode.


Now I created a collection on the device, with cloud-only content (which again shows in "Device" mode), but that collection is not showing in Kindle for PC - nor is my Kindle for PC collection showing up on the PW2.

As I've never used Kindle for PC before, maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Edit: Fixed a crucial typo, now => not.


----------



## VictoriaP

FearIndex said:


> When I tested it, I used "Recent" view - it showed a collection that had only cloud content even in "On Device", but I created the collection on the device.
> 
> But now I installed Kindle for PC, created a collection there and put one cloud-only book in there, synced Kindle for PC and then synced PW2.
> 
> Curiously, so far this collection is not showing on my PW2 Device mode, in any mode.


That's very interesting indeed. VondaZ may not have an issue then, since her collections were also done on the PC. Unless it's merely being slow to sync for some reason.


----------



## FearIndex

VictoriaP said:


> That's very interesting indeed. VondaZ may not have an issue then, since her collections were also done on the PC. Unless it's merely being slow to sync for some reason.


Or they turned Cloud Collections temporarily off due to the feedback?

I now created another collection in Kindle for PC, this time with a book I know is on the PW2, and it doesn't show either in the "Device" view. I re-synced both ends many times.

Neither Kindle for PC categories show in the "Cloud" view on PW2 either.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

FearIndex said:


> When I tested it, I used "Recent" view - it showed a collection that had only cloud content even in "On Device", but I created the collection on the device.
> 
> But now I installed Kindle for PC, created a collection there and put one cloud-only book in there, synced Kindle for PC and then synced PW2.
> 
> Curiously, so far this collection is not showing on my PW2 Device mode, in any mode.


Hmmm...pretty sure that some of the collections that showed up for me were Kindle for PC collections. But some were also done on my Kindle for iPhone.


----------



## FearIndex

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Hmmm...pretty sure that some of the collections that showed up for me were Kindle for PC collections. But some were also done on my Kindle for iPhone.


Perfectly possible, all options. It may be that the syncing is delayed or I'm doing something wrong on the Kindle for PC end (can't see what that would be, I even re-started the program).


----------



## FearIndex

Just to clarify, as I typoed above, so far I'm not seeing my PW2-created collection in Kindle for PC, nor am I am seeing either of my two Kindle for PC created collections in PW2.

I have repeatedly re-synced both over the past few minutes. Neither are seeing each other's collections in any view I can think of, not even "Cloud" on PW2 - and not at the end, start, or middle of pages/lists, I checked.

Both see the same books (when viewing cloud content), but not each other's collections.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

OK I think what happened was when I set up the latest version of my iPod Touch, I imported the Kindle for PC collections.  And it's those collections that are part of the cloud--the ones on my iPod Touch.  I don't use my Kindle app on my iPod Touch much, although I did do some organizing on it as a test when the app was first updated.

I created a collection on my Kindle for PC and it didn't get copied to my PW; the one I created on my iPod Touch was copied over almost immediately.

I note Kindle for PC still has the option to import collections; I don't see that anymore on either the PW or my Kindle for iPhone/iPod Touch app.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

Cloud collections don't seem to work for me at all, I just created a collection on the $69 Kindle, synced and re-synced PW2 and it definitely isn't showing.

Not in "On Device", not in "Cloud".


----------



## FearIndex

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I created a collection on my Kindle for PC and it didn't get copied to my PW; the one I created on my iPod Touch was copied over almost immediately.


Did you try the iPod Touch just now? I'm just trying to check if they possibly have turned Cloud Collections off?



Betsy the Quilter said:


> I note Kindle for PC still has the option to import collections; I don't see that anymore on either the PW or my Kindle for iPhone/iPod Touch app.


Good point. The import collections option for me is showing my $69 Kindle, where I just created my first category on that device, but it is NOT showing my PW2 where I also created a category earlier and synced (or any of my other Kindles where I have not created categories).

After the import, I am now seeing the category I created on $69 Kindle in Kindle for PC, but not seeing the PW2 5.4.2 -created category at all since it wasn't an option to import.

PW2 is seeing none of these other categories created on the PC or on the $69 Kindle. All are connected to the same Wi-Fi, all are synced repeatedly and still nothing.


----------



## Chad Winters

I'm still waiting for the update, may have to figure out how to do it manually


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

I wouldn't expect Cloud Collections to show up on older Kindles prior to the PW2 unless and until there's an upgrade to the software.  The PW2 didn't see cloud collections until there was an upgrade.  The first device I saw cloud collections on was my Fire HDX.  They aren't available yet on the Fire HDs as far as I know.  And probably the Kindle for iPhone app at about the time iOS7 was updated.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

OK, so just read this:



> Note: Importing collections from other devices or reading apps to Kindle Paperwhite (2nd Generation), Kindle Fire HD (2nd Generation), Kindle Fire HDX, and Kindle for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch is currently limited to the first time you register the device or reading app.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201301470#GUID-C5B716DB-BF96-4277-B66E-3DC25D7BBC51

Was that there yesterday?


----------



## FearIndex

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I wouldn't expect Cloud Collections to show up on older Kindles prior to the PW2 unless and until there's an upgrade to the software. The PW2 didn't see cloud collections until there was an upgrade. The first device I saw cloud collections on was my Fire HDX. They aren't available yet on the Fire HDs as far as I know. And probably the Kindle for iPhone app at about the time iOS7 was updated.


I don't expect them to show on older devices either. My point is, my PW2 is not seeing any of these other collections I've created in the cloud.

My question was, did you test the iPod touch collection syncing just now, or was it yesterday?


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

FearIndex said:


> Did you try the iPod Touch just now? I'm just trying to check if they possibly have turned Cloud Collections off?


Yes, I created a collection on the iPod Touch minutes before my post.

Note that I don't expect Amazon to turn off cloud collections unless they need to to update the PWs; cloud collections are on the Fire HDX, too, and I think having collections there where there were none before is a high priority.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

Chad Winters said:


> I'm still waiting for the update, may have to figure out how to do it manually


Just download the .bin from Amazon.com, move via USB cable to device root and then select update from the drop-down menu under settings.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

FearIndex said:


> I don't expect them to show on older devices either. My point is, my PW2 is not seeing any of these other collections I've created in the cloud.


Sorry, misunderstood. But you haven't created them on the cloud, you created them on the $69 Kindle. And, because of the way the cloud works now, those collections may or may not be carried up to the cloud, the same way the Kindle for PC collections weren't.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Yes, I created a collection on the iPod Touch minutes before my post.
> 
> Note that I don't expect Amazon to turn off cloud collections unless they need to to update the PWs; cloud collections are on the Fire HDX, too, and I think having collections there where there were none before is a high priority.


OK, thanks for testing that. My experience is different, but I don't have the iOS app on hand to try that.

Apparently the iPod Touch is capable of creating "cloud collections", whereas Kindle for PC is not (I just downloaded it, so it is the latest version) - and those Kindle for PC categories would thus be imported only on the first registration if the help text I quoted above and more fully below is in any way accurate:



> To import a collection: With Cloud Collections, collections are automatically stored in the Cloud and can be synced between Kindle Paperwhite (2nd Generation), Kindle Fire HD (2nd Generation), Kindle Fire HDX, and Kindle for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch reading apps.
> 
> Note: Importing collections from other devices or reading apps to Kindle Paperwhite (2nd Generation), Kindle Fire HD (2nd Generation), Kindle Fire HDX, and Kindle for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch is currently limited to the first time you register the device or reading app.


So, it seems, if you have "Kindle Paperwhite (2nd Generation), Kindle Fire HD (2nd Generation), Kindle Fire HDX, and Kindle for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch", those will sync collections in real-time, collections from other Kindle devices and applications than those listed currently are synced to only on first registration.

This is why Kindle for PC collections (at least with the current version) are not syncing to my PW2. Were I to de-register, factory reset and re-register the PW2, I guess they could show up then. Of course it is possible Kindle for PC will eventually be updated to support Cloud Collections, but as of today, perhaps people with categories there are safe if they have already registered their PW2 before 5.4.2 update.


----------



## FearIndex

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Sorry, misunderstood. But you haven't created them on the cloud, you created them on the $69 Kindle. And, because of the way the cloud works now, those collections may or may not be carried up to the cloud, the same way the Kindle for PC collections weren't.


Just to clarify, I created the collections on the Kindle for PC, two of them, and one on the $69 Kindle. (Plus one cloud collection on the Kindle PW2.)

None of the Kindle for PC and $69 Kindle created categories are showing on my PW2 and I don't expect they will.

And yes, the rest of your message seems accurate to me too, as I mention in my previous message.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

FearIndex said:


> Just to clarify, I created the collections on the Kindle for PC, two of them, and one on the $69 Kindle. (Plus one cloud collection on the Kindle PW2.)


Yeah, got that, I was just too lazy  to type all of that, so I just responded to this:


FearIndex said:


> Cloud collections don't seem to work for me at all, I just created a collection on the $69 Kindle, synced and re-synced PW2 and it definitely isn't showing.
> 
> Not in "On Device", not in "Cloud".


 

Betsy


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

FearIndex said:


> So, it seems, if you have "Kindle Paperwhite (2nd Generation), Kindle Fire HD (2nd Generation), Kindle Fire HDX, and Kindle for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch", those will sync collections in real-time, collections from other Kindle devices and applications than those listed currently are synced to only on first registration.
> 
> This is why Kindle for PC collections (at least with the current version) are not syncing to my PW2. Were I to de-register, factory reset and re-register the PW2, I guess they could show up then. Of course it is possible Kindle for PC will eventually be updated to support Cloud Collections, but as of today, perhaps people with categories there are safe if they have already registered their PW2 before 5.4.2 update.


Interesting, thanks!


----------



## FearIndex

Thinking this further, it seems PW2 considers the 5.4.2 update as a "first registration" as far as Cloud Collections are concerned. Had I had Kindle for PC or $69 Kindle (or similar) collections when I updated to 5.4.2, I expect those would have shown up. But because I didn't, and thus the device is past its "first registration", no import from non-cloud collections compatible Kindles will now happen.

So, if you have collections in Kindle for PC and are yet to update to 5.4.2, expect to see those imported to PW2 on update. If you have already updated to 5.4.2, any collections management you do in Kindle for PC will NOT show up on your PW2 - at least not until Amazon possibly updates Kindle for PC to do Cloud Collections, which of course may happen.


----------



## MsScarlett

Question: (Forgive me if the answer is here somewhere, if so, just speak to me slowly like I am a five year old so I understand, lol   )

I am working on "cleaning up" my collections on my HDX since we got the could collections there, too.  Essentially, those *shoud* be the same collections that come up on my PW after the update?  So, if I get them all cleaned and arranged and neatened on the HDX, I should get those same neatened collections on the PW?  If that's the case, it may be better for me to do it all on the HDX (easier) and then update.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Yes, Ms Scarlett,

when I updated my PW, I got the collections I had been working on using my Fire.  Which started out being my Kindle for PC/Kindle for iPhone collections.  I added a bunch using the Fire HDX, removed a few, and that updated set of collections is what installed on my PW2 after the update.

Betsy


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Sorry, misunderstood. But you haven't created them on the cloud, you created them on the $69 Kindle. And, because of the way the cloud works now, those collections may or may not be carried up to the cloud, the same way the Kindle for PC collections weren't.
> 
> Betsy


I'll continue to read following this post but what this seems to be implying -- along with various posts earlier -- is that, when you first install the update and the device finds all the collections, that's the last time it really looks. If that's the case, then you could delete all the 'cloud' collections, and then re-build them on your other devices and leave the PW the way it was before.

Only thing is: the Fires are designed to use cloud collections, so maybe anything you re-built via that device would show up. Betsy, does that make sense, or have I mis-understood something. (Wouldn't be the first time!  ) For the record, my PW2 has not updated on it's own so far. But I'm feeling like, if I clean up all my collections NOW, there won't be a problem when it does.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Ann in Arlington said:


> I'll continue to read following this post but what this seems to be implying -- along with various posts earlier -- is that, when you first install the update and the device finds all the collections, that's the last time it really looks. If that's the case, then you could delete all the 'cloud' collections, and then re-build them on your other devices and leave the PW the way it was before.
> 
> Only thing is: the Fires are designed to use cloud collections, so maybe anything you re-built via that device would show up. Betsy, does that make sense, or have I mis-understood something. (Wouldn't be the first time!  ) For the record, my PW2 has not updated on it's own so far. But I'm feeling like, if I clean up all my collections NOW, there won't be a problem when it does.


Not quite right.

If you clean up your collections now, when your Paperwhite updates, it will use that cleaned up set of collections. If you later create new collections on the Fire HDX or an iPhone/iPod Touch that has the latest Kindle app on it, those collections will be automatically added to the updated PW2 (PW2+). (I tested that last night with my iPod Touch 5G, iOS7.) I created "iPod collection" on the i'Touch, and the next time the PW synched, the collection appeared on my PW2+. And collections from my HDX appear on my PW2+

The issue, and I may pull out the new virgin PW2 to test on, is what happens with a PW2 that has never had collections on when it is updated....it sounds like, from what FI researched, that devices with cloud collections will import collections from a non-cloud device when first importing cloud collections and after that, it's all cloud only. You may have to be the tester for this. 

If you later create additional collections on older eInk devices that do not use cloud collections, those collections will not be added to the cloud and will not appear on your PW.

You can manage the number of collections that appear on your PW. You can't manage the fact that all of your books that are in collections in the cloud will also appear in your device collections, albeit grayed out. And that your collections in device view won't show a true number for the items in those collections--they'll count the grayed out books too.

It's very annoying.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

Excellent summary, Betsy. Thanks!


----------



## stevene9

Almost back to normal. I downloaded all the greyed out books (hundreds and hundreds of them). Moved then to a new collection and deleted them again. Then I deleted that new collection and they all went away on my device, but are still in my cloud as individual books. The only residue will be that if I want to delete a book now I have to first move it to a new collection, remove it from the device, and then delete that new collection. I bit of a pain, but at least I don't have greyed out entries everywhere.

Steve


----------



## strether

This is very probably a naive question.  But all the books I have on my PW2 were side-loaded.  After updating the software, I don't get the "G" that everyone else is getting.  Is this what you'd expect to happen, considering the books I have on the device?  I did restart it after reading on the Mobileread forum that others had obtained the "G" by doing that.  Didn't change a thing for me.  Not a huge problem as I've never investigated Goodreads, but it would be interesting to find out what's causing the difference.

Jim


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

strether said:


> This is very probably a naive question. But all the books I have on my PW2 were side-loaded. After updating the software, I don't get the "G" that everyone else is getting. Is this what you'd expect to happen, considering the books I have on the device? I did restart it after reading on the Mobileread forum that others had obtained the "G" by doing that. Didn't change a thing for me. Not a huge problem as I've never investigated Goodreads, but it would be interesting to find out what's causing the difference.
> 
> Jim


Jim,

is your device registered with Amazon? (I'm assuming yes.) And do you have a Goodreads account? I don't think the source of your books should determine whether you get the "G." I would try deregisteringg it and then re-registering it. Once you get the G you should get the opportunity to sign in to GR with your Amazon credentials if you want.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

Someone somewhere said Goodreads integration works only with Amazon books, not sideloaded ones.

Also, some were not seeing the G with UK or DE accounts.

Finally, I think for some the G appearing required a reset and a wait.

I use a international Amazon.com account/device with only Amazon books and got the G immediately after update.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Yes, it makes sense  that one wouldn't be able to add sideloaded books to one's Goodreads account using the GR integration, which is working from one's Amazon account, not the device itself (although I don't know about the review at the end?)  But I don't believe sideloaded books should stop the "G" from showing.  

It sounded like Jim did a restart.  (To be clear, Jim, did you use the menu to do the restart or just power on and off?  If you pressed and held, or used the menu option, you should have gotten the Kindle with tree, then several flashes, then the tree again when it restarted.  If you just power off and on, you won't get that.)

And deregistering and registering might be needed.  That cures some things that are account-based.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

Betsy the Quilter said:


> But I don't believe sideloaded books should stop the "G" from showing.


Agreed, G not showing is probably related to something else.

I just mentioned it for completeness, Goodreads integration seems to be useless with side-loaded books.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Not quite right.
> 
> If you clean up your collections now, when your Paperwhite updates, it will use that cleaned up set of collections. If you later create new collections on the Fire HDX or an iPhone/iPod Touch that has the latest Kindle app on it, those collections will be automatically added to the updated PW2 (PW2+). (I tested that last night with my iPod Touch 5G, iOS7.) I created "iPod collection" on the i'Touch, and the next time the PW synched, the collection appeared on my PW2+. And collections from my HDX appear on my PW2+
> 
> The issue, and I may pull out the new virgin PW2 to test on, is what happens with a PW2 that has never had collections on when it is updated....it sounds like, from what FI researched, that devices with cloud collections will import collections from a non-cloud device when first importing cloud collections and after that, it's all cloud only. You may have to be the tester for this.
> 
> If you later create additional collections on older eInk devices that do not use cloud collections, those collections will not be added to the cloud and will not appear on your PW.
> 
> You can manage the number of collections that appear on your PW. You can't manage the fact that all of your books that are in collections in the cloud will also appear in your device collections, albeit grayed out. And that your collections in device view won't show a true number for the items in those collections--they'll count the grayed out books too.
> 
> It's very annoying.
> 
> Betsy


kay . . . . I think I might still be confused. We need to have lunch again. 

Oh, and I re-titled the thread since most of the discussion is about the Cloud Collections rather than the GoodReads Integration -- thought it made sense for folks to realize we're looking at both.

Incidentally, it's also supposed to include Kindle Free Time. Has anyone checked that out?


----------



## VictoriaP

To clarify a bit further: Betsy, you had a few collections on your PW2 before you updated, right? And the cloud collections basically loaded in addition to your existing on device collections.

In my case, I've opted to delete all current cloud collections via iOS, since none of them were showing from my newly organized (and not yet updated) PW2. My guess is that if I go to update now, I *should* only have the collections that appear already on my device, and no others--and that those currently on the PW2 will replicate to the cloud. Does that seem logical? 

Just trying to work out whether I'm likely going to have to rebuild all the on device collections if I upgrade. Now that there are no cloud collections from legacy devices on my account, I'm thinking I might be OK.

(Background: I'm a "keep almost everything on the device" girl for my Kindle, and "keep almost everything in the cloud" girl on iOS. Goal is to get the newly organized PW2 collections into the cloud, leaving me with perhaps 20 very specialized unorganized reference books that I mostly leave up there as well.)


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Short answer is, once you update your PW2, any changes you make to collections on the Fire HDX will be picked up by the PW2+.   And vice versa, changes made to the PW2+ will show up on the Fire HDX. 

After updating, changes to collections made on older eink Kindles, such as your baby K, will not be picked up on the PW2+ or the Fire.

Betsy


----------



## VictoriaP

Understood. I probably wasn't clear: the question is about existing PW2 collections prior to the update. Do they survive & were they replicated to the cloud?


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Yes, sorry.  Mine were.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

Ann in Arlington said:


> Incidentally, it's also supposed to include Kindle Free Time. Has anyone checked that out?


Yes, Kindle FreeTime is there. Haven't checked it out much, but I did manage to explore how it is accessed and disabled.

Kindle FreeTime shows in the On Device view as a book. Click it is one way to access it.

To remove the FreeTime book icon, press it and hold, then select Turn Off FreeTime from menu.

To access FT again, select it from home screen drop-down menu or Settings, Device Options, Parental Controls, Kindle FreeTime.

Accessing FT from those places will return the FT book to the front page too.


----------



## VictoriaP

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Yes, sorry. Mine were.
> 
> Betsy


 Nothing to apologize for! Thanks for letting me know they carried over--I'll update this afternoon and see for certain what agonies might happen. LOL The new jailbreak is up & running (out of the blue), and I might as well get the update over with before I install that. (I want a bit heavier font; Caecilia Condensed just isn't quite doing it for me on this device.)


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

FearIndex said:


> Yes, Kindle FreeTime is there. Haven't checked it out much, but I did manage to explore how it is accessed and disabled.
> 
> Kindle FreeTime shows in the On Device view as a book. Click it is one way to access it.


An easy way to find it if you have a bunch of stuff on your home page (I currently have 8 pages), is to sort by author.  All the Amazon stuff floats to the top that way.

Betsy


----------



## strether

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Yes, it makes sense that one wouldn't be able to add sideloaded books to one's Goodreads account using the GR integration, which is working from one's Amazon account, not the device itself (although I don't know about the review at the end?) But I don't believe sideloaded books should stop the "G" from showing.
> 
> It sounded like Jim did a restart. (To be clear, Jim, did you use the menu to do the restart or just power on and off? If you pressed and held, or used the menu option, you should have gotten the Kindle with tree, then several flashes, then the tree again when it restarted. If you just power off and on, you won't get that.)
> 
> And deregistering and registering might be needed. That cures some things that are account-based.
> 
> Betsy


Well, another naive question. I've never even visited the Goodreads site, so I'm not registered there. So do I need to register there in order for the "G" to show? In checking the "Manage my devices" on the Amazon site, it's clear the PW is registered because it offers only the option of "deregister". And when I restarted the PW, I did it using the menu restart option. No "G" arrived. I'm not majorly concerned, because I might not ever bother with Goodreads, and the PW is functioning fine.

Jim


----------



## crebel

Sometimes I am don't understand very well when I am reading vs. seeing something for myself, so help me out here.

I believe a PW2 is or will be coming to me as a Christmas gift.  There are 5 people on my account with various devices.  DS has multiple collections on his PW1 and K2, DH has a few collections on his PW1, DIL has collections on her K2, and I have a few collections on my KK; no worries about mom's K1.  I don't believe any cloud collections are set up on the account.

If I receive a PW2, are everyone's collections going to show up on my Kindle?  All of the collections are in the "cloud" even though I haven't organized any collections of the items in the cloud itself, right?  

The discussion here is making me reconsider whether I want the upgrade to the PW2


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

DreamWeaver said:


> Well, you're not the only one who's confused, Ann!
> 
> I have over 7,000 e-books. (I know, I know ) Most of those e-books are stored in the Amazon cloud only, although I do have a few on my K3 and downloaded to Kindle App for Android. I have _all_ of my e-books sorted into numerous collections in Kindle for PC, which is where I keep track of them. I have a few different collections on my K3 for the books stored there.
> 
> I've been thinking about buying a Kindle Paperwhite, but after reading about all the problems with collections after this software update, now I'm having second thoughts. Are my Kindle for PC and/or K3 collections going to show on a Paperwhite? I've read all the posts in this thread, but I'm still confused.  What a mess!


If you perform the update, or get a Paperwhite that has been updated, then a combination of your Kindle for PC and Kindle Keyboard collections will be placed on the Paperwhite. Once that's been done, and collections are set up, additional new "device" collections on Kindle for PC and/or Kindle Keyboard will not be added to the PW. It's apparently a one-time import, and once it's been done, only collections added to devices (PW2 and Fire HDX) that are fully integrated into the cloud collection will appear on the PW.

Betsy


----------



## bordercollielady

I'm getting really confused too..  I never created Collections on my PC  - but I have had many collections on my older Kindles with lots of books in them.   I really really don't want them showing up on my device.    It would probably use up all my remaining space.    Anyone know if Amazon intends to fix this??


----------



## backslidr

bordercollielady said:


> I'm getting really confused too.. I never created Collections on my PC - but I have had many collections on my older Kindles with lots of books in them. I really really don't want them showing up on my device.  It would probably use up all my remaining space. Anyone know if Amazon intends to fix this??


We can only hope. Every collection on every kindle you've ever created are now on your pw2. I don't use my Touch or K3 anymore, but my problem is that I have always named my collections the same, so if I try and delete one and it ends up being one that's on my pw1, then all the 2 or 3 hundred books in that collection will be on the home page. I wouldn't care so much if they showed up when you select Cloud, but they show up when you select On Device, which they clearly aren't and you can't get rid of them. If they would just fix that I think it would be a lot better.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

First of all, when we say that the Collections will appear on your device, we're not talking about the books IN the collections appearing on your device, we're talking about the "folder" or "collection name" appearing on your device.  The books themselves will not be downloaded to your device, just the collection name with the number of books that are in that collection in the cloud.

So there will be no more space taken up on your Kindle after cloud collections are added than there will be before. 

What you will see, however, when you tap on one of the collection titles, is a list of all of the books that are in that collection in the cloud.  The books not on the device will be grayed out and the books on the device, if any, will be shown with dark text and have a checkmark in a circle.   Tap on any grayed out book and it will be downloaded to your device.

As 7n11vn says, having a list of all the books in the cloud in the collection show up when you are looking at "On Device" is annoying at best.  And difficult because, if you have a large collection and are viewing by title or author, you have to page through books not even on your device to find the one you want

I have to believe Amazon will fix this and will fix that the same collection structure has to be physically on each device..

Betsy


----------



## bordercollielady

Betsy the Quilter said:


> The books themselves will not be downloaded to your device, just the collection name with the number of books that are in that collection in the cloud.


OK - if I use the same collection name now as I did on the old Kindle.. do the books/greyed out books merge into one collection? Or will I get dups??


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

I don't know, without testing. 

Betsy


----------



## D/W

Betsy the Quilter said:


> If you perform the update, or get a Paperwhite that has been updated, then a combination of your Kindle for PC and Kindle Keyboard collections will be placed on the Paperwhite. Once that's been done, and collections are set up, additional new "device" collections on Kindle for PC and/or Kindle Keyboard will not be added to the PW. It's apparently a one-time import, and once it's been done, only collections added to devices (PW2 and Fire HDX) that are fully integrated into the cloud collection will appear on the PW.
> 
> Betsy


Thanks for that information, Betsy!

If my Kindle for PC and Kindle Keyboard collections are sent to the Paperwhite, is there any way to delete those collections on the Paperwhite without then affecting the K4PC and KK collections?


----------



## VictoriaP

Well, I can verify this much--the "clearing out legacy device collections from the cloud" trick isn't 100% effective either.

_Any collections that I've either created from scratch on the PW2 or imported AND renamed from the Touch appear to have survived intact.

Anything that was imported from the Touch prior to the update but NOT renamed apparently went away when I deleted the existing cloud collections from iOS--even though they were on the PW2 before. They vanished from the PW2 after updating._

The books, or course, are still there, but some 20 collections will have to be rebuilt.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

DreamWeaver said:


> Thanks for that information, Betsy!
> 
> If my Kindle for PC and Kindle Keyboard collections are sent to the Paperwhite, is there any way to delete those collections on the Paperwhite without then affecting the K4PC and KK collections?


The K4PC and KK do not draw their collections from the cloud at this time; things you do to an updated PW2 will not affect K4PC of KK as they do not have the update making the cloud a two-way street. I created a new collection on my PW2, and deleted a different one; neither of those changes affected K4PC or my baby Kindle.

Caveat: I don't have a KK; I did test with K4PC and couldn't get K4PC to recognize either updated collectionns in the Cloud or for my PW to recognize changes on K4PC after the collections were established on my Paperwhite.

Betsy


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

VictoriaP said:


> Well, I can verify this much--the "clearing out legacy device collections from the cloud" trick isn't 100% effective either.
> 
> _Any collections that I've either created from scratch on the PW2 or imported AND renamed from the Touch appear to have survived intact.
> 
> Anything that was imported from the Touch prior to the update but NOT renamed apparently went away when I deleted the existing cloud collections from iOS--even though they were on the PW2 before. They vanished from the PW2 after updating._
> 
> The books, or course, are still there, but some 20 collections will have to be rebuilt.


Sorry for the confusion; I must have misunderstood something. EDITED TO ADD: I didn't realize you were going to delete them using iOS. The latest version of the iOS apps are cloud-compliant. They are already connected to the cloud. I removed/added things with my iPod Touch and it affects the Paperwhite. /EDIT

After you update your PW2, any changes to the Cloud will affect the updated PW2. The cloud collections ARE the collections on the PW. I thought you were asking if any collections on the PW2 that were there before the update would be there after the update, which they should have been. But if you then delete them from the Cloud, you are deleting them from the PW2. You should have received a warning: EDIT: This is the warning if you delete something on the PW. I see that there is no warning on Kindle for iPhone/iPod Touch. /EDIT



> Delete This Collection
> This collection is synced across all your devices and will be deleted on all of them.
> 
> Deleting a collection does not remove the content stored on your device or in the Cloud. Are you sure you want to delete this collection? Cancel/Delete


Betsy


----------



## VictoriaP

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Sorry for the confusion; I must have misunderstood something. After you update your PW2, any changes to the Cloud will affect the updated PW2. The cloud collections ARE the collections on the PW. I thought you were asking if any collections on the PW2 that were there before the update would be there after the update, which they should have been. But if you then delete them from the Cloud, you are deleting them from the PW2. You should have received a warning:
> 
> Betsy


Not a problem, Betsy--everything I deleted from the cloud, via the iOS app, WAS prior updating the PW2. Those had been carryovers from the K2 & Touch. (There were no warnings about deletion from the iOS app.)

However, when I first got the PW2, I had imported my collections from the Touch, about 40 of them. Some I had renamed on the PW2--those survived the update. Any collections that I did not rename that were originally brought over from the Touch are gone, presumably because they were still listed on the backend as being tied to the Touch in the cloud, and not to the PW2.

Basically, since all devices are mine & I don't share an account, I'd hoped clearing all collections from the cloud before updating would avoid some of the ghost collections from appearing on the PW2--that did work. What didn't work was that the cloud assumed that same-named collections brought from the Touch to the PW2--that I deleted along with the others--were no longer needed on the device after update, and therefore it deleted them from the PW2.

Example:

Survived--
On Touch: In Process
On PW2: 01--In Process

Vanished:
On Touch: In Death series
On PW2: In Death series (no change in title)

I had numbered about 15 or so categories to push them to the top of my PW2 categories. All of these never did show in the iOS app, though it had been several weeks. Neither did any other PW2-created collections prior to the update, so my assumption was that what was on the device was not in touch with the cloud collections at all. This assumption was in error somehow.

Interestingly, of the renamed-numbered collections, only two have since shown up on the iOS app. But they all show correctly still on the PW2.

All this is to say--crappy code is crappy code, and there doesn't appear to be an easy way around it. I don't think we can be absolutely certain what will happen with legacy device collections when you update the PW2. If you really want the update and have a ton of collections already, be prepared to do some cleanup afterwards (which I was). Otherwise, keep wifi off until you hear that this mess has been straightened out. There's really nothing earth-shatteringly special about this update anyway.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Reiterating because I think it's worth saying: If you've d/l'd and installed this update (has anyone had it come on its own?) and aren't happy with how it's handling collections, cloud books in 'on device' mode, etc. *Send Feedback to Amazon*: [email protected]

It is *vital* that real users tell them what they're experiencing so they'll know there's something that needs to be worked on.


----------



## VictoriaP

I haven't seen anything posted here, at MobileReads, or at Amazon's site (Kindle Help Forum OR the plain ol' Kindle Users forum) from anyone that has had this just show up yet, which is kind of interesting. It makes me wonder if it's been pushed out to many users at all yet...or if they've already halted the update to fix things.

Regardless, I'll send feedback as soon as I work out how to explain what I did more clearly.  That's part of why I went ahead and did the upgrade; I didn't feel comfortable sending feedback on something I hadn't actually experienced. I probably need to write it up my process step by step, or something.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

VictoriaP said:


> I haven't seen anything posted here, at MobileReads, or at Amazon's site (Kindle Help Forum OR the plain ol' Kindle User's forum) from anyone that has had this just show up yet, which is kind of interesting. It makes me wonder if it,s been pushed out to many users at all yet...or if they've already halted the update to fix things.
> 
> Regardless, I'll send feedback as soon as I work out how to explain what I did more clearly.  That's part of why I went ahead and did the upgrade; I didn't feel comfortable sending feedback on something I hadn't actually experienced. I probably need to write it up my process step by step, or something.


Agree . . . feedback is great, but less relevant, really, if you're not saying what happened to YOU and why you didn't like it. And, yeah, the clearer you can be in what you did and what you're seeing vs what you expected hoped for, the better for them too!


----------



## stevene9

There seems to be confusion about how to get rid of the greyed out books without them all winding up on your home page. Let me quote myself from an earlier post about how I got rid of them:

" I downloaded all the greyed out books (hundreds and hundreds of them). Moved then to a new collection and deleted them again. Then I deleted that new collection and they all went away on my device, but are still in my cloud as individual books. The only residue will be that if I want to delete a book now I have to first move it to a new collection, remove it from the device, and then delete that new collection. I bit of a pain, but at least I don't have greyed out entries everywhere."

Steve


----------



## VictoriaP

Hmmm...as far as Goodreads is concerned, it's REALLY crippled, even more than I thought. So far adding books to Currently Reading, or even rating them and moving them to Read, does not post those actions to Facebook--even though I'm signed in via FB and the Goodreads app on the iPad posts both those actions to FB when I do them via that app.

A number of friends and I use GR through FB to keep an eye on each others' reading habits, rather than GR's feeds directly. So having it on the Kindle in this rudimentary form is pretty useless. Hopefully they'll add to the functionality...someday.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

stevene9 said:


> There seems to be confusion about how to get rid of the greyed out books without them all winding up on your home page. Let me quote myself from an earlier post about how I got rid of them:
> 
> " I downloaded all the greyed out books (hundreds and hundreds of them). Moved then to a new collection and deleted them again. Then I deleted that new collection and they all went away on my device, but are still in my cloud as individual books. The only residue will be that if I want to delete a book now I have to first move it to a new collection, remove it from the device, and then delete that new collection. I bit of a pain, but at least I don't have greyed out entries everywhere."
> 
> Steve


Steve--

Here's my question. I want my books in the cloud to be in collections. And any collections that are in the cloud are on my device, too. Are you saying that if a book is in the cloud, and you have a collection by that same name on your device, the book that's in a collection in the cloud is NOT in the collection on the device?

If I don't want a book to be in a collection, I can just go to the Cloud collection and remove the book there. I'm definitely confused about what you're doing.

Betsy


----------



## Meemo

I heard about this elsewhere yesterday and immediately made sure my PW2 was in airplane mode, and warned my daughter she might want to do the same (and she did).  I'm one of those folks for whom this Cloud Collections thing would be a nightmare.  Too many different Collections created as my approach to Collections has evolved (I'm a bit of a minimalist these days, but I used to have several pages of Collections).  Also there are 6 people on my account.  So yeah, I don't want seeing all that on my PW2.

I'm thinking the ideal solution (at least in the short term) could be to have the "Cloud Collections" feature turned off when the update downloads, then if the user wants to turn it on, that could be done in Settings.  Probably wouldn't help folks who are already dealing with the headache, and of course the majority of folks probably wouldn't even know there's an issue.  But something that makes such a difference for folks with lots of books/Collections/people on their account should be optional.

Now, I've never made any "Cloud Collections".  But from what I'm reading I'm assuming that any Collections I've ever made on any Kindle on my account, back to my K2, would show up on my PW2.  I probably need to pull out my Fire HD and see what Collections I can see there and if I can make any changes there.  

In the meantime, Calibre & the USB cable are my friends (which annoys me a bit, I love loading from Calibre via wifi).


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

The Fire HD, Meemo, doesn't have Cloud Collections.  The HDX does.  If you have an iDevice with the latest Kindle app, that might show you the current cloud collections...

Betsy


----------



## stevene9

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Steve--
> 
> Here's my question. I want my books in the cloud to be in collections. And any collections that are in the cloud are on my device, too. Are you saying that if a book is in the cloud, and you have a collection by that same name on your device, the book that's in a collection in the cloud is NOT in the collection on the device?
> 
> If I don't want a book to be in a collection, I can just go to the Cloud collection and remove the book there. I'm definitely confused about what you're doing.
> 
> Betsy


We are all getting confused by each other's questions. All I wanted to do was get rid of the hundreds of greyed out entries on my device. My device view was so screwed up that I gave up on any attempt to further organize the cloud. I could not get rid of the greyed out entries, I couldn't delete them, and if I downloaded them and then deleted them again, they just showed up as greyed out again.

I just wanted to get rid of them on my device. SO I redownloaded them, moved them to a new collection that I made called "001" (I wanted it to be first in the list to make it easier to transfer books into). I transfered the redowmloaded books to "001", and then deleted them again. After this I had no greyed out books in any of my other collections. I had 500+ greyed out entries in "001". I then deleted "001" and all of the greyed out entries were gone from my device. They were still left as individual entries in the cloud. I did not even try to organize the cloud differently, as that will mess up my device even more until Amazon fixes this mess.

My goal was to not have to have 40+ pages in some of my collections on my device. Everything else will wait for an Amazon fix.

Steve


----------



## VictoriaP

Betsy the Quilter said:


> The Fire HD, Meemo, doesn't have Cloud Collections. The HDX does. If you have an iDevice with the latest Kindle app, that might show you the current cloud collections...
> 
> Betsy


Or it might not...
My iOS app on two different devices is missing about half of the collections that show on the PW2. Some were created directly on the device prior to the update, some were among those I had imported from the Touch and renamed.

And of those created on the device even after the update, when viewed on the iOS app, some are missing books in the cloud that are showing in the collection on the Kindle. No amount of syncing seems to change that, even an hour later--and these are Amazon purchased books!

Cloud Collections is just plain defective.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

stevene9 said:


> We are all getting confused by each other's questions. All I wanted to do was get rid of the hundreds of greyed out entries on my device. My device view was so screwed up that I gave up on any attempt to further organize the cloud. I could not get rid of the greyed out entries, I couldn't delete them, and if I downloaded them and then deleted them again, they just showed up as greyed out again.
> 
> I just wanted to get rid of them on my device. SO I redownloaded them, moved them to a new collection that I made called "001" (I wanted it to be first in the list to make it easier to transfer books into). I transfered the redowmloaded books to "001", and then deleted them again. After this I had no greyed out books in any of my other collections. I had 500+ greyed out entries in "001". I then deleted "001" and all of the greyed out entries were gone from my device. They were still left as individual entries in the cloud. I did not even try to organize the cloud differently, as that will mess up my device even more until Amazon fixes this mess.
> 
> My goal was to not have to have 40+ pages in some of my collections on my device. Everything else will wait for an Amazon fix.
> 
> Steve


It's stilll unclear to me why you needed to create a collection and download them from to that collection before deleting them. Couldn't you have just gone to the existing collection and removed them from there? Or, if it's a collection you don't want, couldn't you just delete the collection in the cloud?

For example, I have a collection called "@Fiction". It has two books in it that are not on my PW, and two that are. If I go to either Cloud view on my PW2+ (an updated PW2), or the On Device view and go to that collection, I can press and hold on the book that's not on my device--it's grayed out--and get the popup menu. From the popup menu, I can tap on "Add to Collection" which brings up the list of available collections. I sort by Recent so that the current collection is at the top. Deselect the collection or collections that I don't want the book to appear in, tap Done. It's no longer in the collection and is flying free on the cloud. Or is in another collection.

You can do bulk removes from collections by tapping on the collection, then the menu icon in the upper right hand corner, then tap Add/Remove items and deselect items, but this is a pain for large multipage collections as you can't tell by looking at the list that appears what's on the device and what's not. In those cases, it would probably be simpler to remove the collection and start over, adding only the items you want in the collection.

I was hoping you had a way to have the cloud collection AND not have the device version hold all the books, but hadn't had a chance to test drive your instructions.

Betsy


----------



## alicepattinson

Atunah said:


> I am still hopeful they are working on a upgrade for the PW1 and that we get some of the features, or all. I'll give up on that hope if nothing happens by xmas.
> 
> I sure would love to have them.


I agree to be fair, hope it includes the PW1 for the update


----------



## Meemo

Betsy the Quilter said:


> The Fire HD, Meemo, doesn't have Cloud Collections. The HDX does. If you have an iDevice with the latest Kindle app, that might show you the current cloud collections...
> 
> Betsy


Yep, I figured that out (my HD is really slow right now, maybe it's getting creaky from lack of use...). I just looked on my Kindle for iPhone - holy crap, I don't want all those collections on my PW2 (or anywhere else). And they aren't all "mine", just on my account. So I deleted a few, but not nearly enough (and hopefully didn't mess up anyone else). Ick.


----------



## stevene9

Betsy the Quilter said:


> It's stilll unclear to me why you needed to create a collection and download them from to that collection before deleting them. Couldn't you have just gone to the existing collection and removed them from there? Or, if it's a collection you don't want, couldn't you just delete the collection in the cloud?
> 
> For example, I have a collection called "@Fiction". It has two books in it that are not on my PW, and two that are. If I go to either Cloud view on my PW2+ (an updated PW2), or the On Device view and go to that collection, I can press and hold on the book that's not on my device--it's grayed out--and get the popup menu. From the popup menu, I can tap on "Add to Collection" which brings up the list of available collections. I sort by Recent so that the current collection is at the top. Deselect the collection or collections that I don't want the book to appear in, tap Done. It's no longer in the collection and is flying free on the cloud. Or is in another collection.
> 
> You can do bulk removes from collections by tapping on the collection, then the menu icon in the upper right hand corner, then tap Add/Remove items and deselect items, but this is a pain for large multipage collections as you can't tell by looking at the list that appears what's on the device and what's not. In those cases, it would probably be simpler to remove the collection and start over, adding only the items you want in the collection.
> 
> I was hoping you had a way to have the cloud collection AND not have the device version hold all the books, but hadn't had a chance to test drive your instructions.
> 
> Betsy


Maybe I did something wrong (always a possability with me), but when I held down my finger on a greyed out entry, I did not get a pop up menu that let me select or deselect it. I could not affect any greyed out entry on my device in any way without redownloading it. Maybe I did it wrong, but I did try to attack the greyed out entry directly with no success.

Steve


----------



## gdae23

I haven't received the update yet, and, after reading all these comments, don't plan to do this one manually. 

Are the extra greyed out items just books, or are daily newspapers included in the mess? For my NYT subscription, I usually mark each issue for keeping. About once a month, I sync the Kindle with my PC and do a global deletion.  But I haven't switched the designation from Keep to Don't Keep before deleting. Now I'm wondering if I'll end up with hundreds of greyed out newspaper entries on the Kindle. Not an appealing thought!


----------



## VictoriaP

stevene9 said:


> Maybe I did something wrong (always a possability with me), but when I held down my finger on a greyed out entry, I did not get a pop up menu that let me select or deselect it. I could not affect any greyed out entry on my device in any way without redownloading it. Maybe I did it wrong, but I did try to attack the greyed out entry directly with no success.
> 
> Steve


Perhaps it behaves differently with stuff that appeared immediately after the update? Going forward at least, what Betsy mentions does work. I deleted an item from the Kindle, added it to a Collection from the iPad, re synced both devices, and got the greyed out book to show in the Collection on the Kindle. Once that happened, while viewing the On Device collections, I was able to do a press & hold on the greyed out book and got a popup that allowed me to add the book to any collection without actually downloading the book.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

stevene9 said:


> Maybe I did something wrong (always a possability with me), but when I held down my finger on a greyed out entry, I did not get a pop up menu that let me select or deselect it. I could not affect any greyed out entry on my device in any way without redownloading it. Maybe I did it wrong, but I did try to attack the greyed out entry directly with no success.
> 
> Steve


I was hoping you'd found a work around so I could have my collections and no grayed out entries. 

Yes, when you press and hold on a grayed out book on the cloud, you should get a menu that has the following options:

Add to Home
Add to Free Time Library (only if Free Time is active)
Add to Collection
Book Description

Add to Home seems to add it to the device in the same collection.
Add to Free Time Library does what it says
Add to Collection opens up a list of collections that you can select or deselect--this is how you remove something from a collection as well as add it. Confusing name.

A book that is on the device will have a pop up menu that shows the cover and has the following options:
Add to FreeTime Library
Add to Collection
Go To...
Search This Book (grayed out on mine)
View Bookmarks
Remove from Device

Sometimes there's a lag before I get the popup menu.

Betsy


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

VictoriaP said:


> Perhaps it behaves differently with stuff that appeared immediately after the update? Going forward at least, what Betsy mentions does work. I deleted an item from the Kindle, added it to a Collection from the iPad, re synced both devices, and got the greyed out book to show in the Collection on the Kindle. Once that happened, while viewing the On Device collections, I was able to do a press & hold on the greyed out book and got a popup that allowed me to add the book to any collection without actually downloading the book.


You can also remove books from collections this way without downloading the book. You go into "add to collection" and deselect the book from the collection it is in. I find it best to sort by "recent" if I want to delete, because the current collection that I"m cleaning up will be at the top of the list.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

strether said:


> Well, another naive question. I've never even visited the Goodreads site, so I'm not registered there. So do I need to register there in order for the "G" to show? In checking the "Manage my devices" on the Amazon site, it's clear the PW is registered because it offers only the option of "deregister". And when I restarted the PW, I did it using the menu restart option. No "G" arrived. I'm not majorly concerned, because I might not ever bother with Goodreads, and the PW is functioning fine.


No, you do not need to be registered on Goodreads for the G to show. I have never used or visited Goodreads but for me the G showed up immediately after update.

You are using an US account? Some have issues of G not showing with UK/DE accounts. (I have an "international" US account, meaning Amazon.com for international delivery, and G showed up just great.)

Another suggestion would be to deregister and factory reset the Kindle and then try again. I know, extra hassle, but I remember reading someone got it working that way.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Bufo Calvin did some fairly extensive testing and reported on his blog, _I Love My Kindle_ http://ilmk.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/understanding-cloud-collections/

These paragraphs immediately caught my eye:

I tested using Parental Controls to turn off access to the Cloud (Home - Menu - Settings - Device Options) on the Paperwhite. The Collections were still displayed, but Cloud items did not show "inside" them.

I also did a quick test with Kindle Freetime on the Paperwhite: with that on, even the names of the Cloud Collections did not show (they did not show at all).

Maybe someone here could test. Maybe the key is to have parental controls on? Though if that makes it one more step to get to your content, it might still be a pain; still maybe less annoying than a bunch of entries in the collections you don't want.


----------



## backslidr

Ann in Arlington said:


> Bufo Calvin did some fairly extensive testing and reported on his blog, _I Love My Kindle_ http://ilmk.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/understanding-cloud-collections/
> 
> These paragraphs immediately caught my eye:
> 
> I tested using Parental Controls to turn off access to the Cloud (Home - Menu - Settings - Device Options) on the Paperwhite. The Collections were still displayed, but Cloud items did not show "inside" them.
> 
> I also did a quick test with Kindle Freetime on the Paperwhite: with that on, even the names of the Cloud Collections did not show (they did not show at all).
> 
> Maybe someone here could test. Maybe the key is to have parental controls on? Though if that makes it one more step to get to your content, it might still be a pain; still maybe less annoying than a bunch of entries in the collections you don't want.


I already tried this one. I set up an account for me, then turned off the restrictions and moved a few books into freetime. At first it looked pretty good. I had only the books I wanted and no collections, but then I realized that to get to Freetime I had to go to the menu, select ft, pick my name and enter the password. When done with a book you can't move it into a collection like my Books Read collection, the only way to get rid of it is to delete it off the device. Then, to get back to your Home page you have to enter your password again. That's just way too many steps to go through at least for me, so I gave up on it.


----------



## backslidr

Ann in Arlington said:


> Reiterating because I think it's worth saying: If you've d/l'd and installed this update (has anyone had it come on its own?) and aren't happy with how it's handling collections, cloud books in 'on device' mode, etc. *Send Feedback to Amazon*: [email protected]
> 
> It is *vital* that real users tell them what they're experiencing so they'll know there's something that needs to be worked on.


I did this explaining all the problems we were having with collections and they wrote me back and said that if I was having problems I should call customer support. I guess they don't want to be bothered with problems at this email address. This whole situation just keeps getting more and more frustrating. I'm beginning to think Amazon sold their eBook business to B&N.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Ann in Arlington said:


> Bufo Calvin did some fairly extensive testing and reported on his blog, _I Love My Kindle_ http://ilmk.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/understanding-cloud-collections/
> 
> These paragraphs immediately caught my eye:
> 
> I tested using Parental Controls to turn off access to the Cloud (Home - Menu - Settings - Device Options) on the Paperwhite. The Collections were still displayed, but Cloud items did not show "inside" them.
> 
> I also did a quick test with Kindle Freetime on the Paperwhite: with that on, even the names of the Cloud Collections did not show (they did not show at all).
> 
> Maybe someone here could test. Maybe the key is to have parental controls on? Though if that makes it one more step to get to your content, it might still be a pain; still maybe less annoying than a bunch of entries in the collections you don't want.


Well, there are two separate things--Free Time and Parental Controls.

Here is my experience testing what Bufo says as regards to the Parental Controls...

I had created a Free Time account for my husband  when I was testing it on the Fire. That account is still there. But I don't believe you need to use or have a Free Time account to turn on Parental Controls. Menu > Settings > Device Options > Parental Controls. If you haven't set up a Parental Controls password yet, you'll be prompted to do so. Make sure you can remember it! Turn off "Cloud".

OK, first off, you can't access the Cloud. You'd have to turn on access to the cloud through Parental Controls to access your cloud at all. Maybe obvious, but thought I'd say it.

But your collections, indeed, don't show any grayed out entries, only what is on the device. And you can press and hold an item and change which collections the book is in.

Your collections still show the number of items as if the cloud items were in there, which is confusing. I have several collections with one item, alledgedly, but that one item is in the cloud and so there's an empty collection.

So, if the grayed out items annoy you, this is a work around...but it has its own problems. And it doesn't resolve the problem of multiple people using an account and having to live with everyone's collections.

Haven't tested Free Time, heading out the door now.

Betsy


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Thanks Betsy! That's more or less what I expected . . . . appreciate the clear and concise explanation. 



Betsy the Quilter said:


> So, if the grayed out items annoy you, this is a work around...but it has its own problems. And it doesn't resolve the problem of multiple people using an account and having to live with everyone's collections.
> 
> Betsy


If you now delete the collections on either your PW or HDX, and then re-build them on one device, will they reappear on the other device as well?

What if you delete collections that originated on one of your earlier generation devices?


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Ann in Arlington said:


> Thanks Betsy! That's more or less what I expected . . . . appreciate the clear and concise explanation.
> 
> If you now delete the collections on either your PW or HDX, and then re-build them on one device, will they reappear on the other device as well?
> 
> What if you delete collections that originated on one of your earlier generation devices?


Heading out the door....more after I get to the doctor's waiting room.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Ann in Arlington said:


> Thanks Betsy! That's more or less what I expected . . . . appreciate the clear and concise explanation.
> 
> If you now delete the collections on either your PW or HDX, and then re-build them on one device, will they reappear on the other device as well?


So with Parental Controls on and Cloud access off? I didn't delete any collections--didn't want to rebuild any--but created a collection on the PW2 and put three items in it and it promptly appeared in my HDX view of the cloud.



> What if you delete collections that originated on one of your earlier generation devices?


I'm not really sure at this point which collections originated on an older device. 

Betsy


----------



## stevene9

Betsy,

You are right, there was an easier way to get rid of the greyed out entries. I just tried an experiment and created a greyed out entry. Holding it down does bring up a box. It doesn't say "remove" so I guess I assumed it was not what I wanted. But you were right, if I had done the "add to collection" entry I then could have unchecked the box, and it does disappear. I got rid of all of them my way, but your way would have been a lot less work. As usual, I bow before a much more knowledgeable, and wiser, person.

Steve


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Sorry, if I had realized what your end game was, I would have said something sooner.  I got distracted by some of the other things happening...  I thought you had found a way to delete the grayed out items and keep the collections, and was going to test it next.

The "Add to Collection" is very misleading.  Kudos to you for figuring out a way around it... 

Betsy


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Sorry, if I had realized what your end game was, I would have said something sooner. I got distracted by some of the other things happening... I thought you had found a way to delete the grayed out items and keep the collections, and was going to test it next.
> 
> The "Add to Collection" is very misleading. Kudos to you for figuring out a way around it...
> 
> Betsy


FWIW, that "Add to Collection" thing isn't new to this update . . . . it's the same on my 5.4.0 PW -- and I've always found it jarring.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Ann in Arlington said:


> FWIW, that "Add to Collection" thing isn't new to this update . . . . it's the same on my 5.4.0 PW -- and I've always found it jarring.


Yes, I knew that.  And agree....

Betsy


----------



## MsScarlett

Ok, so I finally updated my PW. Since I had done some "cleaning up" already on my HDX, it wasn't horrible. Now all of my cloud books are in collections. I made 2 numbered folders, one for "currently on" each device. I don't keep a lot of books on either, so that works. 

My biggest problem is I have about 25 or so "zombie books" in my archives. Not books ABOUT zombies, books that keep resurrecting themselves to my archives even though I have deleted them from my Manage my Kindle!  That's kind of annoying and I can't make them go away!


----------



## Ann in Arlington

That would be annoying. 

I'm guessing it's because, even though you delete it, and would actually have to pay for it to get the book back again, Amazon still remembers where you were in it.  I know it works that way with library books.  One time I borrowed one and hadn't quite finished when my loan period ran out.  But I have two libraries I can borrow from and about that time the other one sent a notice that the book was available there.  So I returned it to the first library and borrowed it from the next library.  I'd paid attention to where I left off but, lo and behold, when I opened the 'new' copy, it knew where I was.

The more I hear about the quirks of this update the more I think I'm just fine without it.  If it comes, I'll deal, but I'm not going to hurry it.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

MsScarlett said:


> Ok, so I finally updated my PW. Since I had done some "cleaning up" already on my HDX, it wasn't horrible. Now all of my cloud books are in collections. I made 2 numbered folders, one for "currently on" each device. I don't keep a lot of books on either, so that works.
> 
> My biggest problem is I have about 25 or so "zombie books" in my archives. Not books ABOUT zombies, books that keep resurrecting themselves to my archives even though I have deleted them from my Manage my Kindle! That's kind of annoying and I can't make them go away!


Sounds like a good plan!

Just curious, MsScarlett--how many books are in your Kindle library total, if you don't mind sharing?

Betsy


----------



## joangolfing

I downloaded 5.4.2 this morning.  I want my simple PW homepage back with the Category titles I made up myself.
It even has the Audio category and PW doesn't have that ability.  I now have two Current Novels titles, and 2 pages of collections.
I sent feedback to amazon.  The Cloud seems to have taken over my PW.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Assuming you mean Collections, all of the collections should be ones you made at one time or another on devices you own.  That's why the Audio collection is there.  I don't know why Amazon didn't give us the option of deciding which collectons we want in the cloud out of all the ones we've created over time....

It's not been a good implementation.

But, as far as has been announced so far, there is no way of going back, although you can certainly remove collections.  Press and hold the collection name on the home page--you will get a popup menu that lets you delete that collection.  (The books in it, if any, will remain on the Kindle.)

Betsy


----------



## MsScarlett

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Sounds like a good plan!
> 
> Just curious, MsScarlett--how many books are in your Kindle library total, if you don't mind sharing?
> 
> Betsy


I have about 450 actual books, including my side loaded stuff. That is not including the zombie books or the about 30 various users guides and dictionaries. According to PW, archive number is 522. I so have about 30 active content titles.


----------



## VictoriaP

An update:

This morning, for some reason, my PW2 was sluggish and unresponsive in certain parts of the screen. Two restarts later (one via power button long press, one via menu) it began to behave again for the most part, but was clearly phoning home.

While it was doing all that, I let it be, and out of curiosity checked the Cloud Collections via iOS. Nothing there had changed--I was still missing some of the collections that I had renamed after importing from the Touch to the PW2. Multiple syncs on both ends have not changed this. One collection that *had* appeared early on after I'd updated the PW2 showed 125 items on the Kindle, but ZERO items in the iOS Cloud version, and never seemed to change. Fine--I'm not using collections there anyway, just as long as the PW2 shows what I want, I can live with that.

When the dust settled on the PW2, however, I had a missing collection, some 10 books showing loose on the device.

I told it to sync for the fourth. A few minutes later, the collection was back on the device.

I looked at the iOS collections again. The "empty collection" now showed 125 items! And ALL of my collections from the PW2 were suddenly showing in the cloud for the first time!

Except...

Half of them are doubled, for no apparent reason.  Same exact title, same exact books, the collection just shows twice. At least they're not doubled on the Paperwhite. LOL I'm afraid if I delete the extras from iOS, it'll take the originals off the PW2, so for now I'm just going to leave them alone.

I'll reiterate it again. *If you have your PW2 exactly the way you want it already as far as collections go, do NOT manually update. Turn off wifi and wait until the rest of us guinea pigs report that things are straightened out. *There is simply no guarantee that things will look the way you want them to once you've updated, or stay that way even days later. It seems possible that Amazon *may* be tweaking things on their end to try and straighten things out--but that tweaking process could be a bit crazy in and of itself.


----------



## DD

VictoriaP said:


> I'll reiterate it again. *If you have your PW2 exactly the way you want it already as far as collections go, do NOT manually update. Turn off wifi and wait until the rest of us guinea pigs report that things are straightened out. *There is simply no guarantee that things will look the way you want them to once you've updated, or stay that way even days later. It seems possible that Amazon *may* be tweaking things on their end to try and straighten things out--but that tweaking process could be a bit crazy in and of itself.


Victoria, I'm taking your advice!


----------



## VictoriaP

DD, the PW2 is a great device otherwise--but I definitely think Amazon rushed this update without testing it thoroughly. 

Another argument against updating: I had one minor freeze up occur in the month I had the PW2 prior to this update's release. I had two in the first day or so after I'd done the manual update. I've had at least four today, both with and without wifi on, requiring a power button restart to wake the silly thing back up. The Kindle isn't indexing anything (haven't loaded any books since I updated, and I did check indexing to make sure nothing was stuck). The Kindle still has about a third of its memory available. Haven't been changing collections on my end, just reading, and it's not specific to one book, as I've had it happen in three different ones.

The only significant thing that's changed is the firmware--which is pretty significant.  I'd put my money this crashing issue being directly related to the update.


----------



## Toby

I'm not going to manually update, but I do keep my wifi on. I usually don't get my updates on my kindle eReaders anyway via wifi. I always have to do it manually. On my Fire, I got the update within the week,  which is the usual for my Fires.


----------



## Meemo

Toby said:


> I'm not going to manually update, but I do keep my wifi on. I usually don't get my updates on my kindle eReaders anyway via wifi. I always have to do it manually. On my Fire, I got the update within the week, which is the usual for my Fires.


I've usually updated manually too. But I'm still leaving wifi OFF - I've never not wanted an update, and with my luck this would be the one time my eInk Kindle updated automatically and I absolutely do NOT want that to happen! My home page it the way I want it and I want it to stay that way.


----------



## DD

VictoriaP said:


> DD, the PW2 is a great device otherwise--but I definitely think Amazon rushed this update without testing it thoroughly.
> 
> Another argument against updating: I had one minor freeze up occur in the month I had the PW2 prior to this update's release. I had two in the first day or so after I'd done the manual update. I've had at least four today, both with and without wifi on, requiring a power button restart to wake the silly thing back up. The Kindle isn't indexing anything (haven't loaded any books since I updated, and I did check indexing to make sure nothing was stuck). The Kindle still has about a third of its memory available. Haven't been changing collections on my end, just reading, and it's not specific to one book, as I've had it happen in three different ones.
> 
> The only significant thing that's changed is the firmware--which is pretty significant.  I'd put my money this crashing issue being directly related to the update.


I hope they get it straightened out soon!


----------



## Eltanin Publishing

VictoriaP said:


> ...and out of curiosity checked the Cloud Collections via iOS.


Just double-checking: If all I have is a PC, an Android tablet and a PW2 (and mom has K3, and we both have our own collections, which is why I'm concerned), then there's no way to check or "clean up" cloud collections? (no Apple device, no kindle fire, though I can run Kindle for PC or Kindle for Android).


----------



## VondaZ

My PW2 still hasn't updated even though I left wifi on, so I hope Amazon is working on this and has stopped rolling it out.

I like the concept of Cloud collections since I hate that MYK has no organization to it. However - they should be just that - collections that are on the cloud - and thus, visible in Cloud view but not necessarily in device view.

If they would just change the device view to just show the collections and content on the device and/or have an option to just display a list of content without collections at all, I'd be okay with it. I am dreading having my nice clean home screen with just three items (current book, book I'm reading to the kids, book I will be reading next) turned into unnecessary clutter because I use K4PC to organize my library.


----------



## backslidr

Well, my pw1 just bit the dust. It no longer holds a charge and is out of warranty. I have multiple kindles because I always liked having all my books on my kindles in collections. I was thinking about replacing it until I realized that all my pw1 collections are on my pw2 now, so there is no need to. In fact I think I'll de-register my other kindles and just stick with my pw2. Amazon's made it so that I no longer need multiple kindles. Maybe this upgrade isn't so bad after all. Amazon just saved me a lot of money.


----------



## Chad Winters

mine has not auto updated either


----------



## VictoriaP

Eltanin Publishing said:


> Just double-checking: If all I have is a PC, an Android tablet and a PW2 (and mom has K3, and we both have our own collections, which is why I'm concerned), then there's no way to check or "clean up" cloud collections? (no Apple device, no kindle fire, though I can run Kindle for PC or Kindle for Android).


You're right to be concerned if you & Mom share one account. Both of your collections will likely appear on the PW2. Unfortunately, as of right now, I'm not aware of any way you can preview cloud collections with the devices you have on hand--short of updating the PW2. (Anyone who knows differently, please jump in!) Since you can't roll that update back, I recommend that anyone with concerns continue to sit tight & let Amazon work the bugs out.

I do think that if enough people complain about the greyed out entries in Device view, it will be changed--most likely with a toggle that would allow you to show or hide Cloud entries. But even beyond that, there are some definite bugs in this firmware and the implementation of Cloud Collection that need fixing. I'd classify it as a beta release, myself.

(As of 1 PM, no crashes today, everything on the PW2 still looks fine. But half of my iOS viewed Cloud Collections are still duplicated.)


----------



## FearIndex

VictoriaP said:


> You're right to be concerned if you & Mom share one account. Both of your collections will likely appear on the PW2. Unfortunately, as of right now, I'm not aware of any way you can preview cloud collections with the devices you have on hand--short of updating the PW2. (Anyone who knows differently, please jump in!) Since you can't roll that update back, I recommend that anyone with concerns continue to sit tight & let Amazon work the bugs out.


No, you can't pre-check Cloud Collections - because even if you have another device with Cloud Collections, whenever you register a new Cloud Collections compatible device (select new Kindle tablets and apps, or update PW2 to 5.4.2), that device will also import - upon registration, as a one-time deal - all the collections from your older Cloud Collections incompatible Kindles and apps that may or may not be in your other previous Cloud Collections enabled devices.

This really fuzzies the concept of what the Cloud Collections are. Any Kindle collection can become (or more precisely be cloned to become) a Cloud Collection through such automatic first-registration import, but not all Kindle collections actually _are_ Cloud Collections.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Well, kinda-sorta.

Here's what happened when I updated a virgin PW2 this morning.  Well, not a complete virgin.  I had, I believe, created two collections earlier in testing it as an un-updated PW.  And I had since removed those.

When I did the update, it had had no collections on it at all.  (Took a screen shot for evidence.  )

Before I updated, I used my Fire HDX and my i'Touch to fiddle with my collections.  I put an ampersand at the end of most of the collection titles except for a few that I knew I had created after Cloud Collections were implemented on my Fire.

I manually updated the device.  Whoever I give it to won't know there was ever a different way to see collections.   I'll deregister, so my collections won't be visible.  And, if I give it to the person I'm thinking of, they won't have any prior collections, so no problem there.

As soon as the update was complete and I went to the home page, two collections appeared, sans ampersand:  Mysteries and Fantasy.  I'm pretty sure these were the two collections created on the virgin PW that I never fiddled with as part of Cloud Collections.  The  only items shown in them are items that are on the PW--and no other items are in them grayed out. 

There were other legacy collections that were imported into my Cloud when I created Cloud Collections on my Fire HDX and that I had simply deleted in the Cloud. (For instance, I had two or three "Library" name variations for collections for books I had checked out of the library.  Only the one remaining collection with that name appeared on my newly updated PW, the one left in the cloud.  Two of them are still on my Baby Kindle from a prior import.)

A few minutes later, all of my cloud collections appeared on the newly updated PW.  AND Mysteries and Fantasy were added across the cloud to all devices.

My conclusion from my experience is that, once cloud collections have been implemented, past collections from the device being updated will automatically import, but collections from other legacy devices, if removed from the cloud collection will not.  Of course, that's only one data point.

So, I think you can "clean up" your collections using a cloud-collection capable Kindle (say that five times fast)  or other device but collections that had been on a particular device before upgrading that device will reappear.  Collections that had been on other legacy devices will not.  At least that was my experience.  Again, data sample=1. 

Before I updated, there was an option in the menu on the home screen to import collections.  I should have checked to see what the options were for collections to import from.  Missed that step, sorry.  When I did the update, the cloud collections imported with no additional steps on my part.  Out of curiosity, I looked at my mini-K ($69).  When I choose "Add Other Device Collections" on my mini K ($69), I have a choice of 7 devices--my 11th Kindle (the recently upgraded-for-testing-purposes PW2), Kindle for PC4, Netbook Kindle App, Harper (my PW1, since traded in) and my KTouch Buffy, my PW2 Peabody, and another Kindle for PC app, not sure which computer this is. On my KTouch, I have the same options, only instead of the KTouch, I can import from Scout the mini-K. Note to self--research.

Not sure if this clarifies things or muddies them further, but thought it was a good description of what happened in my case.  Didn't check book counts in the various collections to compare them.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

Great research, Betsy! Thank you.


----------



## laughinggravy

Thanks Betsy, I'm one of the people keeping wifi off except for a quick foray to download a new book or two, so this is really of interest to me.

It would be really kind if you or anyone else in the know could help me with the following questions. 

I have two pages of collections, named exactly how I want and of the approx 600 books I have in my Amazon kindle library MYK pages, I have about 200 on the paperwhite. 

Can I ask you:
Did all the books you possess show up on your PW, with those being on the cloud greyed out? Or did only the downloaded titles show up please?
Were you able to call the collections what you wanted, or is there a tag system that Amazon is using that would, for example, mean we get a 'fantasy' collection even if we wanted to call it something else.

I have a K4 which hubs is using, there are more collections on his. Would these turn up on my PW2 and then have to be weeded out manually?

Almost finally, and I'm really sorry if I'm being dense: I have a PW1 and a PW2 with the same collections but not necessarily the same content. The PW1 is with my elderly mum and there is a collection on it called 'For Mum'. If I decide to accept the firmware, I'm thinking this isn't going to impact on her PW1?

Finally, finally,  did you notice a lag since the 'upgrade'? Some people are saying that the PW2s seem more sluggish since they downloaded the firmware.

What's really important for me is that not all my titles are visible: grey or not it sill takes up far too much room and there would be no simple way to order those I want to see and those I don't. (The damn dictionaries and user guides appearing every update, now not only cluttering up the MYK page, but appearing on the home screen - aaargh) And that the collection titles and contents would be as I wanted them, pref just as they are now - took long enough to get it all sorted and now it is like a comfy pair of slippers. 

I'm also not loving the idea of being constantly urged to connect to wifi in order to synch any time I make a change. Like many I keep wifi off most of the time to conserve battery.

Thanks very much, a worried PW2 owner. 

Abi


----------



## Ann in Arlington

My PW2 hasn't gotten the update yet but I played with Betsy's some at lunch the other day.

IF YOU ARE ONE PERSON on the account, and tend to have the same collections on all devices and don't feel the need for any other, it's not horrible. But if you want say, just a couple of collections on your device -- reading now, reading next, TBR list -- as it stands you can't set the PW2 to ONLY see those collections. It'll ALSO show all your other collections where you've sorted things by genre or author. For me, that would be annoying.

IF THERE ARE SEVERAL OF YOU ON THE ACCOUNT, what it means is that anyone with a device that uses cloud collections will see every named collection of everyone else.* Older devices shouldn't see any but their own collections, however.

* this can be worked around a bit via parental controls, but that's kind of a pain as it turns off ALL access to the cloud and then to download any new book from your archive you have to go through several steps to disable PCs temporarily.

For me, the most annoying thing is that whether your device is set to show Cloud or On Device, you see ALL Collections. And, worse, if you look at On Device and select a collection, you see pages and pages (if you have 2000 books) of books that are _not on the device_. Makes no sense. They are grayed out, but I don't want to see them At All if I've got it showing 'On Device'. FWIW, it does NOT do that on the Fire. On the Fire, 'On Device' means just that and Cloud is everything with check marks next to the items that are actually on the device. This is a MUCH better implementation.

I have not turned WiFi off since the upgrade came out -- I don't want to as I get the newspaper daily. The update has not been pushed to my device. So I think anyone who doesn't want it can just ignore it and they won't get it. I'm guessing (hoping?) they've heard their customers and are re-working it.

Which reminds me: if you have gotten the update and don't like how something is working, send feedback: [email protected]


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Ann answered most of your questions, but I'll run through them.



laughinggravy said:


> Can I ask you:
> Did all the books you possess show up on your PW, with those being on the cloud greyed out? Or did only the downloaded titles show up please?


Whether you are viewing in the Cloud or "On Device," any books that are in collections on the Cloud will show up in Collections on the Device. If they are only in the cloud, they will be greyed out. Books not in Collections will not show up on the device. So right now, my home page is six pages long; five pages are collection names, the last page (plus one line on the fifth page) are books on the device not in collections and my dictionaries. This is the only difference between viewing the Cloud or "On Device." If you are viewing the Cloud, you also see all of your books not in collections, whether they are on your device or not. If you are viewing "On Device," you will see books not in collections that are on the device, but not any books not in collections.



> Were you able to call the collections what you wanted, or is there a tag system that Amazon is using that would, for example, mean we get a 'fantasy' collection even if we wanted to call it something else.


You get to name your collections whatever you want. There is no tag system imposed by Amazon.



> I have a K4 which hubs is using, there are more collections on his. Would these turn up on my PW2 and then have to be weeded out manually?


Probably at the time you do the upgrade. After the upgrade, any changes he makes to the K4 will not show up on your device.



> Almost finally, and I'm really sorry if I'm being dense: I have a PW1 and a PW2 with the same collections but not necessarily the same content. The PW1 is with my elderly mum and there is a collection on it called 'For Mum'. If I decide to accept the firmware, I'm thinking this isn't going to impact on her PW1?


No, at this time, the PW1 does not have cloud collections capability, so her PW1 will remain unchanged.



> Finally, finally,  did you notice a lag since the 'upgrade'? Some people are saying that the PW2s seem more sluggish since they downloaded the firmware.


Yes, I mentioned this to Ann at lunch.



> What's really important for me is that not all my titles are visible: grey or not it sill takes up far too much room and there would be no simple way to order those I want to see and those I don't. (The d*mn dictionaries and user guides appearing every update, now not only cluttering up the MYK page, but appearing on the home screen - aaargh) And that the collection titles and contents would be as I wanted them, pref just as they are now - took long enough to get it all sorted and now it is like a comfy pair of slippers.


I have the user's guide and My clippings in a Collection. They don't bother me too much.



> I'm also not loving the idea of being constantly urged to connect to wifi in order to synch any time I make a change. Like many I keep wifi off most of the time to conserve battery.
> 
> Thanks very much, a worried PW2 owner.
> 
> Abi


I've never kept WiFi off, charging my PW2 every week or two is easy enough for me to be worth having WiFi on, but if you are accustomed to having it off, yes having that message pop up every time you make a change can be annoying. Like Ann says, [email protected]

Hope this helps!

Betsy


----------



## laughinggravy

Thanks so much both of you.
So one piece of good news then is that if the books in yr Amazon MYK page aren't in a collection, and not in a collection on any device,  then they won't appear on your PW2 at all, not even greyed out?

So actually, if you only have books to read on your kindle and they are downloaded into collections, everything else is on the cloud not visible on the device.

Actually that could work for me.... perhaps I could stick my toe into the pool


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

laughinggravy said:


> Thanks so much both of you.
> So one piece of good news then is that if the books in yr Amazon MYK page aren't in a collection, and not in a collection on any device, then they won't appear on your PW2 at all, not even greyed out?
> 
> So actually, if you only have books to read on your kindle and they are downloaded into collections, everything else is on the cloud not visible on the device.
> 
> Actually that could work for me.... perhaps I could stick my toe into the pool


Yes, if only the books that are currently on your device are in collections, that's all you will see. Just remember to remove them from the collection before you remove them from the device.

It's definitely one way to go. I actually want my library on Amazon to be in collections, and had organized them a lot using other devices over several months, so I'm reluctant to undo that work.

Betsy


----------



## stevene9

Betsy the Quilter said:


> It's definitely one way to go. I actually want my library on Amazon to be in collections, and had organized them a lot using other devices over several months, so I'm reluctant to undo that work.
> 
> Betsy


I have a large number of series and would love to organize my books in the cloud by author collection, but I don't want them to appear on my device. I have many authors that have 15, 20, 25, or even 30 books. If I just sort by author, it makes it too hard to manipulate (I now have almost 1400 entries). I want to have collections by author in the cloud, but not showing up on my device. This would make for a much shorter list. Maybe someday Amazon will make this possible.

Steve


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

stevene9 said:


> I have a large number of series and would love to organize my books in the cloud by author collection, but I don't want them to appear on my device. I have many authors that have 15, 20, 25, or even 30 books. If I just sort by author, it makes it too hard to manipulate (I now have almost 1400 entries). I want to have collections by author in the cloud, but not showing up on my device. This would make for a much shorter list. Maybe someday Amazon will make this possible.
> 
> Steve


Yeah, I have over 1700, and had already done a lot of organizing in the Cloud before it was allowed on the PW2, so I'm going to live with it for now in the hopes that Amazon will fix it.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

You all have just described my preference as well. I can see my self getting the cloud all organized, but I don't want all those collections on my device all the time. On my device I basically just want what I'm reading now or what I figure I'll read pretty soon.

Which is very different to how I started -- initially _everything_ went on the kindle and I deleted it when I'd read it. That kinda worked when there were only a few hundred books. Not so much with over 2000!


----------



## Vicki G.

I decided what the heck, might as well give it a try.  I'm the only user on my devices and account and I keep Collections up to date pretty much constantly.  

So... the main thing that was a problem was that several of my collections didn't get transferred after the update.  Two of those were TBR List and TBR Short List.  Those 2 are kinda the holding bin for things I don't have a definite place for.  That created some organization work but nothing catastrophic.  However, the one thing that happened that I'm not crazy about is the fact that we can't create a Collection in the Cloud without it going to the device.  

I should have said initially that I have 335 books on my Kindle, 633 in the Cloud.  I always put the book I'm reading/debating on reading next/etc. into a Collection called #1 Nightstand.  And then I also have a #2 Nightstand for queing up what I want/need to read next.  When I finish a book, it is removed from the Nightstand Collection and put into a collection called Read in 2013.  I keep 2 years on the Kindle and then delete books read before then unless I have some other reason to keep them, such as it is a series that I'm still reading, etc.  I do all my Collections changes from the book page, i.e. Add to Collection, not from the Collection page where one has to scroll through ALL the books to find which one you're looking for.  So this new Cloud Collections was really a no-brainer for me.  

Didn't mean to run on so long, just my 2 cents worth on what I do, what I did, how update 5.4.2 affected me.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Thanks Vicki -- everyone's experiences help clear things up for those of us who haven't gotten it yet -- and are trying to work out whether to bother.


----------



## stevene9

I am a little surprised that with all the complaints (just from this group alone) that we have not heard anything at all from Amazon. I expected some acknoledgement that they are looking into the problems.

Steve


----------



## laughinggravy

Thanks to this very helpful forum I'm getting my head around the idea that not all bought books will show up on the PW2 in collections as greyed out titles if they are on the cloud, which would have driven me nuts. If they aren't assigned a collection anywhere then they don't show up. So that's a biggie sorted out.

But the lag which seems to be the result of the update, and the constant warning to connect to wifi every time one modifies any thing on the home screen would be a pain. 

Anyone had the update sent automatically do you think? Anne comfortingly suggested that it might not be being rolled out over wifi...
I'd appreciate knowing that I don't have to connect download edgily and then disconnect the moment the new book's on the device. I'm beginning to look a little odd, hunched anxiously over a downloading book, muttering to myself


----------



## Vicki G.

FWIW, the only time I've noticed the lag is when scrolling through the Cloud.  But definitely not with normal opening/reading operations.  And not with scrolling through collections on the device.  

As for the connect to WiFi message, I have to admit I keep my wifi on all the time because I have 2 Kindles that I read on and like them to be able to chat with each other.  Although, funnily enough, they don't chat as nicely with each other as they do with iThingies apps.  Isn't that funny?  Not funny haha.... funny peculiar!.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

stevene9 said:


> I am a little surprised that with all the complaints (just from this group alone) that we have not heard anything at all from Amazon. I expected some acknoledgement that they are looking into the problems.
> 
> Steve


Well, what we don't know is how many of the people who have gotten the update, and are disappointed with how it functions have actually _contacted Amazon_. ([email protected]) Or use 'contact us' on the kindle support page.

Remember, kboards is NOT Amazon . . . . we're an affiliate for click through purchases, but that's the extent of any connection.

That said, usually these things are pushed out within hours of going live on the support page, and this one hasn't; that makes me hopeful that Amazon has heard the grumblings from _someone_ and is re-visiting the functionality.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

I think I've had it when opening a book....but I can't remember for sure.  

Betsy


----------



## gdae23

Commenting briefly, since I'm away from home right now with only sporadic wifi and using my iPhone. (Dictating to the phone actually.)

I got an automatic update this morning after I downloaded my newspaper. I've been only leaving the Kindle on for a few minutes to download the paper the last few days and I was hoping that would be enough to avoid the download but unfortunately not.  I was lucky with one thing because I had always had a collection called All and almost every book was in that collection, so I only had a few books that didn't show up in any collection at all. However some old collections showed up that I no longer use and I can't even remember which device they're on.

Some books aren't opening properly, and the Kindle has been very sluggish at times.I'm not sure how messed up this is until I get home and can compare it with my other Kindles and with Kindle for PC and I don't like having the greyed out books. I've tried deleting a few things I really don't need from the Manage your Kindle page and I was able to delete them from the cloud that way. As soon as I get home I do plan to send email feedback to Amazon because I'm pretty unhappy with the cloud update for the same reasons that most people are mentioning here.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Thanks for the report, gdae23--you're the first one I've heard get the update automatically.

Books that are not in a collection and are not on your device won't show up on your device.

Some people are managing this by having just a few collections, the ones they really want on their Kindle, and only keeping books that are on their Kindle in those collections.

Definitely contact Amazon.

Betsy


----------



## laughinggravy

Hi all, gdae, darn! I hope you can get it sorted out to your liking. Sorry to hear about glitches and lag!

I'm going to have to deal with this because my husband is going to 'upgrade' to a PW2 for Christmas and I need a replacement for mine, which will come to me at the same time (blotchy screen issues, an odd, hot pink corner and a darker fuzzy area/patch taking up most of the centre of the screen - but that's another issue). I guess they'll either come pre loaded with this version or that the version will update as soon as it is connected to wifi.

K4 has a bunch of collection I don't use and I guess the whole shebang will show up on PW2 screens, so a few hours cleaning up until I have what I have now, two pages of collections and no stray books. Hey ho. 

Say, will deleting the collections from the K4 now mean that when I get the update the only collections to show up will the ones I'm currently using (no other devices owned....)? That would be way easier.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

laughinggravy said:


> Say, will deleting the collections from the K4 now mean that when I get the update the only collections to show up will the ones I'm currently using (no other devices owned....)? That would be way easier.


Possibly. There really haven't been any situations where people knew ahead of time to test that. You could be our guinea pig. 

Betsy


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## LauraB

I updated my paper white a while back. And have read through this thread a couple of times. I'm having a hard time following what the problem is people are having. I've had a kindle since 08. And used collections a lot for a while. Then cut down to three, #1 library books, #2 samples and #3 Harry Potter. I have had many more different ones over the years, but deleted some here and there and ignored others and removed them from devices. Maybe 1/3 of the collections I've had over the years came onto knew update. I just deleted the ones I didn't want. I left the three I want. Maybe I didn't have enough to understand (see) the problems. I'm having a hard time even figuring out what people are saying the problem is. 

When my samples collection came onto my updated kindle the titles were greyed out. I just tapped on the one I wanted downloaded and it did. The others stayed grey. Which was good because most were already purchased and read and I had forgotten to remove them from collection.


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## laughinggravy

Guinea pig - hmmm, honoured and yet, strangely reticent 
No I think I'm going to have to just get on with it.

Order placed for hub's PW2 and a replacement on its way. CS assures me that, not surprisingly, they'll both download the update even if I dance around them anticlockwise holding a black chicken. So... bullet biting time.

Just deleted all the collections on the K4, with husband's permission, and.. you guys will probably know what's coming next 'tho it came as a nasty surprise to me... I ended up with 48 pages of titles. I didn't realise that deleting the collections freed the books back into the wild - and I'm thinking he prob didn't realise either. Good job the casserole tonight looks especially tasty!

So now I have: a K4 with one collection (the same as on the PW2 in name but not identical in content) and lots of loose titles. I have a PW1, at my mother's, with all the same collections, not quite the same content and two additional collections. And a PW2 set up just how I want it - no stray books, three pages of collections, all ship shape - the result of quite a bit of sorting a few months back. Sigh.

What am I going to get when the whole lot merges? Will I be able to modify my home screen to just see what I want to see on the device? Will there be reams of greyed out titles? Will the hero manage to jump the chasm Do I want to BE the guinea pig or shall I just continue to hide in airplane mode and deal with it in three weeks when I catch up with my two new KPW2s? Dunno dunno.....


----------



## LauraB

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Books that are not in a collection and are not on your device won't show up on your device.
> 
> Some people are managing this by having just a few collections, the ones they really want on their Kindle, and only keeping books that are on their Kindle in those collections.
> 
> Betsy


I find this confusing. "Books that are not in your collections and not on your device won't show up on your device". 
Hasn't it always been that way?

When I get on my ow under either cloud or on device and tap on a collection, say Library, the books on this device are bolder. The ones in cloud are grey. But if u touch a greyed one it downloads onto device. I actually like this better. It used to be they were all bolder. Now I know by looking where it is. 
Maybe I'm just confused about what the issue is.


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## laughinggravy

Hi Laura, well, the prob is I don't necessarily want all the collections that my husband will have on his PW2 on mine and he prob doesn't want mine. If one can just delete them then that's great. But as I've just mentioned, deleting the collection leaves an awful lot of stray books to then delete one by one.
Also, the up date seems to be cause the devices to run less smoothly.
Another point is that I usually have wifi turned off and there is a warning message urging you to re connect every time you make a change. That could be irritating after a while.
That sort of thing......

I guess perhaps like me, people initially thought amazon had made the MYK more user friendly and we'd have the option to chose which device hosted which collection. Since you can't choose whether or not to opt into the update, and you can't go back, and since many people have discovered a system that works for them over time - then inevitably people are going to wonder whether to jump on in, or try and hang on to see if at least we are going to have the right to decide which collections will show up on which home pages if you have multiple users....
Glad it is working for you 'tho.  

Just noticed you posted a reply - they were all bold because they were on your device, now some are grey (cloud) and the ones on your device are still bold. Personally I don't want to see what I have on the cloud on my home screen automatically because the titles would take up a lot of space, pages. I like to have the option to see what is on the cloud and what is on the device by selecting which I'm viewing with the buttons at the top of the home screen.


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## Ann in Arlington

Betsy's post was near 1 a.m. so maybe it was a mistype, but here's what I saw when I looked at her PW2. (Mine has not yet updated.)

When you are on the home page you see collections followed by any 'uncollected' books. Same as before.

When you have it showing 'on device' that all looks the same, but if you select a collection, what you see are ALL the books in that collection _whether or not they are actually on the device_. This doesn't make sense to me. So, for example, she had a collection that said it had something like 41 books. NONE of those books were actually on the device but when you looked at the collection they were all listed, albeit grayed out. You would tap to download them.

When you have it showing 'cloud' it's exactly the same except that all the books show with a check mark next to ones on the device. Except for how it's indicated that a book is on the device or not, the two 'views' show the same thing.

It's silly.

And if you want to sort by title or author, you have to page through all the books to find the one actually on the device. So that becomes harder, whereas, if it only showed the ones on the device (which you would expect when viewing 'on device) there'd be many fewer to page through.

Mind you, it's not a huge issue for people with no more than a few hundred books. But if you are one of us power users with 1000, 2000, or 3000 books, it becomes a real pain. AND if you have multiple people on the account who sort differently to you, you _have_ to see all their collections as well as your own. If you delete them, they may delete from their devices as well -- though this is not confirmed if the devices are earlier generation devices.

laughinggravy, my suggestion would be, once your PW2 updates, have your husband re-import his old collections. I bet all his books will resort and, since I think the PW2 only picks up all collections the first time, maybe you still won't have them. 'Course, if you're both moving up to PW2, that might not solve things.


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## LauraB

I have over 1,000 books. But not on the kindle. 
When I click my library collection either on "cloud" or "on device" I see the exact same thing on both. I just did it. Under either choice the books are listed. The one on device is bolder and has a check. The ones not on my device are greyed out. It doesn't matter if I'm looking on cloud or on device I see same thing. That makes sense to me. It is telling me _where_ the books under that collection are. And I can get the same accurate, information either place. Otherwise if I was looking "on device" and I only saw the books on that collection that are on the device, I might forget about one I have in that collection but not on this device. So I could miss a book I own, want to read, but have forgotten about.

I like it because I have so many books.


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## LauraB

Hi laughinggravy, thank you, now I understand! I don't share an account so only my collections are there I get it now  

I don't see any of  my books on my home screen with  greyed out when I am "on device". I only see some greyed our if I tap on a collection. None are greyed out under on cloud either unless I am in a collection. If I am 'on device'  but not in a collection, I see a list off collections and my books on the device. If I'm on "cloud" I see a list of collections and all books with a check by the ones on my kindle and "new" by, well, new ones. 

I have a kindle pw, pw2 (with upsate, fire hdx and iPad that I go between on same account.-don't know if this info apples to conversation or not. ) 

Maybe it is just a difference in preferences. I like having the collections listed on home screen but when I tap on them I get the same information no matter where I look, what books are in that collection and where are they. But as I said I only have 3 collections and a little more then 1000 books. I have deleted a lot of books permanently from my kindle library. A lot of early freebies, before I learned more about myself


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## crebel

I have asked DH to return my Christmas PW2 unopened.  I never did get an answer to the questions I posed many pages back, but think with enough re-reading of posts and answers to others, I now have a pretty good understanding of how the current update works.

I'll stick with my KK until this mess is straightened out.


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## bordercollielady

I have my WIFI turned off now since gdae received an auto update.. I was hoping that Amazon had stopped sending them out in response to this mess.    I have read similar posts on their Kindle forum so they must know what's going on.  So - I will wait..  One thing.  if I never created collections in the cloud - is this still an issue due to collections on other devices??


----------



## VictoriaP

bordercollielady said:


> I have my WIFI turned off now since gdae received an auto update.. I was hoping that Amazon had stopped sending them out in response to this mess. I have read similar posts on their Kindle forum so they must know what's going on. So - I will wait.. One thing. if I never created collections in the cloud - is this still an issue due to collections on other devices??


Yes--because any collection you ever created on ANY device is probably in the cloud. I had collections from my K2, my Touch, and (some) ones I'd created on the PW2 that showed in Cloud Collections as viewed from the iOS app. Presumably, they were pulled into Cloud Collections by the same mechanism that allows you to import collections from another device when your PW2 is new.

The sluggishness is my biggest current annoyance. It's slower just about any time wifi is on. It also continues to have the occasional freeze-up far more frequently than it did pre-update.


----------



## Meemo

I just sent a feedback email to [email protected], telling them why my wifi is turned off indefinitely. I got a response that wasn't the usual canned, cut-&-pasted response, but I'm not sure the responder totally understood my issue, either. At any rate, hopefully he "passed my email on to the developers" intact (he implied that I want to "turn off Collections" - what I had suggested was an option in Settings to turn on/off *Cloud* Collections).


----------



## crebel

DH also sent feedback as to why he was cancelling the PW2 order.  He got the canned "we will send your comments to the developer" e-mail in return.

It sounds like it would work great if the PW2 was your first and only Kindle on an account.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Ann in Arlington said:


> Betsy's post was near 1 a.m. so maybe it was a mistype,


 

No, it wasn't a mistype. Sorry for any confusion. I was responding to specific comments about whether books NOT in collections would show up on an updated PW2 as grayed out entries following the collections, the first comment being by laughinggravy on Nov 27 at 2:17PM and to which I replied 


Betsy the Quilter said:


> Books not in Collections will not show up on the device.


Laughinggravy commented again later


laughinggravy said:


> Thanks so much both of you.
> So one piece of good news then is that if the books in yr Amazon MYK page aren't in a collection, and not in a collection on any device, then they won't appear on your PW2 at all, not even greyed out?


And then gdae23 said this:


gdae23 said:


> I was lucky with one thing because I had always had a collection called All and almost every book was in that collection, so I only had a few books that didn't show up in any collection at all.


I should have been more clear--I was trying to both respond to laughinggravy (love that name) and point out that there was no real need to have a collection called "All" for the rest of the books, because any book not in a collection isn't going to show up on the device anyway.



LauraB said:


> I find this confusing. "Books that are not in your collections and not on your device won't show up on your device".
> Hasn't it always been that way?


Yes, it has always been this way, but there was a concern by other members that the update did something different. I was just reassuring them that this hadn't changed.

LauraB--I'm glad the update works for you. But the update affects me negatively. I also have a lot of books (over 1700).  I had started sorting the cloud into collections on my Fire, which works fine because the Fire doesn't have collections on the device. And when I have a collection with over 200 books in it, but only two of them are on the device, on the PW now, it's hard to find which two books are on the device without paging through 20 pages of books. If I've put them on the device recently, "Recent" is useful, but they may or may not be among the most recently added books in that collection. It's a problem on the Fire, too, if it's a big collection, but I solved that by creating six collections that are Fire only and have an @ at the beginning, which sorts alphabetically to the top on the Fire but not on the PW.

I don't really see any point to have the exact same information, displayed exactly the same way, when I look at "Cloud" vs "On Device." If I want to know which books are in the collection overall AND what is on my device, I can look at the Cloud and see the grayed out titles and the checked titles. I'm glad it works for you, but you can have the information you need when looking at "Cloud." I want the pleasure of having the information I had before, a limited list of what's on my device. There's a way for both of us to have the information we want, and that's by having the Cloud show everything and On Device show only the books on the device. Logical.

I also don't necessarily want the same collections on all of my devices, and I can sympathise with members who have multiple people on their account.

My .02 worth. I still think it's a STOOPID update.  Glad to hear some people are finding a way to live with it. I can live with it, but I'll always think it was STOOPID. 



crebel said:


> DH also sent feedback as to why he was cancelling the PW2 order. He got the canned "we will send your comments to the developer" e-mail in return.
> 
> It sounds like it would work great if the PW2 was your first and only Kindle on an account.


Agree. Chris--sorry I missed your earlier questions

Betsy


----------



## crebel

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Agree. Chris--sorry I missed your earlier questions
> 
> Betsy


No worries, Betsy. I think the thread was moving fairly fast at that point - post 134, back on page 6. I "think" I understand now.


----------



## stevene9

Betsy the Quilter said:


> My .02 worth. I still think it's a STOOPID update.  Glad to hear some people are finding a way to live with it. I can live with it, but I'll always think it was STOOPID.
> Betsy


Hear hear! I completely agree, although I would probably pick a word stronger than stupid (maybe even stronger than STOOPID).

Steve


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

crebel said:


> No worries, Betsy. I think the thread was moving fairly fast at that point - post 134, back on page 6. I "think" I understand now.


As you say, you've probably figured this out by now, but to answer, probably most of the collections, if not all of them, would appear on your device. They could be removed however, and the removal wouldn't affect those older devices. It's hard to tell if all collections ever made appear, as most of us haven't kept track at that level of detail, but it seems like most of them show up. This import is a one time thing, the first time the cloud collection is created. After that, changes to the cloud will ripple accross all devices that have cloud collection access (at this time--updated PW2s, Fire HDXs and iPhone/iPod Touch with system 6 or higher. And iPads with System 6). (Thanks to VictoriaP for the info on system 6 iDevices.

Betsy


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## VictoriaP

Yes to it appearing on iPads as well as iPhones; iOS 7+ isn't required though. The latest Kindle app update uses Cloud Collections, and can be installed on earlier firmware. (My iThings are still running 6.1.2)


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## Betsy the Quilter

Thanks, Victoria; my original iPad has 5.1 and no clouds, and my iPod Touch has 7.0 and collections.  I wasn't sure about 6.  I'll update my post.

Betsy


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## crebel

Betsy the Quilter said:


> As you say, you've probably figured this out by now, but to answer, probably most of the collections, if not all of them, would appear on your device. *They could be removed however, and the removal wouldn't affect those older devices. * It's hard to tell if all collections ever made appear, as most of us haven't kept track at that level of detail, but it seems like most of them show up. This import is a one time thing, the first time the cloud collection is created. After that, changes to the cloud will ripple accross all devices that have cloud collection access (at this time--updated PW2s, Fire HDXs and iPhone/iPod Touch with system 6 or higher. And iPads with System 6). (Thanks to VictoriaP for the info on system 6 iDevices.
> 
> Betsy


Okay, I've missed something in the conversation then. What happened to:



> If I try to delete a collection, it says "This collection is synced across all your devices and will be deleted on all of them."


I thought that indicated if my son's 30 collections showed up on my PW2 and I deleted them, they would also be deleted from his PW1 and/or K2. No?


----------



## VictoriaP

crebel said:


> Okay, I've missed something in the conversation then. What happened to:
> 
> I thought that indicated if my son's 30 collections showed up on my PW2 and I deleted them, they would also be deleted from his PW1 and/or K2. No?


Right now, no. Neither of those devices currently support cloud collections. The PW1 *may* eventually receive an update that changes this, but for now, it doesn't. (The Touch also doesn't, and so far no changes I've made on the PW2 affect the collections on that device.)


----------



## crebel

Thanks, Victoria.  I read "all devices" as all devices that have collections, not just those that have cloud collections.


----------



## LauraB

It isn't so much that the update worked for me as I guess I just somehow got lucky. So I couldn't recreate the problems to figure what people were having problems with. I think I got lucky with update because I haven't been a heavy collection user. I guess the problems are hitting people who wre (?) and others, like me, few collections and no shared accounts aren't seeing it. But I understand, now,the problems people are having.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

crebel said:


> Okay, I've missed something in the conversation then. What happened to:
> 
> I thought that indicated if my son's 30 collections showed up on my PW2 and I deleted them, they would also be deleted from his PW1 and/or K2. No?


Sorry, Chris, I fell asleep right after posting (we had the whole family over for a late Thanksgiving and I was pooped).

As Victoria said, it will only apply to those devices that are cloud collection capable. We also did some testing with basic Kindles, Kindle for PC and my Kindle Touch. I expect Kindle for PC will eventually be updated, but I don't expect it for the Kindle Touch. I do expect Amazon to continue with its basic Kindle line, and so expect those to be Cloud Collection capable at some point, possibly with a new model of the device. Same with the PW1, it may or may not get the update.

Yes, LauraB--one device people, just a few books in collections, it wouldn't be a problem.  I've never been a big collection user, I only had six collections on my device originally. I would keep it set up for six collections, the currently read book outside the collection, so when I went to my home page, I could see my collections and what I was reading. (Stole that idea from Ann.) But I had been using my iPod Touch to create more collections of books in the cloud, like collections by authors for those authors I had 10 or more books by--for example, Ed McBain or JD Robb or Deborah Geary (modwitch here). And when cloud collections came to the Fire, I did more of that. Didn't mean that I wanted all of those ON my device. 

So, I could delete all the extra collections I've made, and go back to just a few collections, like I had before, deleting the from the collections to put them on the first page of my device and then moving them into the Read in 201? folder and probably wouldn't notice a lot of difference. But that would mean abandoning a lot of work. I may yet have to do that, but I'm really hoping Amazon comes to their senses....

Betsy


----------



## laughinggravy

Well, I do think it really is a pain, but one good thing is it highlights how helpful people are here and how great it is to find a place to express frustration about something meaningful to us, but distinctly odd to anyone not into their reading on a Kindle. So that's a comfort. But i do really wish we were just given the choice to opt in or out, in other words, that you had to go and download it, rather than having it pushed. 

Wish we could opt out of the endless multi-language dictionaries and user manuals too. What with the replacement for my PW2 and hub's new one I have just spent quite a time getting rid of all that guff - great for the users which need them but useless for everyone else. Again, wish there was an option to select user guides and dictionaries that would appear - or none.

Laughingravy huh - go dig deeper into your Laurel and Hardy trivia   There's even a photo somewhere on the net - v cute!

A great day to you all and happy, belated Thanksgiving!


----------



## Ann in Arlington

FWIW, I haven't changed my habit of leaving wifi on all the time.  I get my newspaper daily.  Also buy other stuff.  I have NOT gotten the update automatically.  So far there's only been one person who reported that it came automatically; everyone else who got it downloaded it manually.  So: if you really don't want it, don't go get it.  I think it's unlikely it'll be pushed to you.  Might be.  But might not.  Or, leave wifi off.


----------



## The Hooded Claw

I want to be sure I understand something, the only Kindle on which I've ever had collections was my old Kindle 2, which is no longer on my account. Do I understand that if I get the updates the collections from my Kindle 2 will not show up on my new paper white?


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Betsy can probably answer more completely, but here's what I experienced when I updated my FIRE to enable cloud collections: Best as I could tell, every collection I'd ever had on any device ever registered to my account -- even devices that are long gone -- appeared. It was perfectly easy to delete the extraneous ones, as there weren't too many . . . . but if you are the sort or revamped collections every time you got a new device and/or had a LOT of them, well, it could be a bit overwhelming. So, yes, I think if you get the PW2 update, those old collections will appear. But you can easily delete them without causing any problems since you're the only user.

Mind you, on the Fire, I have no problem with the implementation -- I whittled the collections down to the same ones I use anyway on the PW and when I have it showing 'cloud' I can see them and see the books in them. And I am also able to sort my apps, which is nice -- I can put things I use more handy than ones I just have 'cause they were a FAotD.  When I have it showing 'device' I _ONLY see what's actually on my device. So that works the way I expect -- and the way I think it should -- on the Fire.

But it's that aspect of the two views not being differentiated at all that is the most annoying bit about this OS 5.4.2 for the PW2._


----------



## The Hooded Claw

I was hoping that since the k2 was not cloud collection capable, those wouldn't show up. And I had temporarily forgotten about the new update showing unwanted books that are the cloud.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Well . . . . if you have a Fire (or new-ish iGadget) . . . and get the cloud collection update . . . and then delete those old collections. . . . I think you'll be fine when/if the update comes to your PW2. That's what I'm hoping, anyway. I figure if that's the case, I can manage though it's not an ideal way to do things I think.

It would be better if, when first starting it _asked_ if you wanted to use collections from previous devices and, if so, which ones. Let you set THOSE cloud collections and go from there. That way folks like you and me with collections from old devices could choose not to add the ones from devices we no longer use.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

The Hooded Claw said:


> I want to be sure I understand something, the only Kindle on which I've ever had collections was my old Kindle 2, which is no longer on my account. Do I understand that if I get the updates the collections from my Kindle 2 will not show up on my new paper white?


What Ann said. In all likelihood, those collections WILL show up on an updated PW2 (or, PW2+ as I've been calling them).



The Hooded Claw said:


> I was hoping that since the k2 was not cloud collection capable, those wouldn't show up. And I had temporarily forgotten about the new update showing unwanted books that are the cloud.


And to be sure, books that have never been in a collection, or which aren't in any of the collections that are auto-imported into your cloud collections, won't show up as unwanted greyed-out guests on the device. It's only items that have been in the imported collections that will show up.

As Ann said, this works well for the Fires, as it works the way one expects--they are collections for the cloud and have nothing to do with what is displayed on the device.

One thing that would be nice: if one could do a bulk download of a collection. Say I wanted to re-read a series, or bought a series all at once to read someday (like if it were a Kindle Daily Deal). I'd have those books in a collection on the cloud, in all likelihood. It would be great to just long press on the collection title and have "Download Collection" appear....

Betsy


----------



## Eltanin Publishing

VictoriaP said:


> Quote from: crebel on Yesterday at 11:12:59 PM
> Okay, I've missed something in the conversation then. What happened to:
> 
> I thought that indicated if my son's 30 collections showed up on my PW2 and I deleted them, they would also be deleted from his PW1 and/or K2. No?
> 
> 
> 
> Right now, no. Neither of those devices currently support cloud collections. The PW1 *may* eventually receive an update that changes this, but for now, it doesn't. (The Touch also doesn't, and so far no changes I've made on the PW2 affect the collections on that device.)
Click to expand...

So it sounds like I (with a PW2) would be OK for the time being, if I get the update, because my mom has a K3. If I see her collections (which I believe I will), I can delete them and it won't delete the collections on her K3. I also have a K3 myself (in addition to my PW2) so I can test this out by deleting a collection I have on my K3, when it shows up on my PW2, before deleting one of my mom's collection (she'll be upset if I mess up her collections!). Still, I hope they fix this soon, in case they do start applying it to older models, and for the rest of you. (and for the other problems/complaints people have).


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Eltanin Publishing said:


> Right now, no. Neither of those devices currently support cloud collections. The PW1 *may* eventually receive an update that changes this, but for now, it doesn't. (The Touch also doesn't, and so far no changes I've made on the PW2 affect the collections on that device.)
> 
> So it sounds like I (with a PW2) would be OK for the time being, if I get the update, because my mom has a K3. If I see her collections (which I believe I will), I can delete them and it won't delete the collections on her K3. I also have a K3 myself (in addition to my PW2) so I can test this out by deleting a collection I have on my K3, when it shows up on my PW2, before deleting one of my mom's collection (she'll be upset if I mess up her collections!). Still, I hope they fix this soon, in case they do start applying it to older models, and for the rest of you. (and for the other problems/complaints people have).


That's correct...


----------



## Eltanin Publishing

I just realized... being the first of the month, those of us with Prime can't browse for and download our free monthly borrowed book without having wi-fi on... (so I'm glad I realized that it'll be ok for me to have it on)


----------



## BruceS

stevene9 said:


> I have a large number of series and would love to organize my books in the cloud by author collection, but I don't want them to appear on my device. I have many authors that have 15, 20, 25, or even 30 books. If I just sort by author, it makes it too hard to manipulate (I now have almost 1400 entries). I want to have collections by author in the cloud, but not showing up on my device. This would make for a much shorter list. Maybe someday Amazon will make this possible.
> 
> Steve


I have found a solution that allows me to keep track of author series collections on my 8.9" Fire HDX.

I went to http://www.collectorz.com and purchased Book Collector for my Mac. There is also a PC version available.

Then I entered all of my books (Kindle, Hardcover, Audio and Paperback) into Book Collector along with the Series and Issue # for each book.

I then went back to collectorz and purchased a Book Collector App for Android which allows you to download your books from Book Collector and display them on your Fire. There are also versions of the app that work on the iPhone and the iPad.

I started using Book Collector before the first Kindle was even introduced. It was nice to check the books I currently on my iPhone whenever I went to a book store so I didn't purchase books that I already owned.

Even though I purchase almost all my books from Amazon in kindle format now, it is still a good idea to check my current collection first. I know that Amazon displays previously purchased on ones I already have, but I believe some publishers out with new editions of the same title and change the ASIN and ISBN. Whenever that is the case, Amazon no longer states that I have already purchased the book.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

I used Book Collectorz for my Palm and liked it quite a bit. It's a good software and I'm sure the Android app is great. But it's a bit spendy, isn't it? $29.99 for the desktop app and an additional $4.99 for the mobile? At least it is available through the Amazon App Store. And if you were already using it, then that's not a bad price to add the mobile component. I wonder if I can find my license from two computers ago... 

There are a number of ways to organize your books outside of your device--Shelfari will let you import your books in one fell swoop, and then export to a spreadsheet, all for free. And then you could use Send to Kindle to send your spreadsheet to your device as a PDF, so it would always be on your PDF. There's also Goodreads. You could import your books into Goodreads, and access that through your PW.



BruceS said:


> Even though I purchase almost all my books from Amazon in kindle format now, it is still a good idea to check my current collection first. I know that Amazon displays previously purchased on ones I already have, but I believe some publishers out with new editions of the same title and change the ASIN and ISBN. Whenever that is the case, Amazon no longer states that I have already purchased the book.


Very true...I usually just go to Manage Your Kindle and check there by doing a search. Unless I forget to, like I did recently. 

Betsy


----------



## backslidr

I think I've whined the most in this thread about the upgrade, but now I'm happy with it. I just spent a whole lot of time moving books out of my older Kindle's collections and putting them all into pw2 collections all by genres with To Read and Read. I then deleted all the older collections and they did not delete themselves off my other kindles, pw1 on down. Now, every book I've ever bought on Amazon shows on my pw2 in their proper collections and all greyed out. I also deleted all my books off the device which you can do and they stay right in their collections. I now have 6 books on my pw2 in my Reading / Read Next collection and when I read one I just put it in it's proper collection and delete it from the device. I have 1,264 MB free and easy access to all my books. With all the free space it no longer freezes up and reboots and is back to being very fast. It's a lot of work, but now when the pw3 comes out all I have to do is sync and everything will be right there. Nice!!


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

7vn11vn said:


> I think I've whined the most in this thread about the upgrade, but now I'm happy with it. I just spent a whole lot of time moving books out of my older Kindle's collections and putting them all into pw2 collections all by genres with To Read and Read. I then deleted all the older collections and they did not delete themselves off my other kindles, pw1 on down. Now, every book I've ever bought on Amazon shows on my pw2 in their proper collections and all greyed out. I also deleted all my books off the device which you can do and they stay right in their collections. I now have 6 books on my pw2 in my Reading / Read Next collection and when I read one I just put it in it's proper collection and delete it from the device. I have 1,264 MB free and easy access to all my books. With all the free space it no longer freezes up and reboots and is back to being very fast. It's a lot of work, but now when the pw3 comes out all I have to do is sync and everything will be right there. Nice!!


But you also have a list of all the collections, right? When you are looking at "On Device?" Do you have them sorted by Most Recent so that the Reading / Read Next collection is always at the top?

Glad you found a way that works for you! And that's what I want Cloud collections to do--be a collection in the cloud only.

But a major reason I got a Kindle because when I travel, I want to take a library with me. And have happily been able to do so for five years now. I don't want to travel with just six books. I typically keep three or four hundred books on my Kindle. And don't have problems with speed. At least not in the past.

I think there are two ways people have been able to make this work--either only have a limited number of collections in the cloud and thus on the device, and only keep the books in the collections that are actually on the device, or to do as you are doing, treat them all as cloud collections, and have a limited number of books on the device.

I think I'm going to recreate my six collections that I used to have only on the PW with the number 1 in front so they are on the top of the list when sorted alphabetically. And keep only books that are on the device in those collections.

It's really annoying to me, if they only had "On Device" be On Device, we wouldn't have to do these work arounds.

Betsy


----------



## backslidr

Betsy the Quilter said:


> But you also have a list of all the collections, right? When you are looking at "On Device?" Do you have them sorted by Most Recent so that the Reading / Read Next collection is always at the top?
> 
> Glad you found a way that works for you! And that's what I want Cloud collections to do--be a collection in the cloud only.
> 
> But a major reason I got a Kindle because when I travel, I want to take a library with me. And have happily been able to do so for five years now. I don't want to travel with just six books. I typically keep three or four hundred books on my Kindle. And don't have problems with speed. At least not in the past.
> 
> I think there are two ways people have been able to make this work--either only have a limited number of collections in the cloud and thus on the device, and only keep the books in the collections that are actually on the device, or to do as you are doing, treat them all as cloud collections, and have a limited number of books on the device.
> 
> I think I'm going to recreate my six collections that I used to have only on the PW with the number 1 in front so they are on the top of the list when sorted alphabetically. And keep only books that are on the device in those collections.
> 
> It's really annoying to me, if they only had "On Device" be On Device, we wouldn't have to do these work arounds.
> 
> Betsy


Yes, I have all of them numbered so they're in the order I want. I ended up with 18 PW2 collections which is only 3 pages in Cover View, much better than the 10 I had. I think if I was traveling I'd just put a bunch more in the Read Next collection and download them. I've always liked having all my books on my kindle and categorized which is why I've had to have multiple kindle's, but now that's not necessary. They're all there now and take up no room and I just have to tap on one to download it, of course. I didn't like that On Device showed Cloud items before either, but once you get them organized really nice it no longer seems to matter, at least to me, anyway.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

7vn11vn said:


> Yes, I have all of them numbered so they're in the order I want. I ended up with 18 PW2 collections which is only 3 pages in Cover View, much better than the 10 I had. I think if I was traveling I'd just put a bunch more in the Read Next collection and download them. I've always liked having all my books on my kindle and categorized which is why I've had to have multiple kindle's, but now that's not necessary. They're all there now and take up no room and I just have to tap on one to download it, of course. I didn't like that On Device showed Cloud items before either, but once you get them organized really nice it no longer seems to matter, at least to me, anyway.


Yeah, if you're only going to have very few books on your Kindle it probably doesn't matter. I've never cared much about having all of my books on my Kindle. But I do want enough.  I'm not much of a planner. I don't know what I'll be in the mood for. I said I keep about three or four hundred books on my Kindle--but that's probably high; it's probably not that many until I've had the Kindle for a couple years--I always have new books sent to the newest Kindle. *checks PW2* Right now, it has 96 books.

I guess I still don't see, logically, the point to having a "Cloud" and an "On Device" if they are going to show the same thing. It's making my OCD twitch.


Betsy


----------



## LauraB

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I guess I still don't see, logically, the point to having a "Cloud" and an "On Device" if they are going to show the same thing. It's making my OCD twitch.
> 
> 
> Betsy


Just when I think I understand what is being discussed something like this statement comes up. I have a fire hdx and pw2 and sync between. I have three collections and about 100 books on each kindle, about 20% of books are in any collection. About 1,000 in cloud, but not collections. My pw2 does not show the same thing under on cloud and on device. I see different under each. The on device has a list of collections, and if I open one it has a check by what is on device and ones on cloud are grey. If I am on home screen I see list of collections and * only the books on device.* I don't see them listed on home screen if they are in a collection under collections. And I don't see books that are not on the device if they are not in a collection. If I look on cloud I see list of books, with checks by ones on my device and the rest are just listed. 
I don't understand how people are seeing the exact same thing if viewing either "on device" or on "cloud" _unless...do you have every book in a collection._


----------



## Ann in Arlington

The point is, if you're showing "on device" you should NOT see any books _not_ on the device. Not even grayed out. At least, that's what makes sense to me. And you should not see a collection that shows there are 40 books but when you look, none of those 40 are on the device. If you have to still have the collection name, when in 'on device' view, it should show there are *0* books in that collection. Then switch to cloud view and now you'd see the 40 that are in the cloud.

Yes, it's perfectly easy to tap the grayed out book to download it. But it's just as easy to do that from the Cloud view which, logically, SHOULD show all the books you own, not just those on the device, and having a check mark next to those already on the device is nice.

I get what they've done . . . I just don't think it's logical at all. It makes the distinction between 'on device' and 'cloud' completely moot.  But I recognize it's something that might not bother everyone. 

And it does NOT work that way on the Fire. Of course, Fire is an android based device; in that system 'cloud' has always meant everything and 'on device' meant only the ones on the device. Up to very recently, on eink kindles, they used 'device' and 'archive'. First they changed the description from 'archive' to 'cloud' but not the meaning of 'that which is NOT on the device. Then they changed the meaning to conform with the rest of the tech world, 'cloud' being everything you own.

To me, then, the sorting should work the same way too. As it is, 'on device' means something different on the PW2+ vs Fires or, indeed, any other tablet that I'm aware of!


----------



## LauraB

Maybe the complication is what it comes down to in your last sentence. The paperwhite isn't a tablet. Maybe something in that difference creates the issue.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

LauraB said:


> Maybe the complication is what it comes down to in your last sentence. The paperwhite isn't a tablet. Maybe something in that difference creates the issue.


Maybe . . . . . but I sort of think they just didn't think it through. I mentioned tablets, but it's the same on full computers as well, no matter the OS or ecosystem!  AND, it is the same on all other kindles.


----------



## backslidr

Their vision of cloud collections seems to be whatever is in a collection whether its on the device or not. What they should have done was change the line that says Cloud | On Device to something like Cloud | Cloud Collections. That would have put an end to our on device arguments.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Yeah, at least those two titles would be more descriptive and consistent with the rest of the world.  

Still, I personally would like a way to see ONLY what's on the device.  Not the whole cloud, and not cloud collections with what's in which.  But just what I have in my hot little hand.   

So. . . .maybe 3 options: Cloud | Cloud collections | On Device.


----------



## backslidr

Now your talking. lol


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

LauraB said:


> Just when I think I understand what is being discussed something like this statement comes up. I have a fire hdx and pw2 and sync between. I have three collections and about 100 books on each kindle, about 20% of books are in any collection. About 1,000 in cloud, but not collections. My pw2 does not show the same thing under on cloud and on device. I see different under each. The on device has a list of collections, and if I open one it has a check by what is on device and ones on cloud are grey. If I am on home screen I see list of collections and * only the books on device.* I don't see them listed on home screen if they are in a collection under collections. And I don't see books that are not on the device if they are not in a collection. If I look on cloud I see list of books, with checks by ones on my device and the rest are just listed.
> I don't understand how people are seeing the exact same thing if viewing either "on device" or on "cloud" _unless...do you have every book in a collection._


When I say I don't want to see exactly the same thing in the cloud as in the device, I'm talking about the view in the collections, not the view from the home page. Sorry if I confused you.

My goal is yes, to have every book in the cloud in a collection. I want to be able to organize my nearly 1800 books. I'm not there yet. I probably have a good third done. I currently have hundred of books in collections. 247 in Mysteries alone. Only about 15 of them are on my PW. If I go to my Mysteries Collection, I have to scroll through twenty some pages because the 15 on the device are scattered throughout the collection. Maybe they could add an additional sort or filter--"on device" when viewing a collection.

Betsy


----------



## backslidr

Betsy the Quilter said:


> When I say I don't want to see exactly the same thing in the cloud as in the device, I'm talking about the view in the collections, not the view from the home page. Sorry if I confused you.
> 
> My goal is yes, to have every book in the cloud in a collection. I want to be able to organize my nearly 1800 books. I'm not there yet. I probably have a good third done. I currently have hundred of books in collections. 247 in Mysteries alone. Only about 15 of them are on my PW. If I go to my Mysteries Collection, I have to scroll through twenty some pages because the 15 on the device are scattered throughout the collection. Maybe they could add an additional sort or filter--"on device" when viewing a collection.
> 
> Betsy


Betsy, once you get them organized like that you're really going to like it. The way I solved the problem of having to scroll through greyed out collections for the ones you haven't read is for each genre to have a To Be Read and a Read collection. You can number them so they stay together or so that you just have the To Be Reads at the top of the list. It makes finding things a lot easier that way. I had about 1600 books to sort out but I managed to the do it in a single day. Of course, nothing else got done that day.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Sorry, I'm not sure how that helps me? I'm missing something. The problem isn't read and not read, it's on device and not on device.  I can have neither all my read books or my not read books on the device--the collections are always going to be mixed. Like I said, I'm missing something?

A mix doesn't bother me on the cloud.  It annoys me on.the device.  But I'm going to stop whining about it.  I've contacted Amazon, now I'll just see what happens.

My work around is going to be to not sort by collections but by recent so the book I'm reading will be at the top.   And use collections when I want to browse the cloud.

Betsy

Sent from my Fire HDX7


----------



## laughinggravy

I'm absolutely dependent on collections since I read based on my mood, I need to look through genres to decide if I'm feeling inclined for historical fiction, non-fiction, 18-19th C Eng lit, or modern lit in translation or whatever. And I can't remember what I have bought since I squirrel stuff away. 

A final question if anyone can be bothered, grateful if they can be: if a book has once been in a collection and has long since been deleted from a device but the collection still exists, and if you have only one PW2 (me for a couple more weeks) will that book show up greyed out, in the collection which once housed it? In other words all my books in the cloud have been in a collection. But half or so aren't any more. I don't want them showing up as ghostly presences in grey. I deleted them from the device because I don't want to see them on the device.

Or is that part of the guinea-pigging?


----------



## mom133d (aka Liz)

I've been hinting at a PW2 for Yule. How do library titles appear in the collection/cloud? When you visit 'Manage my Kindle', they still appear in my list (nicely labeled at public library or Kindle Owners Library) even after they have been returned. Do they appear with this update? Because that will be annoying as the returned title is neither on device or cloud.


----------



## DD

Betsy the Quilter said:


> ...So, I think you can "clean up" your collections using a cloud-collection capable Kindle (say that five times fast)  or other device but collections that had been on a particular device before upgrading that device will reappear. Collections that had been on other legacy devices will not. At least that was my experience. Again, data sample=1. ...


Betsy, according to Kboards tradition, I think that phrase should be spelled 'Kloud Kollection Kapable Kindle'.

Sorry, couldn't resist. 

-Dianne


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

mom133d (aka Liz) said:


> I've been hinting at a PW2 for Yule. How do library titles appear in the collection/cloud? When you visit 'Manage my Kindle', they still appear in my list (nicely labeled at public library or Kindle Owners Library) even after they have been returned. Do they appear with this update? Because that will be annoying as the returned title is neither on device or cloud.


I'll have to check....I actually have a couple of "liberry" books out now.



DD said:


> Betsy, according to Kboards tradition, I think that phrase should be spelled 'Kloud Kollection Kapable Kindle'.
> 
> Sorry, couldn't resist.
> 
> -Dianne





DD said:


> Betsy, according to Kboards tradition, I think that phrase should be spelled 'Kloud Kollection Kapable Kindle'.
> 
> Sorry, couldn't resist.
> 
> -Dianne


LOL! You're absolutely right! My mistake. 

Betsy


----------



## bordercollielady

I just read this on the Amazon boards -  this is what Kindle support is suggesting as a solution:  

"It's simple: delete the collections and create new collections with different names on each device. That's all there is to it. It's so simple and obvious I'm amazed I didn't think of it before. But I didn't."

Hmm... maybe if you only have a few collections.. but I have one collection for each author -  along with a few generic ones - like "Non-Fiction" - and they exist across multiple old Kindles.

My WIFI is still on Airplane mode as I remain waiting for Amazon to FIX THIS!!!!


----------



## Ann in Arlington

That won't solve the problem of "cloud" and "on device" showing the same information.  

Sent from my Kindle Fire HDX.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

bordercollielady said:


> I just read this on the Amazon boards - this is what Kindle support is suggesting as a solution:
> 
> "It's simple: delete the collections and create new collections with different names on each device. That's all there is to it. It's so simple and obvious I'm amazed I didn't think of it before. But I didn't."
> 
> Hmm... maybe if you only have a few collections.. but I have one collection for each author - along with a few generic ones - like "Non-Fiction" - and they exist across multiple old Kindles.
> 
> My WIFI is still on Airplane mode as I remain waiting for Amazon to FIX THIS!!!!


Do you have a link to that?

It's essentially what I'm doing which works for me because the Fire HDX and the PW2 sort special characters differently. But if you have multiple devices that sort the same way, someone's collections are going to be given preferential treatment.

Betsy


----------



## bordercollielady

Here ya go:

http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle/ref=cm_cd_tfp_ef_tft_tp?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx2ZZQWQS10NT8G


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Thanks!

It's hard to tell--is he being tongue-in-cheek with the collections?

I don't see this as a very good solution....

Betsy


----------



## VictoriaP

He brags in the last line about being a smartalec. I tend to think it's tongue-in-cheek. Even if it's serious, it's not a solution if you want a setup like you had before the update, Betsy. You'll still have greyed out books.

I think the problem with the update as it currently stands is that it doesn't take into account the different ways people prefer to use & organize their devices. My setup is fine...so long as I keep nearly all my books on the device, the way I currently do. But if I run out of device room and am forced to leave significant numbers of books in the cloud, I'll either have to leave them unsorted or deal with greyed out books on my device. Neither of those options is acceptable to me.


----------



## bordercollielady

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Thanks!
> 
> It's hard to tell--is he being tongue-in-cheek with the collections?
> 
> I don't see this as a very good solution....
> 
> Betsy


I think - whoever gave out this advice - doesn't realize that some of us have been doing this for a long time with many collections on many kindles. I sure hope this doesn't mean that they don't think its a big problem..


----------



## stevene9

I don't understand. Wouldn't collections you made for PW1 and other collections made for PW2, both show up on PW2? Also if I remove a book from PW2 it stays but becomes greyed out, so I have to take the additional step of also then removing it from the collection. Way too much of a pain.

Steve


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Well, I must report that my PW2 updated itself overnight.

Good news: I'd already consolidated my collections via my HDX, so I didn't get all the left over ones from defunct devices.

It automatically switched my sort to 'recent' -- which, really, is probably the main reason I noticed it; the newspaper usually shows up at the bottom of the first page and this morning it was at the top.  I switched that back and my home page looks much the way it did before.  

EXCEPT, as has been reported, even when showing 'on device', books that were ever collected in a collection are showing even when they are not actually 'on the device'.  Fortunately, for me, it's not too many because I don't leave books in a collection.  When I'm reading them I take them out of all collections so they're on the home page and then I delete them.  I'll probably remove them from the collection if they're not on the PW2, so that it looks the way I want it to.

So the good news is now I have personal experience and can provide meaningful feedback to Amazon.


----------



## bordercollielady

Ann in Arlington said:


> Good news: I'd already consolidated my collections via my HDX, so I didn't get all the left over ones from defunct devices.


Can you tell us how to do this? Is there a way to do it without a Fire?


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you should be able to do it from one of those, as they are cloud collection capable.

Betsy


----------



## Ann in Arlington

bordercollielady said:


> Can you tell us how to do this? Is there a way to do it without a Fire?


As I understand it, you have to have a device that has cloud collections. So the HDX Fires, and iGadget kindle app, and the PW2.

I'd gotten the update on my HDX7 a couple of weeks ago -- at that time, it used ALL the collections I'd ever had on any of my devices. I deleted all but the ones I'm using now on my PW2. So when the PW2 updated, there weren't any extraneous collections to import.

If all you have are older eInk devices, you could try deleting collections on them. But if you have old devices that you deregistered without deleting collections first, those really old collections might pop in anyway.


----------



## bordercollielady

Shoot - I have a Samsung Galaxy III and my K3 which is still registered - that's about it..


----------



## Sandpiper

I'm not an avid reader, so hadn't turned on PW2 for day or two.  During that time it updated to 5.4.2.  Huh??  Home screen is not at all the way I left it.  Hard time finding the book I was reading.  Books and Collections are not the way I left them last?  This is going to take some time to figure it all out?  Or is it easy enough?


----------



## Atunah

Darn. I thought I could organize ahead of when I get a PW2, which will be at some point I am sure. My fire is from last year, so I am out of luck there. My iphone app unfortunately doesn't show any collections which I assume is because I have to use a old version of the kindle app. My iphone is old and hasn't been updated in years, so out of luck there too. 

I am not looking forward to the mess I will find in the future. I have always been a collection ho and I have usually 30 or more collections going at one time. And I constantly renamed them over the years. Yikes.  . That and having 2000 books on the account, I'll need a large bottle of wine to tackle that once the day comes.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Atunah said:


> Darn. I thought I could organize ahead of when I get a PW2, which will be at some point I am sure. My fire is from last year, so I am out of luck there. My iphone app unfortunately doesn't show any collections which I assume is because I have to use a old version of the kindle app. My iphone is old and hasn't been updated in years, so out of luck there too.
> 
> I am not looking forward to the mess I will find in the future. I have always been a collection ho and I have usually 30 or more collections going at one time. And I constantly renamed them over the years. Yikes. . That and having 2000 books on the account, I'll need a large bottle of wine to tackle that once the day comes.


Collection ho, LOL!

Do you have a Kindle Fire HD? Or just the Fire? I think the Fire HD has cloud collections, too....

If you were closer, I'd let you borrow a Fire and register it to your account to work on your collections. 

Betsy


----------



## Atunah

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Collection ho, LOL!
> 
> Do you have a Kindle Fire HD? Or just the Fire? I think the Fire HD has cloud collections, too....
> 
> If you were closer, I'd let you borrow a Fire and register it to your account to work on your collections.
> 
> Betsy


I have a Fire HD 8.9, last years model. All I have is grid view and cover view in the cloud, unless I am missing something. I really wish they had set up "My account" to fiddle with all that stuff.

That is just a tad longish car ride from here to there. Just a tad.


----------



## bordercollielady

Atunah said:


> I have always been a collection ho and I have usually 30 or more collections going at one time.


I feel your pain.. just counted - I have 76 collections on my PW2... one per each author I read.. UGH... Can I share that bottle of wine??


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Atunah said:


> I have a Fire HD 8.9, last years model. All I have is grid view and cover view in the cloud, unless I am missing something. I really wish they had set up "My account" to fiddle with all that stuff.
> 
> That is just a tad longish car ride from here to there. Just a tad.


You're right---it's the second gen HD that has cloud collections. *Makes note to self.*

Betsy


----------



## Atunah

bordercollielady said:


> I feel your pain.. just counted - I have 76 collections on my PW2... one per each author I read.. UGH... Can I share that bottle of wine??


I only have 40 right now, I am in the middle of reorganizing and shelving my books. I will probably end up at 50 or so when I am done. That is after I culled them down from a um, higher number. 

All my collections are based on themes, not authors. Just historical romances alone need several collections, there is european HR, american western HR, revolutionary war HR, colonial HR, kilted HR, exotic locations HR and pirates, must have a sorting for pirates. You get the idea. 

We'll share the wine.


----------



## laughinggravy

Hi, quick spot of feedback, I 'got updated' while downloading a book and all went fine.
I have:
500 or so books in the MYK library.
I keep two hundred or so on the PW2.
I use three pages of collections and only have books in collections.
I have a PW1 and a K4 with my nearest and dearest.
I have only been a member of this 'family' for two or three years so don't have a huge library and lots of history.

I cleared all the collections that I had set up originally on my old K4, now my husband's and apologised for that with a yummy dinner! So I also did the consolidation thing before the download and that certainly seems to have helped.
The update downloaded as I was grabbing a book and the result is that I still have all three pages of collections with no others showing up. 
The content in the collections is ordered by 'recent' so I have a page or several, depending, of books on device ticked, quite a few on device side loaded no tick and then several pages of greyed out, tucked away at the end. 

This works well for me, and given that when I got the PW2 I had to spend over an hour sorting books that hadn't popped into their collections correctly, I'm hoping that when I get the replacement for this PW2, all will be solved automatically.

The downside, as we have all noted is that hub's PW2 will follow the same pattern (I'm the main reader and he tends to browse my collections) and that if you don't have books ordered by recent, and have a lot of books, it will be very irritating trying to get to the next one that you want, that is on the device. 

Having said that, the two collections on my PW1 (with my mum) that aren't on my PW2 haven't appeared and I'm not sure why that is, although I'm glad. I thought older device's collections would raise their heads.

Ok, so don't know if that helps anyone, but hope so. If your profile is more or less like mine, it is a good update. It also helps to remind me what I actually have, although I totally agree that it would be better to have the right to chose between cloud view and device view when in collections. And to be able to 'push' a collection to a device rather than have a one-size-fits-all approach.

Cheers, 
Abi


----------



## bordercollielady

I'm curious... when I bought my PW2 I imported my collections from my PW1.   When I bought my PW1 - I imported my collections from my K3.   Since the collections were all were named the same...  Will I have duplicate collection names  if I do the update?   Does the process get rid of dups at least?   If I end up with unique collection names,  will I have duplicate greyed out book names?


----------



## Ann in Arlington

You might be o.k. . . . since they're all the same collection names.  

I found a new irritation with the GR integration.  I hadn't actually been on GR before.  But I thought, well, let's give it a try.

As we've reported, it doesn't import any ratings you already did on Amazon (kindle.amazon.com) when it imports your Amazon books.  I have over 2000 books!  Well, I started going through them. . . .and was doing pretty well at remembering if I'd read them or not and rating them if I had.  Then I came to one I couldn't recall.  So I clicked the link to see the book description. That worked.  Problem is when I went BACK it lost my place of where I was in my 2000 book list.  And as far as I could tell, there was no rhyme or reason to how it was sorted.  Actually I'm not sure it ever did take me back to the same list, I basically had to do 'get from Amazon' or whatever it says, again.  I'm pretty sure that's the last time I'll bother with it.


----------



## bordercollielady

well - I decided to take the plunge since I have a feeling this isn't going to get better for awhile.

Its not that bad..  Some of my family have registered to my account in the past - but I realized that none of them had collections.
Plus all of my collections had the same "names" on all of my older Kindles..  

Ok - I just noticed I have "classic mysteries" and "classic mystery"  - so I just deleted one of them.

So my list of collections is the same as it was before the update..  Just that inside of them are more items  including the greyed out books that I've already read.     If I open a collection - and change the filter to recent - the greyed out ones are at the bottom.. excellent..
If they don't add a new filter to remove them altogether I can live with them at the bottom.

Just realized that my results are because I kept  all my unread books on my device. If I hadn't - I don't think the greyed out ones would
have all moved to the bottom.. when I filtered by "recent" - where I can ignore them.  

Also tried logging into Goodreads... all my books are up there now..  haven't used Goodreads much in the past.. so need to see if it adds something other than another place to read reviews.


----------



## Toby

Please pass the wine. I went on my myk page, & saw all the many dictionaries, & PW Guide. Must be my PW2 has updated. I have lots of books & some collections are different on different kindles. I'm afraid to look. I kept changing collection names, etc. through the years. I'm sunk! Whaaaaaaa! I'll wait until I go to bed to face the music.


----------



## Jasonmh

What a pain this update has been.  Wife and I have had 7 kindles/fires, and my new pw2 just updated on its own and seems to have wiped out many of my books and collections and instead I got all of my wife's collections.  
Anyway, anyone have thoughts on a good way to handle cloud collections when sharing an account with someone?


----------



## Sandpiper

Just looking at my PW2 after update -- I am so confused.  I've kinda quickly gone through guide for update.  Are Collections on the device and in the Cloud the same?  Can they be different?  I can't figure it out.  Nothing seems to be the way I last left it.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Negotiate a set of collections you both can live with.  Yours, hers, "ours."  

Contact Amazon and let them know you don't like it.  [email protected] 

Betsy


----------



## Ann in Arlington

So, finished a book last night and ran into another change with this update. I have been in the habit, when I finish a book, of rating it and sharing on FB.

Well.  I couldn't.

The share page looked different.  There was nothing to share -- just rate.  And my FB log in credentials had been removed.  I had to go re-enter them AND allow FB and GR integration.  If I 'skipped' that step, nothing happened.  So the third time I allowed it.  

But, still nothing shared to FB. It gave me no opportunity to post to FB, as it had done before, and nothing showed up there.  I checked this morning on the computer to be sure.

Then I went to GR, which I'd never done before on a computer.  It definitely linked to FB as it shows 'friends' there that it must have gotten that way since I didn't have any otherwise.  It did show the rating I did on the book I finished.  But nothing else.  For example, you can put the date you finished it -- well, if I'm rating it at the end of the book from the kindle, seems like it would be pretty easy to put that date in as the finish date.  And then let a person change it later if they wish.  I guess I'd have to put commentary in on GR and if I do I can let that be shared to FB.  But I don't really want to bother with two social networking sites, though at least that much is automated. 

So this is probably a neutral change. . . . . but it is a change none the less. I don't think it's an improvement, as yet, but I'm not firmly in the camp of it's a bad thing either. The letter that came when the device updated didn't explain any of this, though it did give a link to the new users guide. Which I've not had a chance to look through yet.  I did try to find something but there appears to be only one small section on social networks -- I knew how to set it up; that didn't change in settings.  It talks about sharing from within a book, but I didn't find any way to do it at the end. 

Maybe I'll try harder next time I finish a book.

Maybe I will do more with GR.  But I really really really don't want to go back and figure out how I rated 500 books or so -- that really should come off Amazon if I've rated it there.  But I'm sure it's because the MYK list isn't really connected to the kindle.amazon.com list.  I'm thinking they should have gotten that sorted before hooking up with a third site!


eta:  I though to myself, just now, 'self, since you imported all your kindle books to GR, they should be there so maybe you should just go there and rate them. Rather than doing it through the kindle which was not easy.' I congratulated myself on my good idea and went back to GR.  Turns out, I don't 'own' any books according to the website.  The only books listed are the ones I rated yesterday when I was playing after the update came.  That makes no sense to me.  I really doubt I'll bother with any of it.  I'm not that OCD.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Ann in Arlington said:


> eta: I though to myself, just now, 'self, since you imported all your kindle books to GR, they should be there so maybe you should just go there and rate them. Rather than doing it through the kindle which was not easy.' I congratulated myself on my good idea and went back to GR. Turns out, I don't 'own' any books according to the website. The only books listed are the ones I rated yesterday when I was playing after the update came. That makes no sense to me. I really doubt I'll bother with any of it. I'm not that OCD.


That's correct, when you click on the "Add Amazon Books," it doesn't automatically add all of the books in MYK to Goodreads, it just call up your books for you to add one at a time. I mentioned it somewhere sometime but I don't think I emphasized it. But I think that's a pain, too. I was wondering what you meant when you said you "imported all your Kindle books to GR."

Betsy


----------



## Ann in Arlington

I was assuming, erroneously, that it worked like when I imported from Amazon to Shelfari.  Which is also a sort of pain since it doesn't bring the ratings, but, whatever.

Searching a little farther I did find a notation on my FB home page that I rated the book on GR.  But I don't think it shows up in my timeline, which is what I kind of liked.  I'd go to the post on FB make a fuller comment about the book and sometimes get into a discussion with friends. Now I guess I have to do that on GR, though, presumably I can post my comment to FB.  But I liked that it came from my kindle.

Not enamoured.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Yeah, I thought that, too, when I first tried it. 

You might go to Goodreads.com and check what it says under the "app" tab in your profile. (I think that's where it is, will doublecheck after I save this post.) This should take you to the profile page.

https://www.goodreads.com/user/edit

There are various options under Facebook feed. And it says they'll be added to your timeline.

Betsy


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Thanks . . . . just explored a bit.  Looks like it was already set for that to happen -- rating to go to FB -- but it didn't when I did it from the Kindle at the end of the book. Could be because I had to re enter my FB login stuff. I'll pay attention next time I finish a book.  I'd expect the rating to go there automatically and then I can comment if I want.  If it does that I can still mostly ignore GR.  And probably will anyway.   We'll see . . . . . . . I might just need to get used to it.


----------



## VictoriaP

I have yet to have a single Kindle -> Goodreads post reach my Facebook timeline, regardless of how I've tweaked the settings. As such, I've gone back to using the GR app on the iPad if I want to post my book progress or rating to FB.

Really, the much celebrated Goodreads integration is so minimally implemented, it's barely a step above totally useless. And I'm not exactly a heavy Goodreads user. I can't imagine how annoying it would be to those who have used it regularly for years!


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Well, that makes me feel better -- I was a bit worried I was missing something obvious. I don't _have_ to share what I read on FB, but I have enjoyed doing so. Not enough to jump through a lot of extra hoops, though.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

VictoriaP said:


> Really, the much celebrated Goodreads integration is so minimally implemented, it's barely a step above totally useless. And I'm not exactly a heavy Goodreads user. I can't imagine how annoying it would be to those who have used it regularly for years!


Yes, I was less than impressed...but I know that some heavy GR users are happy; it gets their books into GR with minimal effort, and then they can customize it using a full app or the website.

Betsy


----------



## Eltanin Publishing

Betsy the Quilter said:


> That's correct, when you click on the "Add Amazon Books," it doesn't automatically add all of the books in MYK to Goodreads, it just call up your books for you to add one at a time. I mentioned it somewhere sometime but I don't think I emphasized it.


True, it's time consuming, BUT similar to the collections fiasco, I don't want the books that my mom purchased on our shared account to automatically showed up in MY Goodreads.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Good point, it assumes one Goodreads Account per Amazon account.  Hmmmm, maybe Amazon is trying to move people onto single user accounts.

Sent from my Fire HDX7


----------



## Eltanin Publishing

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Good point, it assumes one Goodreads Account per Amazon account. Hmmmm, maybe Amazon is trying to move people onto single user accounts.
> 
> Sent from my Fire HDX7


Luckily my mom doesn't use Goodreads (and I don't use it much). Good point that (we think, or do we know?) the Goodreads integration might be limited to one per Amazon account (can 2 people on the same Amazon account link their kindles to 2 different Goodreads accounts?).


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Eltanin Publishing said:


> Luckily my mom doesn't use Goodreads (and I don't use it much). Good point that (we think, or do we know?) the Goodreads integration might be limited to one per Amazon account (can 2 people on the same Amazon account link their kindles to 2 different Goodreads accounts?).


When you first set up the PW/Goodreads connection, you see a screen that asks if you have an account, and you tap on "Connect Existing Account." You can use your FB credentials if you've already connected them, or your existing Goodreads credentials. If you don't have an account, you'll be asked to create a new account and it'll be created using your Amazon login credentials.

So the question is, what will happen to the second Paperwhite that has GR set up on it?

The second PW may be able to enter new credentials if it goes through the same process, above. OR, connecting the first PW to a GR account may connect the account to GR. Hmmmm..

I may have to do more testing with my second PW2. IThe thing will be worn out before I give it to the recipient.

Betsy


----------



## KimberlyinMN

I must be in a minority -- I love how the Collections work now. I want to have the same collections on both of my Kindles AND I wanted to be able to delete all the extra ones. Yeah, I did have to remove books that I've already read from my existing collections, but that wasn't a BIG deal to me. The only thing that I would change is to NOT show the books that are in the cloud that are in the collections. Or I'd like an option to turn this off and then turn it on again if I want.  

However, I totally understand why others are NOT happy with the Collections update. (I also wouldn't want someone ELSE to use one of my Kindles and then see all of the books I have - which most are out in the Cloud.)


----------



## bordercollielady

Darn - just as I thought I could live with the greyed out books at the end -  I finished the book I was reading,  deleted it from the device,  and that book is now greyed out at the top of the list.  UGH...  Still hoping Amazon sends us a way to not see them at all!


----------



## CandyTX

So my paperwhite (latest version) updated yesterday and I called support because I thought SURELY I shouldn't have THIRTY pages of collections (there are 30 Kindles on my account between my family's kindles, kindle fires, etc. Plus my mom and her siblings because they can't figure out how to use it and I just send them stuff). Sigh.

The first support person had me register and deregister because they said it shouldn't show up like that. The thing looked okay but it was still indexing so we said goodnight last night. Woke up this morning and it's back... so I called again, they moved me up to tier 2 support... and that guy did some research and then told me it was supposed to be that way.

Ummm... WHAT? Why in the heck would I want my daughter's collections on my kindle device? In the cloud, fine. But not ON the device.

Incredibly "duh" moment, Amazon.

I sent feedback. Hope they rethink it because... annoying.

And yeah, my Goodreads doesn't post to FB either now.


----------



## The Hooded Claw

Well, I now have the evil update on my PaperWhite 2. I had become convinced that Amazon was not going to quickly reverse themselves on pushing the update, and it was a pain in the neck to keep my Wi-Fi turned off all the time so I turned on the Wi-Fi and gave in to the inevitable. I haven't used my PaperWhite much for a few days but this evening to there was the new update. the only collections that I have done were a long time ago when  I had my K2. I knew there were not a lot of books in the collections I'd done, but I was surprised it was "only" about 300 books that were in about eight or 10 collections. I did not like having them up at the front of my listings, especially since almost none of the books were on my PW. So I just deleted all the collections. And now I can legitimately provide feedback to Amazon about how stinky the update is!


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Probably the easiest way to provide feedback -- and I strongly suggest those, especially, disappointed with the update do so -- is to go to Amazon and get to a kindle page.  

Kindle support is the menu item all the way to the right.  

When you click that, you'll see a 'contact us' button on the left.  

Click it and select your PW2 device that just got the update.

You can then choose an option under 'tell us more about this issue' and depending what you choose you'll get different choices below.

If you choose 'kindle device', the next option is 'software update', but then the options they give you don't reflect any way to express dissatisfaction, just 'how to get it', 'didn't get it', or 'update failed'.  So I'd suggest you say the main issue is 'other kindle questions' and then 'provide feedback'. 

I'm going to write my thoughts  up ahead of time so when I'm ready to submit I can just copy and paste and know I'm reasonably coherent.


----------



## KindleGirl

I sent feedback the other day about how I didn't like the update and tried to explain what was wrong with the update. I got a letter back that told me they were sure they could fix my issue if I would just call in and talk to support. Obviously this person had no idea. I'm sure there would be a lot of people happy if they could actually fix the collections/cloud issue with a phone call! I just wanted them to pass the feedback along....


----------



## bordercollielady

I just sent them email  per Ann's direction..  and specifically asked them to forward it to their development organization.  Crossing fingers and toes.. but not very hopeful.


----------



## bordercollielady

Well - that was interesting.   I got an email reply that I should call them.  I called - the first CS didn't know much about collections.   She forwarded me to Kindle Support.

She deregistered and reregistered my Kindle first - which didn't help.

Then she  talked like it has always been like this..  That if I delete a book from the Device - it still shows up - greyed out - in the collection.   I told her that it was only since the update.   She had two suggestions:   Create one collection that has all the books that I have already read and move  all my greyed out books to that.  Or - delete the books from my MYK after I read them.  Its really hard to stay calm when they tell you to delete your books from your account.   I told her I didn't want to delete my books - she finally said she would send this issue on to their Engineering group..     Its worth a try...


----------



## The Hooded Claw

I called. I didn't feel like I got a strong reception. She took down my comment is going to forward it to Kindle support. I suppose if I show up as one more tick mark of complaints about this feature that perhaps it will help.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

The Hooded Claw said:


> I called. I didn't feel like I got a strong reception. She took down my comment is going to forward it to Kindle support. I suppose if I show up as one more tick mark of complaints about this feature that perhaps it will help.


That's the key. I wouldn't honestly expect much help in the short term, but the more people who say, "hey, it didn't used to work like this and I'm not real keen on the change," especially if you can articulate clearly the differences and/or suggest an alternative, the more they're likely to, eventually, really hear.


----------



## KimberlyinMN

I also sent them an email. While I do like the ability to now have the same collections on both Kindles (and am looking forward to when the Android app shows them), I don't like seeing the "cloud" books. Or rather, I'd like to have the option to toggle what shows. I am so happy to finally have a way to permanently clean up my collections by deleting the ones I no longer need. I can see how it would be nice to have the option to select "Remove collection from only this device" or "Remove collection permanently from all devices" so that you have a _choice_. One thing though, what would stop someone who has a Kindle on your account from removing a collection permanently from all devices? Maybe have an option to set a password via the Manage My Kindle page specifically for permanently removing a collection from all? That might work. (I'm just letting my mind ramble while thinking about all of this.)


----------



## stevene9

When this update first occurred I called cs. She told me:
1. The download of an upgrade is not automatically applied, but asks your permission to update, which you can decline.
2. Reset to factory specs puts the original OS on and eliminates all upgrades.

I said I did not think these were correct and she assured me that was how it worked. I decided that I was not going to get anywhere with her, and as I was saying goodbye I told her she should recheck her information. Quality controle?

Steve


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Yeah, that's not right. This is why I usually send email; that way I have a record of what they tell me. 

Sent from my Kindle Fire HDX.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

stevene9 said:


> When this update first occurred I called cs. She told me:
> 1. The download of an upgrade is not automatically applied, but asks your permission to update, which you can decline.
> 2. Reset to factory specs puts the original OS on and eliminates all upgrades.
> 
> I said I did not think these were correct and she assured me that was how it worked. I decided that I was not going to get anywhere with her, and as I was saying goodbye I told her she should recheck her information. Quality controle?
> 
> Steve


Um. No. And No. 

You should have asked to speak to a supervisor. I think you should either call back or use the internet form to report that it was unsatisfactory. (You may get a follow email for quality control.)

Betsy


----------



## stevene9

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Um. No. And No.
> 
> You should have asked to speak to a supervisor. I think you should either call back or use the internet form to report that it was unsatisfactory. (You may get a follow email for quality control.)
> 
> Betsy


Hi Betsy, I did use the internet form (after seeing your post of the right link). I've registererd my unhappiness pretty much everywhere.

Steve


----------



## Toby

I wonder if that CS person knew that if you deleted a book from MYK, you delete the book for good. You would have to buy the book again if you wanted to read it again.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

For the record, I had occasion to look at my basic kindle today.  No change at all in the collections I have set up on there.  Not that I expected there to be, but some folks have asked about older kindles and does cloud collections change things.  Answer seems pretty definitive: no.   

Some of the collections that became 'cloud collections' were imported from this device.  And I deleted some of them from either my Fire or PW2.  But that did not affect what is still showing as collections on this device.

If I go to archive and attempt to import collections, it still shows all the collections I previously had on a whole bunch of my earlier devices.  Even ones I no longer own.  But there is nothing that says "Cloud Collections" and none of my Fire devices are shown -- just eInk devices and the 'for PC' apps.


----------



## derek alvah

Why is  every collection I've ever had showing up on my kindle PW now. Books that I was reading  over a year ago now show up in my reading now collection. They're grayed out but why are they even showing up. If I still wanted them on my kindle I wouldn't have removed them from my device years ago. Every time I try to edit a collection or remove a book from my kindle it tells me I have to connect to the internet. Every time I have to clear multiple message boxes off my kindle just to delete a book.

My reading now collection says 17 items. I'm not reading 17 books at once. All but 2 of these books have already been read long ago. Do I have to see the covers of book I've already ready all the time now? Can I remove these "cloud books" from my paperwhite?

I went ahead and deregistered all of my other devices that I EVER had collections on and they're still showing up on my paperwhite even though I never put them on my paperwhite.


----------



## FearIndex

Short story:

When you've updated your PW2 it has become "Cloud Collections" compatible.

Any new "Cloud Collections" compatible Kindle device will, upon upgrade or first registration, import all Kindle collections from "non-Cloud Collections" compatible Kindle devices that have been synced with Amazon servers. This import is a one-time, one-way thing, so after the import has already happened (like in your case), the only way to remove those collections from "Cloud Collections" compatible Kindles (basically so far PW2, iOS app and some latest Fires) is to remove them on Cloud Collections compatible Kindle (e.g. your PW2), so that they get removed from Cloud Collections.

Removing them from old Kindles that are non-Cloud Compatible does not help at all, other than making sure they won't get re-imported if some new Cloud Compatible Kindle is registered to your Kindle account.

It is a very controversial, hated even, update. Many hope it will be removed.

Long story:

http://www.kboards.com/index.php/topic,168012.0.html


----------



## derek alvah

Thanks for the explanation. Horrible update..just horrible. 

I just went ahead and made new collections on my paperwhite. For instance I made a "current read" collection and added only the books I wanted to be in it and then deleted the old "reading now" collection. At least that way I don't have to look at all of the cloud books I read years ago everytime I open a current collection.


----------



## GBear

Please complain to Amazon! I am one of the lucky ones who heard about the issues and went offline to avoid the update. But I assume that some day there will be new update features I want, so I hope that Amazon can be persuaded to backtrack or fix the Cloud Collection mess before then.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

derek -- I'm going to merge your post with the ongoing thread we have about the update. . . . . 

Rest assured, if they're grayed out, the books are NOT on your device.

If you just have the one kindle, you can safely delete any collections you are not currently using from the cloud.  Even if you do have older devices that you want to keep those collections on, that deletion will NOT affect them.  I've tested that with my basic Kindle.  

Books NOT on your device only show when they're in a collection that IS on your device, so deleting the collection will not mean you'll see them on the home page.  

If you set the home sort to show Collections and collections to sort by recent, you mostly only see what you're reading now.  Non collected books will show on the home page following the collection list. Within a collection the things you've looked at most recently will show in the first pages and grayed out stuff will be later.


----------



## Meemo

Ann in Arlington said:


> That's the key. I wouldn't honestly expect much help in the short term, but the more people who say, "hey, it didn't used to work like this and I'm not real keen on the change," especially if you can articulate clearly the differences and/or suggest an alternative, the more they're likely to, eventually, really hear.


I did both when I sent my email - my suggested fix/alternative was to simply add the option to turn Cloud Collections on/off in settings - not to turn off Collections, but simply the turn it off for my PW2 so I don't have to see them. Because I don't want to see them! Sadly, the answer I got indicated that he thought I wanted to turn of Collections (not just Cloud Collections). But he said he'd pass it on to the developers. Hopefully he passes on the entire email, not just his version of it!


----------



## booklover888

stevene9 said:


> When this update first occurred I called cs. She told me:
> 
> 2. Reset to factory specs puts the original OS on and eliminates all upgrades.


I wish! But I can assure you, untrue. I factory reset mine this morning. I am so unhappy with my PW2, now, that I am selling it.


----------



## bordercollielady

booklover888 said:


> I wish! But I can assure you, untrue. I factory reset mine this morning. I am so unhappy with my PW2, now, that I am selling it.


I've decided - if they don't recognize that this is a problem and give us an ETA by the time that the new PW comes out next year - I'm going back to my K3. I have too many collections to deal with all these greyed out books.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Be sure to tell Amazon, bordercollielady and booklover888.

Betsy


----------



## booklover888

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Be sure to tell Amazon, bordercollielady and booklover888.
> 
> Betsy


I did send feedback once on the issue, already.


----------



## bordercollielady

I sent them another email to let them know that I would be going back to my K3 if we don't get an ETA by the time they release their next PW. Just received this... hoping this means they are FINALLY accepting the fact that they have a problem:

"Hello,

First please accept my inconvenience you encountered with the grayed out books on your Collections and thank you for letting us know about this.

To look further into this, I've taken note of your feedback and have forwarded this to the Kindle development Team for review and consideration.

I want to let you know that we are working on additional feature for our Kindle devices as part of the next software. Please be assured that your feedback will be considered as we plan further improvements.

You can also check back regularly online for more information about software updates for Kindle by visiting below:

http://www.amazon.com/kindlesoftwareupdates

Please extend with us your patience and understanding while we work on this.

Best regards,
Sue T.


----------



## Susan J

When I got the new update last week and saw the mess of collections and grayed out books, I first came to this forum where I knew I would find some answers.  

I have spent days moving over 600 books to a "read" collection and it really has chewed up the battery life.  I've been charging the PW at least once a day.  It also takes a long time to page through the collection pages to make sure that I remove the read books from any other categories.    Since I am an avid reader, I still have a ways to go to get the collections sorted properly.  I hope that any new changes don't create the same sort of mess but, instead, give more options for moving certain collections to the cloud.

I really don't want to delete any books completely because I frequently forget which books I have purchased and or read and when I click on a book's product page, it is nice to see the message that I have previously purchased the book on a certain date.  

Even with the wifi turned off and a minimum of books actually on my pw, it is so much slower than any of my previous kindles.  I just have a freeze this morning in the middle of reading a page and had to reboot.  I sometimes have to touch it several times just to turn the page.  This problem started with the software upgrade.  

I don't think they got much reader input prior to releasing this "upgrade".


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

I just opened my Paperwhite to look at a book I had downloaded and got the white screen of death for many seconds, then an error message that the app could not be opened, then a "Framerwork error" message and that my device was going to restart.  Although it didn't.  So I restared it by holding the power button until I got the restart menu, and restarted it.

Then, the book downloaded and my home page looked normal, except for being totally unresponsive.  I just restarted it again.  This time the book is restarting.

Off to send the above to CS.

Betsy


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

OK, the Kindle CS person asked me to reset my device to factory settings.  I thought it through, decided I didn't have anything on the device that had been sideloaded that I would miss.  He's going to call me back in a couple of hours to see if the problem is resolved.  Well, I can tell Sean already that it's not working.  I was trying to add a book to a collection, and after about fifteen seconds the book menu popped up, Then I tried to close it because it was for the wrong book, and it's been on the screen for over eight minutes now no matter what I tap.

I've restarted it after eight minutes.

Betsy


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

It seems to me that devices (pre 5.4.2) with a lot of collections on them would slow down?  I never had a lot of collections on any of my devices so I never experienced that.  I'm wondering if the number of cloud collections I have is the problem.  I'm going to eliminate a few collections and see if responsiveness improves. 

I really don't like this update.  Not sure I mentioned that before...

Betsy


----------



## Sandpiper

I'm not the voracious reader most are here so don't have a lot of books -- comparatively.  I have about 80.  I may keep app. 12 books at most on my PW2 at one time.  Have them organized into maybe 4 - 6 collections.  When I first turned on my PW2 after the update --  .  But after pretty much deleting all collections and clearing everything off my PW2, I think I've got it figured out.  "Fixing" it all was not bad.  At least not bad if there are not so many books kept on the Kindle.  I've never understood the need for that.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

With my K3(keyboard) I definitely noticed that as it got full responsiveness -- especially in choosing books from collections -- suffered. And I think the number of collections could very well be a factor, along with how many books are in each collection.  So a few collections with just a few books in each will not be a big problem.  But if you have a lot of collections OR if you have a lot of books (even 'cloud books, I'm thinking) in a given collection, it could be a an issue.

I've not noticed an appreciable amount of lagging myself, though it is perhaps a mite slower than it was before the update -- I only have about 6 collections -- I'd purged extraneous cloud collections from the HDX before the PW2 updated so all it added were the ones I'd saved on the HDX.  And I don't have many books in those collections in the 'cloud' because my practice is to take a book OUT of a collection to read it -- and I don't put it back before deleting.  So most of the books showing are, in fact, actually on the device.

I still don't like that both 'cloud' and 'on device' views show essentially the same information -- which, as I believe I've noted, makes no sense to me. 

I wonder what happens if you're not connected to wifi while you're manipulating things?  'Cause sure it can't see the books in a cloud collection if there's no connection?


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

I think your system works fine, Ann, for collections on a device and is not unlike what I used to do (though I moved my books to a "read in 2013 or 2012 or ..." collection after reading them).  It kind of removes any usefulness of cloud collections for me, however.  The only things I can have collections of are things that are on the device?  What's cloud about that?  How is that different than what we had before?

If you try to do anything involving collections with WiFi off, you get an error message.  It will still show the grayed out entries in the cloud.

I like to keep a few hundred books on my Kindle so that I have a library with me at all times.  Basically everything I purchase goes on the current Kindle as I purchase it.  Things I've read are deleted once a year.  But a few hundred should be well within the capability of the Kindle.  At least it was before the update.  I don't need to have all my books (and I couldn't) have them on the Kindle.

Right now I have maybe 30 books on my PW, since the rest to factory settings, so I suspect it is the number of collections that is causing the problem.  Although it wasn't a problem initially...

Betsy


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Sean from Amazon called, as promised.  Since my device locked up again (with 50 books on it), he's sending me a new Kindle PW.  I told him that I didn't think that was the problem, but would be glad to try it.

Betsy


----------



## Cate Rowan

/grump on, fair warning!/

I was so happy to get my new PW2. I'd been happy with my K3, but I liked having a much lighter Kindle (once case weights were factored in) and the Paperwhite display is great. Since organizing books on the Kindle has always been kind of a pain, I'd been using my Kindle for Mac app for that. Every book I buy or sample goes into that app, and then I put it into the appropriate collection. I have 64 collections on my K4M, mostly of genres/subgenres so I can choose the read I'm in the mood for. I only had the stuff I'm going to be reading soon on my PW2.

I didn't know this update was coming and I've had my WiFi on. At first I was happy my collections showed up on the PW2--until I realized I that on my K4M, the my "most eager to read" collection has 61 items in it, whereas the one on my PW2 had 35. Many of the books showing up in that collection PW2 are old and NOT in my K4M. Which means they're probably from my K2 era. (The K2 was long since sold).

I hate this. I spent 50 minutes on the phone with Kindle support today, and believe me when I say they were CLUELESS. They had no idea how to get the collections on my K4M and PW2 to sync properly, kept trying to get me to check Archived Items (which isn't an option on the PW2), and then they told me that the PW2 doesn't yet have the ability to sync its collections with other devices. They seemed flummoxed that my collections had already (partially) synced. 

I had only been keeping 8 or so books on my PW2--just the ones I was most eager to read. I loved how "clean" my PW2 felt, and I was happy that ALL my books were easily findable on my Mac. Now, even in "On Device," I have to run through 22 pages containing all my collections just to find those eight books. And if I use sorting by "Recent," the collections keep popping back to the beginning of the list, even when I haven't opened them on any device. *headdesk*

What really cheeses me off is that I've spent a lot of time curating my K4M books and collections. Looks like those aren't syncable to any other device now. And when I try to add one of my *PW2* books to a collection, half the time the PW2 tells me that the change won't sync to any other device. Wait...WTH? What's the point of the Cloud Collection, then? Why offer this "feature" when it's only half-implemented?

And why can't we organize our Cloud Collections online somewhere...y'know, in the cloud?  

I was thinking of buying a PW2 for my honey, but yeah, not anymore. And I've been a Kindle user since K1.

Thank goodness for KB. After I got off the phone with Kindle support, I thought I was going crazy. Even Google failed me, until I found this thread and the other unhappy 5.4.2-affected peeps! Thanks for the community, even if we have no assurances that the software issues will be understood and fixed, much less that they'll be done soon.

I want to believe Amazon will get this handled. Normally I love my 'Zon. Sadly, this is the worst implementation I've seen from them in my nearly 6 years of Kindle ownership, and based on my call to them today I'm not sure they even get that there are any issues at all.   

/grump off/


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Sean from Amazon asked me, since I had had so many Kindles, which one was my favorite.  I told him, until the update, the PW2 had been my favorite.  Right now, it's unusable.  I have an error message again.

Maybe there is something wrong with the device AND the update is terrible. 

Betsy


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Cate,

glad we could be here for you!

Betsy


----------



## booklover888

Cate Rowan said:


> /grump on, fair warning!/
> 
> I want to believe Amazon will get this handled. Normally I love my 'Zon. Sadly, this is the worst implementation I've seen from them in my nearly 6 years of Kindle ownership, and based on my call to them today I'm not sure they even get that there are any issues at all.
> 
> /grump off/


I totally sympathize. I can't stand the update. My PW2 will be sold before (IF) they fix this. I believe some Best Buys have PW1 Kindles for sale....but with all the screen problems people had with those, I don't want to take a chance. So I am done with Kindle readers for now. Maybe forever. I still have the 2012 Fire HD, and it's a good device.


----------



## Cate Rowan

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Cate,
> 
> glad we could be here for you!
> 
> Betsy


Thanks, Betsy! And I sure hope they can get your PW replaced with one that works. SOON. Mine hasn't started locking up, but then I've been too annoyed with it since the update to use it much.

I wish I could return it and just go back to my K3, which still works fine. But I didn't get the 5.4.2 update until after the 30-day return window. Argh.


----------



## backslidr

booklover888 said:
 

> I totally sympathize. I can't stand the update. My PW2 will be sold before (IF) they fix this. I believe some Best Buys have PW1 Kindles for sale....but with all the screen problems people had with those, I don't want to take a chance. So I am done with Kindle readers for now. Maybe forever. I still have the 2012 Fire HD, and it's a good device.


I hear what you're saying. After getting so frustrated with the upgrade I went out and bought a Kobo Aura HD. It is so nice I'd call it the Rolls Royce of ereaders. I still have books I'll read on my PW2 and knowing me I'll probably buy a PW3 when they come out, but the Aura HD is now my number one. Amazon will probably lose some business over this mess, but I do hope they get this straightened out for everybody.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Cate Rowan said:


> Thanks, Betsy! And I sure hope they can get your PW replaced with one that works. SOON. Mine hasn't started locking up, but then I've been too annoyed with it since the update to use it much.
> 
> I wish I could return it and just go back to my K3, which still works fine. But I didn't get the 5.4.2 update until after the 30-day return window. Argh.


If it's not been long after, and you're serious about wanting to return it, I'd call Kindle CS and give it a try. Amazon US customers inside the US: 1-866-321-8851, outside the US: 1-206-266-0927. Other customers, see here. All they can do is say no.

Betsy


----------



## The Hooded Claw

7vn11vn said:


> Amazon will probably lose some business over this mess, but I do hope they get this straightened out for everybody.


I'm not so sure. I suspect most of Amazon's customers only have a few books on the Kindle at a time and probably no collections. Won't even notice. But the ones you do notice are some of Amazon's most prolific customers, so that may create a problem for them. But I'm not so sure since Amazon doesn't seem to have figured out for quite a while but there is a problem. That suggests that only a few people are contacting them.


----------



## Atunah

I am more and more glad I didn't upgrade to the PW2 and that my PW1 didn't get that update.   
Holy moly, you know something is bad when you see people like the ones posting here having such issues. People that have had many kindles, know the way around. 

I actually just got a basic kindle yesterday, so I have another "regular" kindle to use since my K3 is showing some battery issues. 

Surely they have to be working on a fix for this update. At least make it work the way it was suppose to. 

Stares at her 40 collections on her PW1, 30 different named collections on her K3, 60 yet more differently named collections on my K4PC (and all the gazillion I have had on my replacements) and feels the cold shivers of fear and dread down her spine.


----------



## The Hooded Claw

Betsy the Quilter said:


> If it's not been long after, and you're serious about wanting to return it, I'd call Kindle CS and give it a try. Amazon US customers inside the US: 1-866-321-8851, outside the US: 1-206-266-0927. Other customers, see here. All they can do is say no.


Calls from people angry enough over the update to return their PW2 can't help but drawAmazon's attention to the problem. But don't do it unless you are truly willing to go through with it!


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Yes, I'm very happy I've got a backup Kindle (or two or three ).  My KTouch may be my go-to Kindle for awhile....

Betsy


----------



## VictoriaP

Betsy--you were wondering about having performance issues on devices with lots of Collections pre-update: 

I have around 500 books on my PW2, sorted into some 40 collections, and have since about a week after the device arrived. I had perhaps one freeze up in the 3-4 weeks I had the PW2 prior to updating. I've had multiple freeze ups and at least three points where the Kindle has restarted on its own since I installed 5.4.2. They happen when I'm reading, when the PW2 has sat idle for a while, when I have wifi on, when wifi is off, you name it.

This is NOT, in my opinion, a stable firmware.


----------



## Cate Rowan

Betsy the Quilter said:


> If it's not been long after, and you're serious about wanting to return it, I'd call Kindle CS and give it a try. Amazon US customers inside the US: 1-866-321-8851, outside the US: 1-206-266-0927. Other customers, see here. All they can do is say no.
> 
> Betsy


That's actually tempting. I usually avoid hassle, and the possibility of confrontation makes me break out in hives, but I'll consider this.

I'd been perfectly happy with my PW2 until the update. So, question for y'all: if I did reset my PW2 to factory settings, would it go back to an earlier software version, or would it auto-update to 5.4.2 as soon as I re-registered the device?

If it wouldn't autoupdate, I'm tempted to try staying off wifi  and just put the books I really want on it back via USB. I really do love being able to read in the dark without fussing with my K3 light, which never seemed that great to me anyway.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

When you reset to factory settings, unfortunately, it doesn't roll back firmware updates.  It just makes it as if it had come from the factory with the current firmware, upgrade and all. 

Betsy


----------



## Cate Rowan

Betsy the Quilter said:


> When you reset to factory settings, unfortunately, it doesn't roll back firmware updates. It just makes it as if it had come from the factory with the current firmware, upgrade and all.
> 
> Betsy


Auuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh!


----------



## backslidr

What scares me now is that I put in so many hours getting everything adjusted just right to where I finally got satisfied with the results and now they might change it again with so many people complaining and I could lose all the work I put into it. If that happens I don't know what I'll do. I think that would be the last straw for me.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

I'm confused, 7vn11vn, I thought you were using a Kobo now?


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

7vn11vn said:


> Betsy, once you get them organized like that you're really going to like it. The way I solved the problem of having to scroll through greyed out collections for the ones you haven't read is for each genre to have a To Be Read and a Read collection. You can number them so they stay together or so that you just have the To Be Reads at the top of the list. It makes finding things a lot easier that way. I had about 1600 books to sort out but I managed to the do it in a single day. Of course, nothing else got done that day.


7---

found this^ quote about your collections. I don't think anything they do would keep this from being a viable arrangement. *shrug* 'Course, I wouldn't have imagined that they'd screw up collections the way they have.

Betsy


----------



## booklover888

Betsy the Quilter said:


> If it's not been long after, and you're serious about wanting to return it, I'd call Kindle CS and give it a try. Amazon US customers inside the US: 1-866-321-8851, outside the US: 1-206-266-0927. Other customers, see here. All they can do is say no.
> 
> Betsy


I've had mine since release date. I don't suppose they would give me money or credit, now.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Probably not full credit...more like a trade-in.

Betsy


----------



## booklover888

I think I'll have better luck on ebay. I'll probably list it there tomorrow, if no one responds to my post in the selling forum.


----------



## teralpar

I have been terrified of turning on my Wifi on since you all first reported the update. I know that I will NOT enjoy going through all of the collections I've had since I owned my K2i (were collections available for the K2?), my K3, and K-Touch, nor have to experience periods of screen freezes and unnecessary reboots. I love being able to read my PW2 anywhere regardless of lighting conditions but if I were to somehow get the update (accidentally turning on the Wifi) I will probably go back to using my Kindle Touch (and iPad Mini for low-light reading) until Amazon straightens this mess out.


----------



## backslidr

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I'm confused, 7vn11vn, I thought you were using a Kobo now?


Yes I am, but like I said in that post I still have books to read so I'll still be using the Kindle as my second ereader. I only have six actual books on my Kindle now, all the rest are in collections and greyed out. What most people seem to be most upset about is the greyed out books that show up under On Device. If they change that again it would mess up all the work I did but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what they do next. By the way, if you think some of the things I say on here are confusing, you should hear some of the things I say in real life.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

7vn11vn said:


> Yes I am, but like I said in that post I still have books to read so I'll still be using the Kindle as my second ereader. I only have six actual books on my Kindle now, all the rest are in collections and greyed out. What most people seem to be most upset about is the greyed out books that show up under On Device. If they change that again it would mess up all the work I did but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what they do next. By the way, if you think some of the things I say on here are confusing, you should hear some of the things I say in real life.


Well, I'm confused most of the time. 

I think since you have your not read in one collection and your read in another, you'll be OK for the most part. I guess it depends on what they do.

I'm wondering if the PW2 they're sending me will already be updated...I may leave WiFi up and add books by dragging them from the computer. 

Betsy


----------



## crebel

I'm a little surprised by the number of people who report the customer service reps acting like the have no clue what the problem is or have never heard of anyone trying to explain how STOOPID (to coin a word) the update is, particularly for accounts with multiple devices/users.

Even on the Amazon boards, the ONE thread where there are complaints has really just started getting heated up as the update is being rolled out over Wi-Fi vs. being manually loaded.

I know none of us is privy to the inner workings of Amazon, but it seems to me that because they are continuing to roll out the update and haven't stopped it, they don't yet realize how many dissatisfied users there are.  How likely is it they are working on a fix if their reps don't realize there is a problem?  People have got to continue sending feedback.  If you get the canned response (even after a phone call), answer "no, you didn't solve my problem" and send it through the loop again and again.


----------



## GBear

booklover888 said:


> I've had mine since release date. I don't suppose they would give me money or credit, now.


If your approach is that their update made the Kindle unusable for you, then I think they could very well give either a full credit, figure out how to roll back your firmware, or exchange yours for one with older firmware. I would think that requesting one of those options is reasonable.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Amen, Chris!  Feedback, feedback, feedback.

GBear, you're right, it doesn't hurt to ask.

Betsy


----------



## stevene9

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Sean from Amazon called, as promised. Since my device locked up again (with 50 books on it), he's sending me a new Kindle PW. I told him that I didn't think that was the problem, but would be glad to try it.
> 
> Betsy


Assuming your new device doesn't have the new update on it yet, never turn on your wifi, ever. Nah, I guess that really would be too much of a pain, but it's what I would feel like doing. I, too, HATE HATE HATE this update.

Steve


----------



## Meemo

stevene9 said:


> Assuming your new device doesn't have the new update on it yet, never turn on your wifi, ever. Nah, I guess that really would be too much of a pain, but it's what I would feel like doing. I, too, HATE HATE HATE this update.
> 
> Steve


Airplane mode is working for me so far - although I live in fear that I'll accidentally turn it on. Thank goodness for Calibre.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

stevene9 said:


> Assuming your new device doesn't have the new update on it yet, never turn on your wifi, ever. Nah, I guess that really would be too much of a pain, but it's what I would feel like doing. I, too, HATE HATE HATE this update.
> 
> Steve


Yeah, that's what I'm thinking:



Betsy the Quilter said:


> I'm wondering if the PW2 they're sending me will already be updated...I may leave WiFi up and add books by dragging them from the computer.


On the other hand, I can't really test the problem if I don't upgrade. 

Betsy


----------



## Toby

I'm glad that I didn't give my PW1 away. I still haven't dealt with the mess on my PW2 yet. I'm afraid to look, but I guess I'll have to deal with it.


----------



## booklover888

GBear said:


> If your approach is that their update made the Kindle unusable for you, then I think they could very well give either a full credit, figure out how to roll back your firmware, or exchange yours for one with older firmware. I would think that requesting one of those options is reasonable.


I've taken your advice and sent them an email.

And......they would rather give me a refund than find a way to roll back the firmware. I am waiting to see how much they are refunding, since I paid to buy out the ads after I got it. I want that $20 back, too.

Update - they are refunding the $20, too.

I've gotta say, despite my disappointment, Amazon is the best company in the world.


----------



## Eltanin Publishing

Betsy the Quilter said:


> When you reset to factory settings, unfortunately, it doesn't roll back firmware updates. It just makes it as if it had come from the factory with the current firmware, upgrade and all.
> 
> Betsy


True, but in the past, I've found that asking CS on the phone, "I'd like to know how to roll back my firmware to a previous version." sometimes works well for getting transferred to a CS rep who is a bit more knowledgeable.


----------



## kansaskyle

Anyone seen a problem where a 'Cloud Collection' won't stay renamed?

I had a collection named *'Read* and I decided to change it to *099 Kyle Read* since I wanted it to sort differently and I wanted it to be my read collection since my kids are on my Amazon account. When I rename it, it stays until I sync and check for new items. Then it reverts back to the original name.


----------



## Veronica

I am so incredibly annoyed with this Cloud Collections concept I can't see straight.  

I sent Amazon my feedback within hours of the update. I haven't had a chance to research a fix until now, and while I haven't been around for awhile, I knew this would be the first place I'd check out.

16 pages! I've got some homework ahead of me. In the meantime, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one peeved off by this issue, and I hope everyone is sending feedback to Amazon; surely they'll roll this back or give us a way to turn it off or manage it very very soon. I've got 9 pages of Collections and it's ridiculous to keep scrolling just to find what I want. Defeats the whole purpose of having a Collections system in the first place!! Grrrrr....

ETA: Oh my. I haven't played around with my new update yet because, you know, I've been reading, but it appears I haven't even scratched the surface yet. I've been primarily annoyed at having all these crazy collections show up on my PW2 that aren't even mine, or are from my old Kindles. But there are sooooo many other issues, apparently. Why why why would I want books that aren't on my device to show up on my device? I don't CARE if they're grayed out. They're STILL there, taking up space on the screen. Clutter clutter clutter. I don't think I can handle this.

I could find a workaround if it were just ME on my account, but I share an account, as so many other people do.

Okay, thanks for listening to my rant.


----------



## Cardinal

Why, oh why did I sell my first gen Paperwhite?  

I hope Amazon resolves this quickly.


----------



## Tia K

Veronica said:


> I am so incredibly annoyed with this Cloud Collections concept I can't see straight.
> 
> I sent Amazon my feedback within hours of the update. I haven't had a chance to research a fix until now, and while I haven't been around for awhile, I knew this would be the first place I'd check out.
> 
> 16 pages! I've got some homework ahead of me. In the meantime, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one peeved off by this issue, and I hope everyone is sending feedback to Amazon;
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> surely they'll roll this back or give us a way to turn it off or manage it very very soon. I've got 9 pages of Collections and it's ridiculous to keep scrolling just to find what I want. Defeats the whole purpose of having a Collections system in the first place!! Grrrrr....
> 
> ETA: Oh my. I haven't played around with my new update yet because, you know, I've been reading, but it appears I haven't even scratched the surface yet. I've been primarily annoyed at having all these crazy collections show up on my PW2 that aren't even mine, or are from my old Kindles. But there are sooooo many other issues, apparently. Why why why would I want books that aren't on my device to show up on my device? I don't CARE if they're grayed out. They're STILL there, taking up space on the screen. Clutter clutter clutter. I don't think I can handle this.
> 
> I could find a workaround if it were just ME on my account, but I share an account, as so many other people do.
> 
> Okay, thanks for listening to my rant.


same here. Hope it gets solved soon...


----------



## Cate Rowan

Want to return your PW2? There's hope.

At first I thought I'd just grit my teeth and deal with the collection issue this way: sorting by Recent and then opening all the books on my PW2 so they'd show up first in the list. That way the collections would be buried at the back and I could ignore them. (On my device, not all of the collections showed up, and those that did didn't have all the books in those collections actually listed.)

But today I once again tried to add a book to one of the collections that *did* show up, and I got an error message: "Content Not Synced: You have added items that will not be synced to the Cloud."

Last straw. I mean, why have Cloud Collections that don't sync to the Cloud? I've tried to add several books to collections since the update, and sometimes I get the error message and sometimes I don't. Ugh.

So I called up Amazon again (was on the phone with them for 50 minutes yesterday about this update) and asked why I was getting this error message. At least today I spoke with someone who seemed to know something, which was that it was a known bug and that there had been a lot of calls about it. He said the tech team was working on it and that they hoped to have a fix at some point, but couldn't give a timeline.

I laid out what the problems were with the update and he said he'd send that feedback to the team. (Betsy, I even included the suggestion about having books that were not on the device NOT show up as on the device, even grayed out, unless the customer is specifically looking in the Cloud section!)

I asked if it the update could be rolled back on my device, and he said (as others here have already noted) unfortunately it couldn't.

I asked if I could exchange my PW2 for one that didn't have the update yet, and he said that the ones coming from Amazon would have the update on them now. (FWIW, there now seems to be a backorder of a week or so on the 3G PW2s.)

So having no other options except to wait for an update that may or may not fix the issues and on a completely unspecified timeline, I asked if I could return it. I had preordered it, so it arrived Nov. 2 or so. He spoke with his supervisor--and was able to grant me an exception. He emailed the return mailing labels.

As steamed as I am about this update, I do appreciate Amazon's customer service on this issue. Amazon has usually been good to me, and they came through again. It's one of the reasons I'm a loyal customer. (In return, they get ALL my monies, LOL.)

So thank you to the person who urged me to try returning it even though it was past the 30-day window.

Honestly, I am really bummed about sending my PW2 back. It was a great little device--until the update mangled it. I may wait until next week to ship it back, just in case they can get it fixed before then. I just wish I could have it back the way it was as of a few days ago.

Does anyone know what would happen if I deregistered it, then re-registered it? Would it try to re-sync my collections (maybe _correctly_ this time)? Because I think I could live with the stupid update if it at least brought the collections to the device *accurately*.

Happy/sad now.


----------



## booklover888

Cate Rowan said:


> As steamed as I am about this update, I do appreciate Amazon's customer service on this issue. Amazon has usually been good to me, and they came through again. It's one of the reasons I'm a loyal customer. (In return, they get ALL my monies, LOL.)
> 
> So thank you to the person who urged me to try returning it even though it was past the 30-day window.
> 
> Honestly, I am really bummed about sending my PW2 back. It was a great little device--until the update mangled it. I may wait until next week to ship it back, just in case they can get it fixed before then. I just wish I could have it back the way it was as of a few days ago.
> 
> Does anyone know what would happen if I deregistered it, then re-registered it? Would it try to re-sync my collections (maybe _correctly_ this time)? Because I think I could live with the stupid update if it at least brought the collections to the device *accurately*.
> 
> Happy/sad now.


I'm glad you were able to get a return authorization. I sent mine back this afternoon. I feel the same way - it was fine until the update.

I did deregister and reregister. Then I had no collections. I could have added some to check, but chose not to.

As you say, at least we get great customer service from Amazon, even when things get screwed up!


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Cate Rowan said:


> Does anyone know what would happen if I deregistered it, then re-registered it? Would it try to re-sync my collections (maybe _correctly_ this time)? Because I think I could live with the stupid update if it at least brought the collections to the device *accurately*.
> 
> Happy/sad now.


De- and re-registering wouldn't reimport the collections, but resetting to Factory Settings should. If you're going to send it back anyway and have to start from scratch with a new one, you have nothing to lose. You could try it. In fact you should before sending it back.

Betsy


----------



## Cate Rowan

So I tried de-registering and re-registering, and then resetting.

As Betsy notes, resetting reimported all the collections--and they're still incomplete. Some of my collections are missing, and the collections that showed up don't have all the books my Kindle for Mac has. They don't even have all the books the PW2 had in those collections prior to the reset. (For example, one collection had 68 in K4M, 35 in the PW2 prior to reset, and now only 25. :-(  )

Then I picked up my K3 and realized how much the PW2 has already spoiled me for ease of reading in just 40 days. Dang it. *grumble grumble*


----------



## Veronica

Reading all of this just makes me sad. *sigh*

I just got off chat support, and thought I would post the answers I got here. Not very helpful, but, well...

This is the transcript of our chat, minus a few niceties and a transfer from one CS to another:



> Me:I'm not satisfied with the most recent Paperwhite 2 software update, specifically the Cloud Collections. I've emailed twice, the last response suggested I contact Amazon via chat.
> 
> A:Hello Veronica, my name is A. Thanks for contacting Amazon, I'll be happy to help you.
> 
> Me:I'm having difficulty navigating through my collections. I share an account with family members, and all our collections are showing up on my Kindle. But I don't think there is a fix for that? If I delete a collection from my Kindle, it gets deleted from all Kindles, correct?
> I went from 3 pages of collections, now I have 10 pages of collections, and most of them are irrelevant to me as they aren't "my" collections.
> 
> A:Veronica, if you delete the collection from your device it will not be removed from the other kindle device.
> 
> Me:Okay, that's good. Then I can get rid of the "extras." I have another question.
> In the collections, when I'm in the "On Device" view, there are greyed out books, because they are in the cloud and not actually on my device. Is there a way that when I'm in the "On Device" view, I can only show books actually on my device? Showing books in the cloud, greyed out, clutters things up.
> 
> A:I'll check. [It took about 15 minutes for him to get back to me.]
> Please open the collections and check does it shows any sort option? Like "recent, "
> 
> Me:Yes, I can sort by Recent, Title, Author, or Collections
> 
> A:Make sure you have the collection open. If you sort it by recent it will show those books that you have downloaded and opened first. But make sure you do that for the collection only otherwise you will see duplicates of some books.
> 
> Me:So if I sort by Recent, the greyed out books will move to the bottom of the list?
> 
> A:It should. Please try that.
> 
> Me:That worked. All the old books are still there, but at least the books on my device move to the top.
> 
> A:Great!
> Is there anything else I can assist you with?
> 
> Me: If I wanted to go back to the previous version of the software before this update, is there a way to do that?
> 
> A:I am sorry Veronica, its not possible to go back to the previous software and that is not recommended either. It better is your device stays updated otherwise you will start facing issues like with battery or or some other software issues.
> 
> Me:Okay, thank you.
> Last, this is more just feedback. With the update, many of the books on my device left the device and went back to the cloud. Which is fine, except for books from independent publishers and documents that I didn't have backed up in Amazon. Most I had saved on my computer, but it was just frustrating to lose those things.
> 
> A :I am very sorry about the trouble Veronica. I will forward your feedback regarding this.


I've deleted one collection to see if it will delete off the other devices. So far it hasn't, even though I got the message stating it would. We'll see, it's only been about 10 minutes so far, so it could take a bit to "update" on the other device.


----------



## Toby

I have 44 pages.


----------



## VictoriaP

Veronica said:


> I've deleted one collection to see if it will delete off the other devices. So far it hasn't, even though I got the message stating it would. We'll see, it's only been about 10 minutes so far, so it could take a bit to "update" on the other device.


I may have missed this somewhere--but what are the other devices on the account? Older devices (such as the PW1, Touch, and K3) will be unaffected by changes you make on the PW2. Collections on my Touch have not changed, regardless of multiple deletions and renaming of collections on the Paperwhite or via the iOS app.


----------



## Eltanin Publishing

Cate Rowan said:


> But today I once again tried to add a book to one of the collections that *did* show up, and I got an error message: "Content Not Synced: You have added items that will not be synced to the Cloud."


I get this when I add a book that I did not buy from Amazon to a collection. I also get a warning if my wi-fi is turned off, that it won't be able to sync to the cloud until it is turned back on. So sometimes I'm getting 2 different warnings which is a bit annoying. But I wouldn't call it an error message.

I did deregister yesterday, register to a different account, and then deregister and register back to my normal one, to test something, and the 3 collections I had went away, then came back when I re-registered to my own account.


----------



## Cate Rowan

Eltanin Publishing said:


> I get this when I add a book that I did not buy from Amazon to a collection. I also get a warning if my wi-fi is turned off, that it won't be able to sync to the cloud until it is turned back on. So sometimes I'm getting 2 different warnings which is a bit annoying. But I wouldn't call it an error message.


In my particular case, I keep wifi on all the time and all my books come directly from Amazon, so it's an error message. :-( Amazon called it a known issue. I just wish they could give an indication of whether the fix is likely to be in days or weeks.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

My replacement PW2 is scheduled for delivery today.  Will let you know if it comes with 5.4.2 installed.  My PW2 is unusable now, I'm using my KTouch.  Honestly, it's so bad I'm wondering if it has gone bad on me.  Of course, I also was one of the first here to update.  It could be cumulative.

Betsy


----------



## bordercollielady

Veronica,

When I first installed the update on my PW2 - I found that all the greyed out books were at the end when I chose RECENT filter.  And I was ok with that.

The problem came after I finished reading a book and removed it from the device.   Alas-  when I was in RECENT - that book turned grey and stayed at the top of the collection..  So my feeling OK didn't last very long!

Later:  Very strange,  I just opened that collection again and the greyed out book moved..    I have no idea what is going on but I'm back to Ok for now.  Still hoping they give us the option to NOT see any greyed out books at all.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

bordercollielady said:


> Veronica,
> 
> When I first installed the update on my PW2 - I found that all the greyed out books were at the end when I chose RECENT filter. And I was ok with that.
> 
> The problem came after I finished reading a book and removed it from the device. Alas- when I was in RECENT - that book turned grey and stayed at the top of the collection.. So my feeling OK didn't last very long!
> 
> Later: Very strange, I just opened that collection again and the greyed out book moved..  I have no idea what is going on but I'm back to Ok for now. Still hoping they give us the option to NOT see any greyed out books at all.


I don't want to see grayed out books either unless I'm asking the device to show me what's in the cloud, but I don't have the problem of them staying high up in 'recent' when I delete them because, when I move them to the top of my TBR, I actually remove the book from any collection it's in. So it just appears loose on my home page. Then I delete it and it's not in a collection so doesn't mess up what shows there.

I'm just one person, really, on the account, and it works for me, but it's a sub-par implementation for sure. And I'm not keen on the way GR works either. They took away my FB share and, though I've 'linked' the accounts, I'm still not seeing any FB sharing unless I go to the trouble to go to GR and write something there. It's like a whole extra step -- and I don't really want that. I didn't have a GR account until a basically was forced to set one up when this update came.  I feel like the GR integration should be something I can opt to have OFF and still have my regular FB posting method.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

As I ponder my unusable updated Paperwhite (it locks up constantly) and look at the new Paperwhite that arrived today with lovely 5.4.0 on it, some not-so-random thoughts...

On an updated Paperwhite, if I eliminate all of the collections I set up over the last few months on the cloud using my Kindle App for iPhone, and go back to the six collections I typically used on my Paperwhite, with only the items in those collections that are currently on the device, everything is fine. The listings don't look any different than before, right? Though I do have to remember the extra step of removing the book from the collection it was in, either before or after I delete it from the device.

But then, what's the point of Cloud collections? I liked the idea of cloud collections because I could organize the stuff ON THE CLOUD. If I do the above, what's the benefit of Cloud Collections? I'm acting as if they don't exist.

The idea that, if I leave things in the collection when I delete them from the device, and they stay visible in the collection when using Device View as well as when using Cloud View is, I'm sorry, STOOPID. (IMHO.) That's what Cloud View is for.

I applaud our members for trying to find ways to be OK with this. And salute those who actually are. Some members have posted that they are working around the issue by creating a separate collection for books read or are creating mirror genre collections for books read and books unread (Mystery: Unread, Mystery: Read). And Unread will only have books on the device and Read will only have books not on the device. While this is indeed a workaround, it's just reinventing the wheel that didn't need reinventing. Isn't that what Cloud View and Device View are supposed to do in the first place? We shouldn't need to do that to see only those things on the device.

Separately, and equally as STOOPID, is having the Cloud Collections arbitrarily forced on multiple cloud-capable devices across an account, and having changes affect those cloud-capable devices. And having WiFi have to be connected to make any changes to your collections.

And I agree with Ann about the GoodReads integration implementation.

      

Betsy


----------



## Ann in Arlington

I was pondering this today as I drove back from Frederick -- Amazon has a 'cloud reader' that, until now, couldn't do collections.  Heck, maybe it still can't; I don't really use it.  But it seems to me that it should be possible to allow a device to show either Collections and books ON the device . . . OR . . . .Collections and books NOT ON the device. 'Cloud Collections' would be those NOT on the device. . . .but useful for organizing by genre or favorite author as Betsy would like to do.

It's akin, I'd say, to a personal physical library where, for books I've read and enjoyed, I might have them well organized on my shelves alphabetically by author, or maybe sorted by genre.  So they're easily discoverable by friends and family browsing my bookshelves.  Or by me when I suggest a book to someone and want to lend them a copy.  But the books I'm reading NOW, or intend to very soon, are on my night table or the small shelves next to my 'reading spot'.  They may not be so 'organized' because it's only a handful of the whole collection.  I don't need them to be because I can see them all at once.

Gee, that's good . . . I should save that for when I send my letter to the 'Zon.


----------



## Veronica

VictoriaP said:


> I may have missed this somewhere--but what are the other devices on the account? Older devices (such as the PW1, Touch, and K3) will be unaffected by changes you make on the PW2. Collections on my Touch have not changed, regardless of multiple deletions and renaming of collections on the Paperwhite or via the iOS app.


Ah, Victoria, the other Kindle I've tested on is a K3. I haven't tested on my KTouch yet. I'll have to charge it up as I haven't used it since my PW2 arrived.

I still need to go through my computer and find all the books from independent publishers that got wiped from my Kindle during the update. I really hope I have them somewhere. Many books' download links were only available for so many days... I guess that's the indies' attempt to limit piracy. In the meantime, my paid books have gone *poof*

It's all just ridiculous. As I believe Betsy said, the fact that we have to find workarounds at all is just a sign of poor development. Their R&D people need to seriously re-evaluate their priorities.


----------



## bordercollielady

So -if I remove the book I just read from the Collection before I remove it from the device - it disappears?  Or does it show up as a "loose" greyed out book - not in any collection?


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

It should show up only in the Cloud view as a greyed out item.  I can't test right now as my PW2+ is unusable and the other one hasn't updated yet.

Betsy


----------



## bordercollielady

OK- I just tried it and it does "disappear" from "On Device".. so that is what I'll do from now on.  It would still be nice to not have to jump thru so many loops to remove it - although - other than mistakes - each of my books is only in one collection right now - by author.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Do you not have very many author collections?

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

The Hooded Claw said:


> I'm not so sure. I suspect most of Amazon's customers only have a few books on the Kindle at a time and probably no collections. Won't even notice. But the ones you do notice are some of Amazon's most prolific customers, so that may create a problem for them. But I'm not so sure since Amazon doesn't seem to have figured out for quite a while but there is a problem. That suggests that only a few people are contacting them.


This is my experience (knock on wood), this time: No issues with 5.4.2 PW2. But then, I don't really use collections, never have used them before and don't keep a lot of books on the device either. So the perfect storm isn't gathering in my use scenario - unlike on some others.

I truly do sympathize. It is hard to see and feel a problem where others perhaps aren't having any issues and try to explain it to others, e.g. clueless support reps. People who know where I'm coming from with PWs know that I've not always been happy with them, while many have been. But this particular problem I have not encountered so this time I'm (and I guess most people) are quite happy and a minority is unhappy.


----------



## Veronica

bordercollielady said:


> OK- I just tried it and it does "disappear" from "On Device".. so that is what I'll do from now on. It would still be nice to not have to jump thru so many loops to remove it - although - other than mistakes - each of my books is only in one collection right now - by author.


So if you remove the book from a collection while in the "Cloud" view, it will remove the greyed out book from the collection in the "On Device" view? (And that won't remove it from the Amazon back up?)


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Veronica said:


> So if you remove the book from a collection while in the "Cloud" view, it will remove the greyed out book from the collection in the "On Device" view? (And that won't remove it from the Amazon back up?)


Yes, since the collection in Cloud view and the collection in Device view are the same thing. It won't remove it from your library (the Cloud) as you are just removing it from the collection not the cloud itself.

Betsy


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Veronica said:


> So if you remove the book from a collection while in the "Cloud" view, it will remove the greyed out book from the collection in the "On Device" view? (And that won't remove it from the Amazon back up?)


If it's IN a collection while on a kindle, and you delete it from the device, it STAYS in the collection and thus shows in the collection as grayed out. Even when viewing 'On Device'. Of course, it's not really ON the device, but in the (cloud) collection that is on the device.

If you remove it from ALL collections on the device and then remove it FROM the device, it goes to the cloud 'uncollected' and you won't see it on your device at all UNLESS you have the view set to 'cloud'.

In either case, it remains on your account and you can get it back by looking in the cloud or sending from MYK.


----------



## bordercollielady

I have 80 author collections


Betsy the Quilter said:


> Do you not have very many author collections?
> 
> Betsy


I have 80 author collections and 800 books in total. Initially - right after the update - as long as I had the RECENT filter on - all the greyed out books stayed at the bottom of each collection. I don't intend to get rid all of any of those as long as they stay put - at the bottom - where I can ignore them. I just started having problems after I finished my first book since the update - when I removed that book from the device - it did not fall to the bottom of the collection (at least initially - magically it moved later and I have no idea why or when). But I feel more comfortable to first remove it from all collections (only one in my case) and then remove it from the device. That gets it out completely.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

bordercollielady said:


> I have 80 author collections
> I have 80 author collections and 800 books in total. Initially - right after the update - as long as I had the RECENT filter on - all the greyed out books stayed at the bottom of each collection. I don't intend to get rid all of any of those as long as they stay put - at the bottom - where I can ignore them. I just started having problems after I finished my first book since the update - when I removed that book from the device - it did not fall to the bottom of the collection (at least initially - magically it moved later and I have no idea why or when). But I feel more comfortable to first remove it from all collections (only one in my case) and then remove it from the device. That gets it out completely.


Well, it wouldn't move to the bottom because at that point, it was more current than anything else in the collection, even though it wasn't on the device..

How many books do you have on your device?

Betsy


----------



## Cate Rowan

Two updates plus an OMG COOOOOL!

The 3G Paperwhite 2nd gens are now saying they're out of stock for 4-6 weeks. (Boo, hiss.) After using the PW2 for a month, it's really hard to go back to the K3. So this morning I decided to sleuth the issues my PW2 was having myself. (I've called Amazon twice for support on several issues, but as courteous as the reps were, nothing was resolved. They did give me an exemption to return the PW2, but I've been hoping the issues can be fixed.)

I'll be detailed in case this helps some other update-weary PW2 owner.

The *#1 thing* that was bugging me was that when my PW2 was sorted by Recent, five collections kept returning to the front page after every "Sync and check for new items," even though I wasn't opening them or adding books to them. They came back in random order each time, but it was always those five. The book I was *actually* reading kept getting crowded out. So I asked myself what it was about those five that made them different.

Turns out they were variations of collection names that had somehow (recently? long ago?) had an ampersand stripped out. Instead of "Memoir & Biography," for example, it was "Memoir Biography". I *also* had "Memoir & Biography" show up as a collection--so these were essentially duplicate collections that had somehow lost their ampersand, and for some reason that loss kept bumping them to the head of the line. (They weren't perfect duplicates, because some had more books than their "& twin" and some less.)

*Fix:* I made sure all the books in the "missing &" collections were put into the appropriate "& twin" collection, deleted each book from the "missing &" collection, and then deleted each "missing &" collection. So far, knock on wood, the evil, line-jumping collections haven't returned. Hooray! Which means the book I'm reading shows up first in the Recent sort.

*Second frustrating issue:* When I tried to add new items to a Cloud Collection on the PW2, I'd get this error message: "Content Not Synced: You have added items that will not be synced to the Cloud." Why oh why, Kindle gods? This was maddening, because it meant that even though the PW2 had picked up (old, incomplete) collections from the cloud, I couldn't seem to add anything new to the collections or clean them up. That meant they were kinda junk to me.

*Solution:* I noticed a pattern. That error message *only* occurs for samples. In other words, samples can be put into collections on a single device but can't sync to the cloud.

This is kind of a PITA. I use samples as my To Be Read pile. When I'm ready to read something, I buy it. Not being able to sync samples to a cloud collection limits samples' value by quite a bit. But okay, at least I know that now and can arrange my habits around that. (Sure wish the reps I talked to this week had been able to figure out what this was about, rather than telling me only that it was a "known issue" they were working on. Heck, a simple "samples can't be in cloud collections" message would have saved me a lot of frustration.)

Knowing/fixing those two things has made the PW2 a LOT more useful to me. I'm still frustrated by the update, but it's possible I can live with it now. I'll see if any new issues pop up.

Oh, and here's the *OMG COOOOOOL thing*: I just read a sample, clicked to buy the book, and the PW2 *auto-opened the new, full book right at the end of the sample content* so I could keep reading right where I left off. How neat is that I've been hoping for something like that since forever. If that's been possible before, it was the first time I've encountered it! But then, my most recent physical Kindle was a K3.

I still have a lot of gripes about collections and the implementation of this update, but color me a lot happier.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Cate Rowan said:


> *Second frustrating issue:* When I tried to add new items to a Cloud Collection on the PW2, I'd get this error message: "Content Not Synced: You have added items that will not be synced to the Cloud." Why oh why, Kindle gods? This was maddening, because it meant that even though the PW2 had picked up (old, incomplete) collections from the cloud, I couldn't seem to add anything new to the collections or clean them up. That meant they were kinda junk to me.
> 
> *Solution:* I noticed a pattern. That error message *only* occurs for samples. In other words, samples can be put into collections on a single device but can't sync to the cloud.
> 
> This is kind of a PITA. I use samples as my To Be Read pile. When I'm ready to read something, I buy it. Not being able to sync samples to a cloud collection limits samples' value by quite a bit. But okay, at least I know that now and can arrange my habits around that. (Sure wish the reps I talked to this week had been able to figure out what this was about, rather than telling me only that it was a "known issue" they were working on. Heck, a simple "samples can't be in cloud collections" message would have saved me a lot of frustration.)


Aaah! Should have asked about samples. I did ask about sideloaded content, I think, and samples are like sideloaded content in that they exist only on your device and not in your archive. I don't sample much, so I always forget about them. Good to know!



> Oh, and here's the *OMG COOOOOOL thing*: I just read a sample, clicked to buy the book, and the PW2 *auto-opened the new, full book right at the end of the sample content* so I could keep reading right where I left off. How neat is that I've been hoping for something like that since forever. If that's been possible before, it was the first time I've encountered it! But then, my most recent physical Kindle was a K3.


I think that's been the case with samples for about a year? Not sure if it was a device specific change.

Betsy


----------



## booklover888

Betsy the Quilter said:


> As I ponder my unusable updated Paperwhite (it locks up constantly) and look at the new Paperwhite that arrived today with lovely 5.4.0 on it, some not-so-random thoughts...
> 
> Betsy


So, Betsy, has the new one updated yet? Just wondering if it has the same problem as the other.


----------



## bordercollielady

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Well, it wouldn't move to the bottom because at that point, it was more current than anything else in the collection, even though it wasn't on the device..
> 
> How many books do you have on your device?
> Betsy


When I am On Device - and Recent - my Items = 800.. I only have books.. but not sure if "item" includes collections or not.. And I'm also puzzled why the greyed out book moved down. I know it was initially at the top.. Very strange


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Re: books opening to the right place when purchased from the Sample -- I think that change came in with the first PW last fall.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

bordercollielady said:


> When I am On Device - and Recent - my Items = 800.. I only have books.. but not sure if "item" includes collections or not.. And I'm also puzzled why the greyed out book moved down. I know it was initially at the top.. Very strange


If you are showing items, yes, items includes collections. On the new Paperwhite (which has NOT updated yet), I have 10 items: 6 personal collections, two uncollected books and Vocabulary Builder and the Dictionaries collection.

Betsy


----------



## Sandpiper

Cate Rowan said:


> *Second frustrating issue:* When I tried to add new items to a Cloud Collection on the PW2, I'd get this error message: "Content Not Synced: You have added items that will not be synced to the Cloud." Why oh why, Kindle gods? This was maddening, because it meant that even though the PW2 had picked up (old, incomplete) collections from the cloud, I couldn't seem to add anything new to the collections or clean them up. That meant they were kinda junk to me.
> 
> *Solution:* I noticed a pattern. That error message *only* occurs for samples. In other words, samples can be put into collections on a single device but can't sync to the cloud.


Samples never were able to be kept in the cloud. You download a sample and it's on your device. That's it. You can put it in a Collection on your device. If you get a new Kindle and want the sample on it, you have to go to Amazon's page for the book and download sample again to your new Kindle.


----------



## Leslie

Ann in Arlington said:


> Re: books opening to the right place when purchased from the Sample -- I think that change came in with the first PW last fall.


Yes, it was with the last PW.

In addition to opening the book at the right place--where you left off, even if you didn't read all the way through the sample--it also deletes the sample from your Kindle when you buy the book.

L


----------



## Cindy416

I don't usually keep my WiFi on unless I'm downloading a book, so I was really surprised a few days ago to find that the update had been downloaded and installed. I forgot that there was a new update, and had heard that it wasn't very good, so I put it out of my mind, thinking that Amazon would update the update before I received it.) Since my daughters and I share an account, and we have 1,500 or so books and many collections with which we've experimented over the years, you can only imagine what I found on my PW2! 

After talking to my daughters, whose devices probably wouldn't have been affected anyway since neither has a PW2 (yet), I decided to delete all of the collections that I don't want any longer. (We experimented with various character preceding collection names in an attempt to have them displayed in our preferred orders, so we had things like *History, _History, -History, etc.) Anyway, so far, all appears to be well with my PW2. I still don't care for the way that the listings on the cloud and on the device are duplicated, and I've emailed the proper people to let them know, but at least I don't have 154 pages of collections and books on my device any longer. I think I can live with the setup as it is now.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

'kay, so, remember how I was disappointed that my ratings when I finish a book no longer post to FB -- just GR.  Well, I just found a thing on my profile page on FB to let me link to GR "apps".  I clicked it and now the last couple of books I finished, since the update, are listed there.  As well as others I'd rated through the PW2.  Now to see if the rating posts directly to my news feed next time I finish a book.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Cool, Ann!

Betsy


----------



## backslidr

The kindle app on my original nexus 7 just updated with cloud collections. Since I had combined all my old collections into my pw2 collections and deleted the old ones, all that showed up on the nexus were the pw2 collections which means that all the old ones are gone even though they still show up on my older kindles. I suppose that means that when they update the pw1's the collections there will disappear and the pw2's will show up on that. That's fine for me but I can see where it could be a problem for other people. I'm surprised they haven't updated our earlier kindles yet since they're updating other devices now.


----------



## Susan J

7vn11vn said:


> The kindle app on my original nexus 7 just updated with cloud collections.


I've spent a lot of time cleaning up my collections since the PW2 update and just went and checked my Nexus 7. I only had a couple of books on there and they were not in collections but it was nice to see that all the work I did on my PW 2 transferred. 

I then went to my Nexus 10 since I have all the cookbooks and coffee table style books on there. It was so cool to be able to finally create a collection on my tablet and much much easier to add and remove items in collections than on my PW 2. I simply scrolled down a list of collections putting check marks where needed and it was so much faster than paging through all the collections on the PW. 

I have finally found the upside of the software update.


----------



## backslidr

Susan J said:


> I've spent a lot of time cleaning up my collections since the PW2 update and just went and checked my Nexus 7. I only had a couple of books on there and they were not in collections but it was nice to see that all the work I did on my PW 2 transferred.
> 
> I then went to my Nexus 10 since I have all the cookbooks and coffee table style books on there. It was so cool to be able to finally create a collection on my tablet and much much easier to add and remove items in collections than on my PW 2. I simply scrolled down a list of collections putting check marks where needed and it was so much faster than paging through all the collections on the PW.
> 
> I have finally found the upside of the software update.


I know. I just got the update on my Galaxy S3 phone, too, and everything's now all there in their collections. Nice.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Well, I just sent a LONG email explaining my concerns.  And I suggested they browse this thread so see what real people are saying.

I'll let you know how they respond.  The things I specifically addressed were the importation of lots of defunct or irrelevant collections, the lack of distinction between what shows as 'on device' and 'cloud', the fact that the GR integration BROKE the FB integration, and that my device has been more laggy and draining the battery faster since the update.  I went into some detail.  It was 2 and a half pages in Word. 

Susan and 7vn . . . . . FWIW, I LIKE the way the cloud collections have been implemented on the Fires.  Just don't think they did it right on the PW2.  Not sure why the difference. And it looks like kindle on my phone updated too. The app for android works like the Fires.  FWIW, it doesn't look like the Win8 version of the Kindle for PC app has been updated to utilize collections.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

I agree, I like the way collections work on the Fire. I was happy with it. And I think the difference with the implementation is that the Fire Collections are ONLY Cloud collections. There is no way to look at collections only on the device. You can either look at all your books on the device in one big list, or you can turn on Collections view, which _is_ Cloud Collections.

If I look at it from that perspective, what they have essentially done with this update is eliminate device collections. There are ONLY Cloud collections. But because the PW has On Device and Cloud views, the cloud collections show in both views. Which is misleading and unwieldy.

Betsy


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I agree, I like the way collections work on the Fire. I was happy with it. And I think the difference with the implementation is that the Fire Collections are ONLY Cloud collections. There is no way to look at collections only on the device. You can either look at all your books on the device in one big list, or you can turn on Collections view, which _is_ Cloud Collections.
> 
> If I look at it from that perspective, what they have essentially done with this update is eliminate device collections. There are ONLY Cloud collections. But because the PW has On Device and Cloud views, the cloud collections show in both views. Which is misleading and unwieldy.
> 
> Betsy


You're right. . . .that's really what they've done on the PW. So, as a solution, I'd say get rid of 'device' collections if they're not going to work as _DEVICE_ collections. But that presents a whole other set of issues! 

I'm not a programmer . . . but I don't see why they can't have both.


----------



## VictoriaP

Ann in Arlington said:


> I'm not a programmer . . . but I don't see why they can't have both.


^^^This.

I don't want them doing away with "device-only" collections, I just don't want to see items on device view _that aren't on my device_. I have no use for such a function. Since others do, it should be able be toggled on and off.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

FWIW, I did get a response to my long email.  It didn't sound like a robo-response, but didn't say much more than "thanks for the feedback; we'll let the appropriate people know."  In my letter I did reference the fact that I'd been an Amazon customer from the beginning and a kindle owner for over 5 years.  I also pointed them to this thread.


----------



## Meemo

VictoriaP said:


> ^^^This.
> 
> I don't want them doing away with "device-only" collections, I just don't want to see items on device view _that aren't on my device_. I have no use for such a function. Since others do, it should be able be toggled on and off.


Or couldn't they have added the option to see Cloud Collections as a third choice to the other two ways we've always had to view our content (Device or Cloud/Archives)?

Meanwhile, my wifi is still off, and I learned that once I've borrowed a KOLL book from my Fire, I can download it from MYK for USB transfer to my PW2.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Really, they don't need a third option, and they don't need a toggle in settings.  What they need is for 'On Device' and 'Cloud' to mean what they say. 

I have heard they'll be pushing out another Fire update to fix a problem some folks are having with the Silk browser.  One hopes that, after the Christmas rush, they'll look more closely at the PW2 and address some of the issues we've been having.  Which we're all reporting in a polite, respectful manner, right?  'Cause, grousing here doesn't really count . . . . gotta tell them directly!


----------



## VictoriaP

Ann, I'd be totally fine with your On Device/Cloud suggestion, but there are people who've said they actually *like* being able to see those greyed out entries. (Though I can't personally understand that idea, LOL!) So that's why I think a toggle might be the best way to handle this mess. Plus, I'm always for more user friendly options, since what works best for me might not be best for someone else.

Case in point, I have very little issue with Collections currently, because virtually all my books are on the device, and I cleaned out my legacy Collections weeks ago, so when I look at my PW2, I just see 6 pages of collections with no grey books. But for others, this is obviously still a pretty big ongoing issue.


----------



## GBear

VictoriaP said:


> Ann, I'd be totally fine with your On Device/Cloud suggestion, but there are people who've said they actually *like* being able to see those greyed out entries. (Though I can't personally understand that idea, LOL!) So that's why I think a toggle might be the best way to handle this mess. Plus, I'm always for more user friendly options, since what works best for me might not be best for someone else.
> 
> Case in point, I have very little issue with Collections currently, because virtually all my books are on the device, and I cleaned out my legacy Collections weeks ago, so when I look at my PW2, I just see 6 pages of collections with no grey books. But for others, this is obviously still a pretty big ongoing issue.


Still, for some it sounds like it would be a complete nightmare. I've avoided the update, so I can't comment firsthand, but I worry because:

a) I share the account with my spouse, and we each have defined our own different collections, so it seems like Cloud Collections would be a real mess; even more so if this remains unfixed and she upgrades her PW1 to a PW2+ someday.

b) My PW2 is the fourth Kindle we've had with collections, each with different collection names because the collection/title sorting rules keep changing. So I worry that all those legacy collections getting imported to my PW2 would take a long time to clean up.

As for the people who like the greyed-out titles, couldn't they just stay in "Cloud" view instead of "Device" view and get what they want?


----------



## Ann in Arlington

GBear said:


> Still, for some it sounds like it would be a complete nightmare. I've avoided the update, so I can't comment firsthand, but I worry because:
> 
> a) I share the account with my spouse, and we each have defined our own different collections, so it seems like Cloud Collections would be a real mess; even more so if this remains unfixed and she upgrades her PW1 to a PW2+ someday.
> 
> b) My PW2 is the fourth Kindle we've had with collections, each with different collection names because the collection/title sorting rules keep changing. So I worry that all those legacy collections getting imported to my PW2 would take a long time to clean up.
> 
> As for the people who like the greyed-out titles, couldn't they just stay in "Cloud" view instead of "Device" view and get what they want?


Exactly. I'm perfectly happy to have books NOT on the device but in that collection show when I choose Cloud. that's what I expected, and that's how it works on my Fire. I can see no reason why it's rational to _also_ have them show when I'm choosing ON Device. They are NOT on the device.

Actually, GBear, though you haven't gotten the update, what you wrote just there is also, I think, completely valid feedback. You are actively AVOIDING it because of what you've heard. And, yes, 'cloud collections' would mean you'd see all the ones your wife has and all the ones on devices you no longer have. I found it a pain and I'm just one person.  So I say send that to them!

I'd also note that because of your very real concern about the problems you anticipate with cloud collections, you are forgoing the GR integration and Kindle Free Time. Maybe neither one is really important to you, but imagine a parent who has a bunch of kids and wants to be able to use the free time feature, but the kids each have their own bunch of collections. As soon as those devices are updated, the kids will be NOT happy because Joey will not want Sally's silly girl collections and book titles on HIS kindle! And Sally won't want his silly boy books.

Mind you, I think going forward it won't be too bad -- as long as they fix the On Device vs Cloud issue -- but they really didn't take into consideration how it would be implemented for customers who've had kindle accounts and multiple devices since the beginning!


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

VictoriaP said:


> Ann, I'd be totally fine with your On Device/Cloud suggestion, but there are people who've said they actually *like* being able to see those greyed out entries. (Though I can't personally understand that idea, LOL!) So that's why I think a toggle might be the best way to handle this mess. Plus, I'm always for more user friendly options, since what works best for me might not be best for someone else.


I don't understand a need for a toggle, because if they look at "Cloud" view, it does show both what's on the device and what's not. And, as far as I can recall at this point, did before Cloud collections. So the people who like seeing the grayed out books would still be able to have that view. The issue is the "On Device
view. Why does that need to be the same as "Cloud" view? What's the point?



> Case in point, I have very little issue with Collections currently, because virtually all my books are on the device, and I cleaned out my legacy Collections weeks ago, so when I look at my PW2, I just see 6 pages of collections with no grey books. But for others, this is obviously still a pretty big ongoing issue.


The new system works fine if, as you say, the only collections you have are those for the books on the device. But again, if that's the way you have to use it, what's the point of Cloud collections? Using them this way is essentially what we had before....collections ON the device.

I thought Cloud collections were going to be able to help me organize my archive--that's what I needed help with, not collections on my device. I already had that.... *shakes head sadly* I just don't get it....

Betsy


----------



## BTackitt

Sweeeeeeeeeeeet Jeebers. I bought a new PW for one of the 2 people on my account who was still using a K1. It arrived yesterday, I plugged it in, hooked it to my wifi, and started sending books to it. Then...................... ALL of the collections arrived. HOLY CRAP! That is the "WORST IDEA EVER". There are 13 kindles on my account. We do not need the collections to be synchronized across all of them. There should at LEAST be an option to OPT OUT of that decision. And a way to delete those collections from a specific device without it affecting ALL other devices. THIS Is BEYOND IDIOTIC. This is IQ of 1 stupid.


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Say what you think, B...don't sugar-coat it.  

Betsy


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

This was my initial reaction:



Betsy the Quilter said:


> Here's how STOOPID (yes, I said STOOPID) this "update" is; I now have collections on my PW with zero items, because the books that are in those collections are NOT on my PW....
> 
> This is incredibily STOOPID.
> 
> And I've sent feedback to [email protected], and will probably also contact cs via email in case the feedback email no longer works.
> 
> Betsy


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

BTackitt said:


> There are 13 kindles on my account. We do not need the collections to be synchronized across all of them. There should at LEAST be an option to OPT OUT of that decision. And a way to delete those collections from a specific device without it affecting ALL other devices. THIS Is BEYOND IDIOTIC. This is IQ of 1 stupid.


Note that only "Cloud collection capable" (my term) devices will be affected, which, right now, are PW2s, Fire HDs and HDXs, Android Kindle app and iDevice Kindle App, as near as we can tell. Older devices will not have their on-device collections affected nor will they be able to access (or even import) cloud collections.

Betsy


----------



## Ann in Arlington

BTackitt said:


> Sweeeeeeeeeeeet Jeebers. I bought a new PW for one of the 2 people on my account who was still using a K1. It arrived yesterday, I plugged it in, hooked it to my wifi, and started sending books to it. Then...................... ALL of the collections arrived. HOLY CRAP! That is the "WORST IDEA EVER". There are 13 kindles on my account. We do not need the collections to be synchronized across all of them. There should at LEAST be an option to OPT OUT of that decision. And a way to delete those collections from a specific device without it affecting ALL other devices. THIS Is BEYOND IDIOTIC. This is IQ of 1 stupid.


FWIW, you can delete the collections on the PW2 and it won't affect any eInk devices that are older -- so the keyboards, basics and PW1s. It also shouldn't affect any Fires except the HDX models.

Oh . . . Betsy just said that . 

(I don't think I have cloud collection capabaility on my HD8.9 . . . . will check and report back. (That's last year's model; the new 7" HD they're selling this year might have it.))

But I agree 100% with Betsy's 1 word assessment: STOOPID


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

Yeah, I thought someone with an HD said they had cloud collections, but I couldn't remember for sure and I might have been confusing it with another issue...

Betsy


----------



## mom133d (aka Liz)

Ann in Arlington said:


> ... but imagine a parent who has a bunch of kids and wants to be able to use the free time feature, but the kids each have their own bunch of collections. As soon as those devices are updated, the kids will be NOT happy because Joey will not want Sally's silly girl collections and book titles on HIS kindle! And Sally won't want his silly boy books.


Not just that Ann. I don't want my son seeing my collections or books.


----------



## Meemo

My daughter got a PW2 as well - I'd warned her about the update when I heard about it, but she turned on wifi today and hers updated.  So now here's my question.  My understanding is that when she cleans them up, if she deletes Collections that are on older Kindles those Kindles won't be affected.  But will it affect my collections on my PW2 if (when) I have a brain toot and turn on wifi accidentally?  I don't much want to have to recreate them.  I'm thinking I can send her a list of the Collections I have and she can just leave them be and all will be well?


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

No, once your PW21 has updated and downloaded the initial collections, changes to older devices will not be imported. It's a one time thing.  We tested.

Betsy

Sent from my KFire HDX8.9 using Tapatalk


----------



## GBear

Betsy the Quilter said:


> No, once your PW21 has updated and downloaded the initial collections, changes to older devices will not be imported. It's a one time thing. We tested.
> 
> Betsy
> 
> Sent from my KFire HDX8.9 using Tapatalk


But did you test two PW2's to see if they keep trying to synchronize each other? I think that's Meemo's situation and one that I'm worried about in the future.

Also, somebody asked if library books, which show up in MYK, get listed in the Cloud Collections and thus in the Device Viewed as greyed-out clutter. I'm not sure if that question got answered?


----------



## GBear

Ann in Arlington said:


> Actually, GBear, though you haven't gotten the update, what you wrote just there is also, I think, completely valid feedback. You are actively AVOIDING it because of what you've heard. And, yes, 'cloud collections' would mean you'd see all the ones your wife has and all the ones on devices you no longer have. I found it a pain and I'm just one person.  So I say send that to them!


I just sent Amazon an e-mail with my concerns. I also pointed to this thread and told them about at least one person switching from Paperwhite to Basic Kindle because of this issue. Thanks for encouraging me to e-mail them, and I hope things get fixed soon!


----------



## Betsy the Quilter

GBear said:


> But did you test two PW2's to see if they keep trying to synchronize each other? I think that's Meemo's situation and one that I'm worried about in the future.
> 
> Also, somebody asked if library books, which show up in MYK, get listed in the Cloud Collections and thus in the Device Viewed as greyed-out clutter. I'm not sure if that question got answered?


Sorry, I missed that. Yes, any devices that are Cloud-collection-capable will be affected by changes on another cloud-collection-capable device. It's very clear--it warns you that that is the case when you delete a collection. EDIT: It takes a few seconds--maybe up to 30 in my case--for the the second PW2 to update.

As for library books, I don't think the question got answered because it hasn't been tested. I don't check out that many library books and haven't wade through MYK to look. Perhaps someone who checks out more library books than I do can look.

Betsy


----------



## FearIndex

Maybe this thread could be called...

_So you didn't like the Paperwhite 5.4.2, now what? The solutions thread_


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Ann in Arlington said:


> 'kay, so, remember how I was disappointed that my ratings when I finish a book no longer post to FB -- just GR. Well, I just found a thing on my profile page on FB to let me link to GR "apps". I clicked it and now the last couple of books I finished, since the update, are listed there. As well as others I'd rated through the PW2. Now to see if the rating posts directly to my news feed next time I finish a book.


And, it didn't. The book I just finished is showing in 'books' on FB, when I go to my profile page, but it does not appear to be in the news feed as it goes out to the world.  I suppose I should go to GR and write a little short something and see if that posts . . . I expect there will be an option that way, but it feels to me like a whole extra step.

I like that they're adding features . . . .but as we've often said here . . . . it would be even better if there were options.

Ah well . . . . hoping for something to fix a few things in the new year.


----------



## Susan J

Betsy the Quilter said:


> As for library books, I don't think the question got answered because it hasn't been tested. I don't check out that many library books and haven't wade through MYK to look. Perhaps someone who checks out more library books than I do can look.
> 
> Betsy


Yes, a library book that I recently downloaded through Overdrive and have removed from device is showing up in the collection as a grayed out item.


----------



## GBear

Susan J said:


> Yes, a library book that I recently downloaded through Overdrive and have removed from device is showing up in the collection as a grayed out item.


Thanks, Susan. And that's even after you returned it?! I'm okay with Manage Your Kindle keeping track of library books that I've read, but once library books are returned I would say that they are neither on my device nor in the cloud. I may have even more library books than purchased books, so that would seriously add to the clutter.


----------



## Susan J

GBear said:


> Thanks, Susan. And that's even after you returned it?! I'm okay with Manage Your Kindle keeping track of library books that I've read, but once library books are returned I would say that they are neither on my device nor in the cloud. I may have even more library books that purchased books, so that would seriously add to the clutter.


Yes, its after the book has been removed and returned. I don't have all my library books listed, only the ones that I have left in a collection.


----------



## Meemo

Betsy the Quilter said:


> Sorry, I missed that. Yes, any devices that are Cloud-collection-capable will be affected by changes on another cloud-collection-capable device. It's very clear--it warns you that that is the case when you delete a collection. EDIT: It takes a few seconds--maybe up to 30 in my case--for the the second PW2 to update.
> 
> As for library books, I don't think the question got answered because it hasn't been tested. I don't check out that many library books and haven't wade through MYK to look. Perhaps someone who checks out more library books than I do can look.
> 
> Betsy


Thanks, Betsy, that was how I understood it but wanted to verify before my daughter started deleting. She said it isn't all that bad, but when I look on my iPad Mini on the Kindle App, there are way too many Collections there - I think I counted over 100! (Between 6 people on the account, 4 of whom have had multiple Kindles. I'm not completely Kollection Krazy!) Anyway, she's holding off on deleting anything, at least for now.


----------



## Lursa (aka 9MMare)

Wow! I found this thread almost 2 weeks ago. It took me days to read it all, all 18 pages.  The whole time I was hoping to find a solution or new update at at the end. Most of all, I'm glad I found it before buying a PW2.

The thread is super helpful tho. I am a collection-aholic. I have about 25 collections and then a 'read' one for most of those. I started with my original K Keyboard where I had to use symbols to organize them and then had to redo them all with numbers for my PW1. 

I have about 800 books and am the only user of my devices. So used and prepared correctly, this doesnt necessarily mean the end of the world for me. As it is now, it would probably be workable...with alot of work to reorganize. 

So, I am very glad that I waited to buy a PW2. I had hoped to buy it in mid-Dec and then spend my time off around the holiday reorganizing and sorting books to the new device (which always seems needed no matter what.). I also have last yrs K Fire HD.

Well....sorry Amazon, but no deal. I'm not buying a new PW2 yet and will wait to see where the chips may fall! Again, all of your posts have been so helpful. Your research and work around efforts are appreciated. I will continue to follow the saga and keep track of all my questions.

Edit: LOL just like when I'm reading a book...I did not peek at the last page!


----------



## GBear

Lursa (aka 9MMare) said:


> Well....sorry Amazon, but no deal. I'm not buying a new PW2 yet and will wait to see where the chips may fall! Again, all of your posts have been so helpful. Your research and work around efforts are appreciated. I will continue to follow the saga and keep track of all my questions.


As Ann urged me, it would be helpful to let Amazon know why you're not buying a PW2 as planned...


----------



## mlewis78

I have not read the entire thread, but . . . I thought I would manage not to get the update, but I occasionally turn on wi-fi for a new book or to sync with my fire for the page I am up to.  Last night after I finished reading (very, very late), all those collections showed up on my paperwhite.  18 pages of collections.  It had every collection I'd ever created on various kindles since they started collections.  I never imported collections from an old to new kindle.  I created new ones every time.  When I used my K3 (keyboard), I had numerous collections but for the last two I kept it simpler with fiction, non-fiction, reading now and reading soon.

Some of the collections have the same names and are listed two or more times.  Some of them have no books, so I deleted those and had to have wi-fi on to do that.  I spent 45 minutes on this and it was already very late.

I can't imagine what they were thinking when they came up with this.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Again: express your dissatisfaction and the trouble it caused you via Kindle support.  Yours might be the feedback submission that makes them realize -- WHOA! We've got to fix this!


----------



## backslidr

I've read on many forums that while there are people who don't like the update there are plenty of people who do. Most people have found workarounds that they're happy with. I think Amazon gave us just what they intended to and it's up to us now to rework our collections because cloud collections are what Amazon wants for the future so we can sync all our devices together. I know there are people who are ticked off now, but if Amazon goes and changes it again they're going to piss off a whole lot more people.


----------



## bordercollielady

7vn11vn said:


> if Amazon goes and changes it again they're going to p*ss off a whole lot more people.


Not if they make it a choice ... you can do anything in software.. just add new settings.


----------



## mlewis78

I don't know if this has been discussed, but if I delete some of the numerous collections on my paperwhite, will I lose the books from the cloud?  I've deleted the collections that had no books in them.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

mlewis78 said:


> I don't know if this has been discussed, but if I delete some of the numerous collections on my paperwhite, will I lose the books from the cloud? I've deleted the collections that had no books in them.


Yes. But. If you have no other 'cloud compatible devices', it won't really matter. Your older kindles will work the same as they always have.


----------



## HappyGuy

mlewis78 - no you won't lose your books from the cloud.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

HappyGuy said:


> mlewis78 - no you won't lose your books from the cloud.


sorry. . . .I misread the question. . . Happy Guy is right. You don't every lose your books from the cloud -- unless you go to Amazon and delete them via MYK. And your collections on any other devices you have won't be lost either.

If you remove a cloud collection, books that are in only the cloud will still be there, and books that are downloaded will show as 'uncollected' on your home page -- assuming they're not also in some other collection.


----------



## GBear

7vn11vn said:


> I've read on many forums that while there are people who don't like the update there are plenty of people who do. Most people have found workarounds that they're happy with. I think Amazon gave us just what they intended to and it's up to us now to rework our collections because cloud collections are what Amazon wants for the future so we can sync all our devices together. I know there are people who are ticked off now, but if Amazon goes and changes it again they're going to p*ss off a whole lot more people.


7vn11vn (sorry, Ann), I agree with you that Amazon wants all of us to live in the cloud, the Amazon cloud in particular. Cloud collections aren't going away, for sure. But I still maintain that the current implementation is broken as long as:
1) there is only one version of cloud collections allowed per account, because often multiple people share a single account and wish to customize their collections to their reading tastes; and
2) it's not possible to see a "clean" view of what's actually loaded on the device, so that the ever-growing cloud media doesn't clutter up the interface if you just want to see "local" media.

It would also help if there was web access, in MYK or another tool, to manage collections (individually and independently of content) at the cloud level, since individual devices are likely to utilize a subset of the "master library" of collections. If I did perform the firmware upgrade, I'd have to spend a fair amount of time organizing collections for my Kindle without interfering with my wife's collections. If I had to replace my Kindle, I think I'd have to do the same thing all over again. That's not right.


----------



## Ann in Arlington

GBear said:


> Ann, I agree with you that Amazon wants all of us to live in the cloud, the Amazon cloud in particular. Cloud collections aren't going away, for sure. But I still maintain that the current implementation is broken as long as:
> 1) there is only one version of cloud collections allowed per account, because often multiple people share a single account and wish to customize their collections to their reading tastes; and
> 2) it's not possible to see a "clean" view of what's actually loaded on the device, so that the ever-growing cloud media doesn't clutter up the interface if you just want to see "local" media.
> 
> It would also help if there was web access, in MYK or another tool, to manage collections (individually and independently of content) at the cloud level, since individual devices are likely to utilize a subset of the "master library" of collections. If I did perform the firmware upgrade, I'd have to spend a fair amount of time organizing collections for my Kindle without interfering with my wife's collections. If I had to replace my Kindle, I think I'd have to do the same thing all over again. That's not right.


GBear, I agree with that. There should be a way to differentiate between 'cloud' and 'on device'. I've been saying that ever since I got the update.  When I'm in 'cloud' it works just the way I'd expect. When I'm 'on device', it works exactly the same and it shouldn't. 

7vn11vn (whom you quoted) seems to think maybe nothing will be done because it appears there are as many people perfectly happy as unhappy. I don't know that I'd agree with that -- here, at least, many more have expressed that they're not thrilled with the change than have said it's peachy keen and just what they wanted. There's another subset that isn't much chuffed one way or the other. But I still think the 'not happy' are the biggest group of the three. No hard data though -- just going with my gut. 

Regardless of whether a person is happy with the update or not, it's good to send feedback to Amazon . . . being specific about likes and dislikes.


----------



## Meemo

So I had a mini-epiphany today - I know that sooner or later I'm going to have a brain toot and turn on wifi and get the update.  I have a huge number of archived collections from previous and current Kindle from the 6 people on my account.  So I went through the few collections on my PW2 and added a "designator" so that when that happens, I'll know which of the collections are the ones on my PW2 that I want to keep.  I'll tell my daughter (who also has a PW2, the only other Kindle on my account that's affected by this update, at least for now) to do the same thing.  That way she and I can delete any other collections from our PW2s, just leaving mine and hers.  Hopefully hers will fall to the bottom of the list on my Kindle, and vice versa.  We'll see how that works in the long run.  I won't have too many grayed out books in my Collections, because I mostly sideload from Calibre these days.  So it shouldn't be too painful.  I hope.  

ETA:  And now I wish I'd just left wifi off!     14 pages of Collections.  It won't be so bad once DD gets hers tagged.  But still.  What a pain.  And of course they sort alphabetically.  Guess I'll just keep things sorted by Most Recent, that way I can (mostly) keep my Collections at the top of the list, and DD can do the same.  It's just so frustrating to have had it just how I wanted it, and now there's no way to get it that way again.  It's one of those updates that I just don't get - I don't see what's actually an improvement.  Ah well.


----------



## stevene9

It seems to me that if Amazon was going to do something about this, they would have already done it. The fix doen't seem that it would be that hard, so we may be stuck with this. They seem to want to force us to be totally cloud based, and I don't like it.

Steve


----------



## Ann in Arlington

Well, it's only been about a month . . .I've not given up hope yet. 

Sent from my Kindle Fire HDX.


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## PraiseGod13

I'm jumping in late here, but I needed to report a defective Kindle book that I got yesterday to CS and they required me to have the update in order to prove the problem was with the book and not my PW2. The update totally messed up my Kindle and I spent the next 3 hrs on the phone with various CS people. I too now have collections that I deleted years ago and they have never been on my PW2 until the update.  What I hate most of all is that collections that had two pages of titles this morning before the update, now have 24 pages of titles - most grayed-out and not actually on my Kindle.  But, to get to a book that I read daily, that used to be on page 2 of the collection, I now have to go through 20+ pages of worthless titles to get to it.  This is beyond ridiculous! CS had me download a couple of the grayed-out titles and then delete them from my Kindle. The book went away but its title is still there in gray.  I do NOT want 700 titles of books that are not on my Kindle listed unnecessarily in my collections clogging them up!!  CS acted like they knew nothing of this problem and even the supervisor said it is ridiculous to have to deal with 22 pages of worthless titles of books not on my Kindle for each collection I have.  Something has to be done!


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## Betsy the Quilter

7vn11vn said:


> Most people have found workarounds that they're happy with.


See right there^, that shows there's a problem. One doesn't need to find "work arounds" for something that's good.

And, frankly, the only workaround that works for most people that I've read is to have a limited number of collections that only shows what is actually on the device. How is that "cloud collections?"

*shakes head sadly*

Betsy


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## Ann in Arlington

Provide feedback via Kindle support.

The way to get the 'gray' titles out of the collections is to remove them from the collections.

First, I'd suggest you go through and delete any collections you no longer use.  That'll help a lot, and, if you're the only one on your account, might be all that you find you really need.

Sort by collections and, within collections, sort by recent.  That will probably put the books ACTUALLY on your device listed first.

If you are still annoyed by grayed out titles, download the title, press and hold the title to get the pop up and touch 'add to collection'.  UNCHECK any boxes that are checked, and then DONE.  NOW, the title will appear on your home page uncollected and you can remove it from the device.  

If you ALSO have a Fire with cloud collections, it's rather easier to do it via that device, because you can select multiple things pretty quickly. 

You can, on the PW'13, select a group of things to remove by pressing and holding the collection title; you get an 'add/remove items' choice.  Problem is you're then faced with hundreds of pages of EVERY BOOK YOU EVER BOUGHT so it's practically impossible to find the books you want to 'uncollect' so you can delete them from the device.  And the (in my case, 28 pages don't have any indication whether a given book is or is not on the device.  This is the same whether you are in 'Cloud' or 'Device'.

I think it's been said before:  STOOPID.


eta:  I sent feedback before and I'm about ready to again, just to re-iterate how poorly thought out I think it is and relate further issues I've found. (The above is one of them.)  Also, try as I might and play with GoodReads as I might I can NOT get my rating/comment to show on FB as it used to do.  I had been in the habit of rating when I finished the book and it'd post to FB where I'd put a short comment about why I rated it the way I did.  I CAN NOT DO THAT ANYMORE.  Oh, I can rate it, and it does get posted to my amazon account for use in recommendations, and it goes to GoodReads.  Yesterday I figure out how to make a comment -- though it's NOT intuitive at all.  But I can't get that comment to go anywhere BUT GoodReads, even though I have, I think, adjusted all the settings both there and on FB to make the two talk to each other.

I have no problem with having the GR integration, but I don't really use the site and I would prefer a way to link to FB directly rather than having to go through GR.  Oh, and, by the way, have it work the way it used to.


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## Betsy the Quilter

Ann in Arlington said:


> If you are still annoyed by grayed out titles, download the title, press and hold the title to get the pop up and touch 'add to collection'. UNCHECK any boxes that are checked, and then DONE. NOW, the title will appear on your home page uncollected and you can remove it from the device.


I don't have my Paperwhite with me, but can't you just press and hold on the book in the collection on the cloud (or select it from the menu) and remove the items that aren't on the device? I don't believe you have to download first, anyway...

Betsy

Sent from my KFire HDX8.9 using Tapatalk


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## Meemo

You're right, Betsy. I just tried that and happily I was able to go into a Collection on my home page (in Device view, not Cloud view) and delete some grayed out books in that Collection. Makes it much nicer. 

But as you and others have pointed out, it's a workaround that shouldn't be necessary. If I'm looking at "On Device", I should only see books that are on that device. For that matter I should only see the Collections that are on that device. 

STOOPID. Probably time for more feedback to Amazon...


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## PraiseGod13

Well, I decided to dedicate yesterday to removing my grayed-out titles from my collections on my PW2 using the "download the book/uncheck it in your list of collections (which sends it to the end of your Home pages)/remove it from the device from the Home page" Method.  I had over 800 grayed-out book titles and it took me almost eleven hours.  I did have four books that wouldn't download so that I could remove them from the collection, so I will just live with them.  But, I have several collections that had 24 pages before the removal process and now they are back to their normal two pages.  It was definitely worth it so that I'm not wading through over one hundred pages of worthless titles.  I've been in contact with Kindle CS by phone three times and once by email, and I'll be staying in touch with them in the hope that they see the need to fix this STOOPUD mess!


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## Ann in Arlington

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I don't have my Paperwhite with me, but can't you just press and hold on the book in the collection on the cloud (or select it from the menu) and remove the items that aren't on the device? I don't believe you have to download first, anyway...
> 
> Betsy
> 
> Sent from my KFire HDX8.9 using Tapatalk


Hmmm . . . . maybe . . . . I thought I tried that and it didn't work but I could be mistaken . . . . that would certainly make it easier by leaving out one step!


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## VictoriaP

Ann in Arlington said:


> Hmmm . . . . maybe . . . . I thought I tried that and it didn't work but I could be mistaken . . . . that would certainly make it easier by leaving out one step!


You absolutely do NOT need to download a book before removing it from a Collection.

Press and hold briefly on a greyed out title (while in a collection in device view). A menu will pop up, with "Add to Home", "Add to Collection", and "Book Description" as your options. Choose "Add to Collection" and then uncheck any Collections you wish to remove the book from. Tap "Done", and the greyed book will vanish from your Device view.

I just walked through this myself to confirm, so I know for certain it works this way.


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## Meemo

Unfortunately I fear I have discovered another STOOPID-ity in the new system. Apparently changes you make in your Collections sync across devices including sorting - including recent-ness. When I woke up this morning I finished a book. I went to my Home page, which was sorted in "Recent" order. Wifi was on. Apparently my daughter (who also has an updated PW2) had added her initial to her Collections. ALL HER COLLECTIONS WERE LISTED BEFORE MINE. What the heck good is the "Device" listing anymore  It didn't even dawn on me at first - I just sighed and opened up each of my Collections so they'd show up first. Later it hit me - when she turns on wifi all my Collections will probably be listed first on her Kindle. 

Yeah. Definitely time to send my updated feedback. I'm also wondering - I've deleted all the other Collections - but if/when one of the other folks on my account gets a  new Kindle with Cloud Collections, will they still be able to see their Collections from their KK or their K$79 so they can import them, or will they be hosed??  I fear they'll be hosed. Sigh.


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## Ann in Arlington

I don't think it messes anything up on older devices . . . .just the 2013 PW.  And, arguably, the new Fires, but it's implemented much better on them.  It's like older eInks can't even see the cloud collections so they don't get imported and changes on older devices won't get re-uploaded after you've initiated the cloud collections once.


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## backslidr

Once they're deleted they're gone. Their collections will stay on their older kindles now, but when they get a pw2 they'll have to start over again. Of course then you'll get all their new collections on yours too.


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## GBear

Yes, I think it's a very bad situation for those of us (many, I think) who use collections and add a PW2 to an account with multiple older kindles and users. It gets absurdly horrible as more of the users sharing an account upgrade to PW2+ with Cloud Collections, which Meemo discovered. I'm going to send more feedback to Amazon that I couldn't possibly purchase another Paperwhite unless and until this is fixed. Perhaps that will help get their attention.

I don't know if this will get Amazon to rethink their apparent strategy to make everyone try to figure out how to live in their cloud, even if it's painful. It reminds me a bit of the Netflix gaffe of trying to convince their customers to move away from DVDs into cloud streaming, even though the newest and most compelling content isn't available on the cloud.


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## GBear

Today marks the three-month anniversary of the 5.4.2 release. I "celebrated" by calling Kindle Support and asking if they had any status on a new firmware version that I could accept for use on my PW2. The person I talked to had no knowledge of anything coming, but I listed for him once again my (our!) issues and suggestions for improvements:

1) "Device View" is cluttered with all the cloud content. The person I was talking to empathized with this, because he was just provided a Paperwhite and found his screen cluttered with all his kids' comic books and other stuff as he tried to navigate to his books. So my suggestion was to limit device view to just what's on the device.

2) Collections are inherited from all previous Kindles (six in our family account) and synced across all Kindles using cloud collections. This immediately creates a vast mess for people who have used collections extensively, that is a real pain to clean up. Furthermore, if two or more people sharing a single account both try to clean up their mess - or simply try to move forward with their own collection system - it's impossible to do so without impacting the collections of other users on the account. Suggestion: Support collections that are inherently specific to a single device, allowing collections to optionally sync with user-designated other devices.

3) People have reported decreased battery life following the cloud collection update, presumably related to the increased wifi communications associated with syncing cloud collection data. (Theory supported by reports that battery life improved when collections were deleted.) The Kindle support tech felt that this issue was likely to catch the attention of engineering, since battery life problems are taken very seriously.

He promised to submit the issues to the development team.

Here's hoping for a 5.4.3 to address all of these cloud collection issues, preferably before we celebrate the six-month anniversary!


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## booklover888

Three months, and nothing? Unbelievable! It shouldn't take this long to fix something they broke. I'm surprised at Amazon!


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## Meemo

GBear, that's a good summary of the issues - I've sent Amazon feedback already about the Cloud Collections issue but I need to send again.  I've been keeping wifi off to avoid the "update to the update" because of the potential battery issues.  

I still love reading on my Paperwhite (although I'm using my iPad Mini and Fire HD right now, testing the Scribd apps) but the home page still makes me nuts.


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## stevene9

booklover888 said:


> Three months, and nothing? Unbelievable! It shouldn't take this long to fix something they broke. I'm surprised at Amazon!


I'm not sure they view this stuff as a problem. A few complaints, but most people don't bother to say anything, even if they don't like it.


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## Ann in Arlington

stevene9 said:


> I'm not sure they view this stuff as a problem. A few complaints, but most people don't bother to say anything, even if they don't like it.


All the more reason anyone with in site of these words I'm typing who has 'issues' with the update should contact Amazon and explain exactly what doesn't work for them. Don't assume someone else already did. And even if they did, the more people with constructive feedback, the better.


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## backslidr

Also, if you like the update they'd probably like to hear that too.


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