# Paperwhite problem with Importing Collections



## Tatiana (Aug 20, 2010)

I charged my new PW and downloaded 300 of my books from the 1540 archived in the cloud.  I followed the instructions for importing collections from my Touch to my new PW.  It didn't import any of them (there are five pages of collections).  I tried five times on my own and three times KCS walked me through it to no avail.

I follow all the steps to import the collections from my K-T; when the process is finished I go to my Home page and NOTHING...just the 300 books listed but no collections.  In the past when I imported collections on my other devices the books just fell into the newly imported collections on the new device.  The collections will not import on my Paperwhite.  

I put in a call to Kindle Customer Service and first talked to Josh...he walked me through the process and NOTHING.    He was baffled so he transferred me up the line to Kindle Customer Service Technical Support.  Marlene walked me through the process again...for the seventh and eighth times...NOTHING!!  No collections imported.  She "checked other 'sources' and could not determine why it would not import the collections since I have the most recent software for the PW.  

Marlene sent it on to the  Developers for further investigation and will call me back tomorrow afternoon.  I suppose I can recreate my collections but it is time consuming, etc.  AND I want a device that works properly in EVERY way.  Is that asking too much?

So I'll wait until tomorrow...  

But, in every other way it's a fabulous new device!


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## VondaZ (Apr 21, 2009)

Collections imported okay on my Paperwhite and the books automatically went into the appropriate collection.

These may be stupid questions, but they are the kind of thing I might forget to do:

1. Did you switch back to "Device" from "Cloud"?

2. Did you switch the view list to "Collections" from "Recent" (or Author or Title - depending on how you set the view last)?


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

Tatiana said:


> I charged my new PW and downloaded 300 of my books from the 1540 archived in the cloud. I followed the instructions for importing collections from my Touch to my new PW. It didn't import any of them (there are five pages of collections). I tried five times on my own and three times KCS walked me through it to no avail.
> 
> I follow all the steps to import the collections from my K-T; when the process is finished I go to my Home page and NOTHING...just the 300 books listed but no collections. In the past when I imported collections on my other devices the books just fell into the newly imported collections on the new device. The collections will not import on my Paperwhite.
> 
> ...


I'm in the same boat. I tried to import from several places but it just won't let me. I've done this about a million times so I'm not sure what's going on. Maybe a few days in the system and it will work out.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I just tried to get my collections from my K3. I didn't download any of the books yet. I wanted to do that later. I am not seeing the collections either. But I think the system to sync might just be a bit overloaded. I have 3 pages of collections. 

Sometimes sync stuff takes a while to catch up. The funniest thing is that I still have collections listed there from years ago when I had to have 3 replacements of the K3. I gave them funky names at the time to separate them. I even have one listed under Atunah's 3rd kindle. Which was one of the replacements back then. I had no idea they keep all the old collections for devices.

I somehow expect the collections to show up at some point. Or not.  

Maybe this is a sign for me to cut them down a bit


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## VondaZ (Apr 21, 2009)

Atunah said:


> I just tried to get my collections from my K3. I didn't download any of the books yet. I wanted to do that later.


If I recall, you have to download the books first, or they won't go into the appropriate collections and you will have to do that manually.


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## Jen200 (Aug 6, 2010)

To import your collections, tap Cloud, then tap the menu, and hit Import Collections.  Only the books that are on the PW when you do this will be automatically added to the collection.


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## Steph H (Oct 28, 2008)

But if you do the same thing when/if you add more books in bunches, they'll get added too. Or at least that's how it's worked with past Kindles through the K4.


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## ElaineOK (Jun 5, 2009)

I second the comment about checking your display order from recent (or title or author) to collections.  I know it is about as obvious as making sure a power cord is plugged in, but when I imported to my Touch; I didn't think of it and about had heart failure after having spent over FOUR HOURS transferring all my stuff.  

Elaine 
Norman, OK


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## Vicki G. (Feb 18, 2010)

Steph H said:


> But if you do the same thing when/if you add more books in bunches, they'll get added too. Or at least that's how it's worked with past Kindles through the K4.


NOPE! It don't work like that. I thought it did too, back when I got my Touch but you can only import Collections one time. Sorry!


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Vicki G. said:


> NOPE! It don't work like that. I thought it did too, back when I got my Touch but you can only import Collections one time. Sorry!


Not true. . . .but Steph is not exactly right either.

What you can do is re import collections _any time you want_.

So, if you load up 50 books and then import collections, they'll automatically sort into the right ones. Then, when you load up another 50 books, they'll just sit there on the home screen. But you just import collections _again_ and the new ones will sort themselves. You can do this as many times as you need to get all your books imported.

I would offer the caution that the PW has less memory than the K3K or K2 so if you're moving from one of those devices, you might not be able to load ALL your books. It's the same amount of memory as the K4. . . I don't recall what the KTouch had.


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## KingAl (Feb 21, 2011)

Vicki G. said:


> NOPE! It don't work like that. I thought it did too, back when I got my Touch but you can only import Collections one time. Sorry!


That's actually not true. I imported collections several times on my Touch.


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

It's not working on my end. Thought it might be a software issue or an update so I rebooted the PW but still no luck. I'm going to give it a day and see what happens. If there are still issues I'll contact Amazon. It's not the end of the world but it is annoying.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Bethany, on the home page, is it saying Books or My Items?  Because if it says 'Books' you won't actually see the collections.  That's different to the previous non touch K's -- and the Touch K, too, I think but I never had one of those so not sure.

If it says My Items, it'll show collections first, as on other kindles, if you have the sort on the right set to collections.


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

That's not it either. I have it set to My Items but the Collections isn't available to click on. I mean, it's there but a light color. I've tried to import from both my PC and my Touch. Both have the little working signal at the top but then nothing happens. It's really annoying. Any other suggestions?


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

And you went to 'Cloud', tapped the menu, and tapped 'import collections', yes?


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

Yup. I had several options to pick from there but Bethany's Touch & Bethany's Kindle for PC are the ones that I use. When I touch them a screen pops up and asks if I want to continue. Touch yes and it starts thinking. I've got 120 on the device so there should be some that go into collections. I've had this problem before with the touch and it worked after I rebooted it. Nothing with the PW.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Hmmm.

Well. . . . there are probably half a million people playing with things today.  And there'll be another half million tomorrow.  What I'd suggest is maybe do a restart and try again.  If by, say, Thursday, you still can't get it to import, give Kindle CS a call.  

You could also try the old 'turn wireless off/turn wireless on' trick.  Sometimes, even though it's showing that it's connected it helps to give it a jump start sort of.


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

Thanks! I thought about doing a reset if all else fails. I don't have much on it and it would be easy to get them off the cloud.


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## Tatiana (Aug 20, 2010)

Jen200 said:


> To import your collections, tap Cloud, then tap the menu, and hit Import Collections. Only the books that are on the PW when you do this will be automatically added to the collection.


I did this eight times, three times at the step-by-step instructions of the Kindle Customer Service Reps. Still no collections imported. They are baffled and the development techies are looking into it. They told me to Sync it, which I'd done three times also and that didn't help at all either. KCS had me turn wireless of then back on, I reset it also. Nada, nothing. I had tried everything KCS suggested before I called them but did it all again & again while I was on the phone with them as they suggested.

I mentioned Reset to Factory and starting from scratch but the KCS said not to do that but let the techs work on it first.

I'm waiting to see what they say tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Bethany B. said:


> Thanks! I thought about doing a reset if all else fails. I don't have much on it and it would be easy to get them off the cloud.


Try a restart first. . . if the wireless on/off doesn't work. . . make the reset the last resort.


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## Tatiana (Aug 20, 2010)

Bethany B. said:


> That's not it either. I have it set to My Items but the Collections isn't available to click on. I mean, it's there but a light color. I've tried to import from both my PC and my Touch. Both have the little working signal at the top but then nothing happens. It's really annoying. Any other suggestions?


KCS said it's grayed out because there are no collections.l


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Tatiana said:


> KCS said it's grayed out because there are no collections.l


Well, yeah, because apparently they won't import for you. 

I'm thinking it has to be a connection issue, which could just be because there are so many new kindles getting registered and books getting downloaded. So my suggestion still stand, in this order.

Toggle Wireless off and on and try again.
Forget your initial wireless and re-enter it.
perform a restart
perform a reset

If none of that works. . . .and I'd probably try it several times in various orders. ..then I'd definitely contact CS. But, given how busy their servers probably are today and tomorrow, I'd wait until Thursday to see if the problem fixes itself.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

I tried everything too, it will not import the darn things.  

So I made a couple of new collections and those show just fine. I think I'll just start scratch on the PW with its own collections. I will not keep as much on it as I do on my K3 so that will work out fine. 

I tried the importing like 3 times so I bet tomorrow they all come in times 3  .

I am sure they'll figure it out. I had to fix my time, I did a restart like 3 times, so I tried everything for now. Somehow they collection sync is just not working right now.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

It's odd. . . . mine imported right away correctly. Sorry?


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## Tatiana (Aug 20, 2010)

Atunah said:


> I tried everything too, it will not import the darn things.
> 
> So I made a couple of new collections and those show just fine. I think I'll just start scratch on the PW with its own collections. I will not keep as much on it as I do on my K3 so that will work out fine.
> 
> ...


I've tried everything everyone suggested multiple times to no avail. I made up some new collections and I'm not going to worry about it any more. EVERYTHING else is working just fine.  I'm keeping much less on the actual device than I did on my K-T and my K-3. I'm quite pleased with my new Paperwhite. It fits into my Oberon K-T cover but the straps are a bit looser tho' it doesn't wiggle around or move in the cover.


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

Same with me. Maybe I'll give it a try again here in a few days. In the end I guess it's not the end of the world.


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

So I think I may see part of the issue. Has anyone else noticed the YourMediaLibrary on Amazon? Looks like they are shifting things to this and it could be causing some issues. Didn't notice it the other day when I was messing around but maybe I'm wrong. 

Interesting thing I noticed on there, seems you can now gift books from your library. Might solve the whole, who gets the books when you die, thing.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Bethany B. said:


> Interesting thing I noticed on there, seems you can now gift books from your library. Might solve the whole, who gets the books when you die, thing.


  Wow. That IS new. . . . . I'll have to investigate when the dust has settled a bit!


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

Looks like a great idea to me. The previous way they had it set up just wasn't that great. It was hard to find things and didn't work all that well.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=yml_topnav_help?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200128600

Love that they have made services the main objective. It will win me over every time. 

EDIT- Tried to gift to see and got this:
Amazon MP3s, Unbox videos, Kindle books and other digital items cannot be moved to the Gift List because digital items are not transferrable

Worth a shot.  Well it's still a good thing.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I just imported my collections.  I had 23 books on Harper, my PW that I had purchased ahead of time, they downloaded automatically once I connected to my network.  Then, I imported collections from Buffy, my KT.  Since all of the books on Harper had never been in a collection, there were no books in the collections after they imported. 

They were immediately visible in cover view.  Then, I clicked on each collection and added the books that were already on Harper.

Everything worked exactly as it should.

Betsy


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## Dragle (Dec 10, 2011)

So... where did you all find these "instructions" on how to import your collections?  I don't find anything in the Users' Guide.


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

Dragle said:


> So... where did you all find these "instructions" on how to import your collections? I don't find anything in the Users' Guide.


To import a collection from another Kindle device: If you created a collection on a different Kindle and want to use it for organizing content on your Kindle Paperwhite, you can import the collection from Archived Items.Importing a collection does not download its content. Before you import a collection, download its content to your Kindle Paperwhite from the Cloud. 
From the Home screen, select Cloud. 
Select Menu and then select Import Collections. 
Select the device you want to import a collection from, and then select OK.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_left_sib?ie=UTF8&nodeId=200954110


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## Lursa (aka 9MMare) (Jun 23, 2011)

So will I have to download my books to the PW first and then import my collections?


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## Dragle (Dec 10, 2011)

Thanks, Bethany!


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

Dragle said:


> Thanks, Bethany!


No problem.  Had to do this last year with my Touch and was ready to start breaking things. Isn't going so great this time around but I'm letting it go. It will either work or I'll call.



Lursa (aka 9MMare) said:


> So will I have to download my books to the PW first and then import my collections?


Yup. Just go to cloud and start tapping...er touching. I still think this could be improved since you have to pull things off of cloud and that might be a lot of books for some *cough cough* but it's as good as it gets for now. Cloud is something I both love and hate. It's nice to have so much storage for the books I've finished but I still have a ton in my 'to read' lists. Oh well.

btw- I think Betsy or Ann mentioned this, but you can actually import the collections first. Either way you have to bring them off the cloud to use. If you have a number of books that you want sorted then you'll need to go back and import again. It's an extra step and would just be easier to get the books first.  Good luck!


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Bethany B. said:


> btw- I think Betsy or Ann mentioned this, but you can actually import the collections first. Either way you have to bring them off the cloud to use. If you have a number of books that you want sorted then you'll need to go back and import again. It's an extra step and would just be easier to get the books first.  Good luck!


Yes. . . .you can import collections any time AND more than once. . . .but if you want books you've already sorted to go where they belong, they have to be on the device when you import the collections. So, each time you load a bunch, re-import collections so they'll sort themselves.

Remember, they'll all start to index themselves, too, which will use the battery at a higher than usual rate.


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## mom133d (aka Liz) (Nov 25, 2008)

Ann in Arlington said:


> . . .but if you want books you've already sorted to go where they belong, they have to be on the device when you import the collections. So, each time you load a bunch, re-import collections so they'll sort themselves.


I am probably misunderstanding...I messed up yesterday and imported my collections before I had any books on my PW. Did a facepalm and said Oh, well. Started importing titles from my archive and they automatically went to the correct collection. Did I have a strange fluke? I did not re-import collections.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

mom133d (aka Liz) said:


> I am probably misunderstanding...I messed up yesterday and imported my collections before I had any books on my PW. Did a facepalm and said Oh, well. Started importing titles from my archive and they automatically went to the correct collection. Did I have a strange fluke? I did not re-import collections.


Really? Then that's an improvement over previous devices. Yay!  And good to know!

Sometimes I like to be wrong.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

mom133d (aka Liz) said:


> I am probably misunderstanding...I messed up yesterday and imported my collections before I had any books on my PW. Did a facepalm and said Oh, well. Started importing titles from my archive and they automatically went to the correct collection. Did I have a strange fluke? I did not re-import collections.


Yay! I just tried it and it worked. I had added the collections from my Touch to my PW. I downloaded a book that was in the collection on the Touch to my PW, and sure enough, it went into the right collection.

Betsy


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## me3boyz (Jan 10, 2010)

The weirdest thing just happened. I was also having problems importing collections. Actually, just the collections that were started within the past year as well as any books I'd placed in the collections that I was able to import.   So I decided to reset my Paperwhite to factory settings, restart my collections, then download the books that I wanted in whatever collection I happened to be working on at the time.

Get through all the beginnings of the Kindle start up & low and behold all of my current collections suddenly appeared!   I did not import collections when they downloaded, was actually getting ready to shut it off until after I got home from work. Not sure what happened, but very happy it fixed itself.


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## KindleGirl (Nov 11, 2008)

mom133d (aka Liz) said:


> I am probably misunderstanding...I messed up yesterday and imported my collections before I had any books on my PW. Did a facepalm and said Oh, well. Started importing titles from my archive and they automatically went to the correct collection. Did I have a strange fluke? I did not re-import collections.


Actually it worked this way on my Touch. It happened that way with books I had previously had in a collection, then archived, then moved back later. They automatically went into the collection I had them in previously. I had to look for them the first time it happened because I was expecting them to be on my home screen and they weren't.


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

Okay, odd update. So I was able to import a collection but this was one from a returned kindle (it was broken and being exchanged). Still won't import my touch collections or the ones from the PC. Maybe it's a server issue. I'm waiting to see.


On a side note-- how exciting that it adds books into collections they belonged to before. It's the little things that make the Kindle so charming.


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## me3boyz (Jan 10, 2010)

Bethany B. said:


> Okay, odd update. So I was able to import a collection but this was one from a returned kindle (it was broken and being exchanged). Still won't import my touch collections or the ones from the PC. Maybe it's a server issue. I'm waiting to see.


Spoke too soon on the collections. They're mostly there, but a few are missing. I have a combination of my K2 & Touch, but not a lot is actually going where it's supposed to be. I'm thinking a server issue as well.


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## Tatiana (Aug 20, 2010)

I never heard back from Marlyn the KCS rep, even tho' she said (in two different emails) she'd call back between noon and 5:00 yesterday the 3rd of October.  I'm supposing that the developers have not yet determined what the problem is and how to fix it.  It's a moot point now as far as I'm concerned...I created new collections for my PW and don't want the KT collections now anyway.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

Yeah, I just gave up too. Mine never appeared after I tried to import them multiple times. I took this as a sign to start with a clean slate and way less collections. I had 3 pages on my K3  . I am now using my goodreads shelfs and only get samples at the moment I need them, instead of sorting books by samples in collections. I will only keep books I recently bought on it and when I need something else, I can always go and get it. I had about 800 items on my K3, I will keep to to more like 200 on my PW.

I think in the long run, it slows down performance with a lot of collections. 

But its still odd that I never managed to get them imported.


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## tiggeerrific (Jan 22, 2010)

Thought it was just me! same thing it wouldnt import my collections .So I did it manually myself - I only had 60 but its done


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

Still no luck with mine either. I'm slightly concerned that it's a software issue since others had no problem. I'm going to give it a week and then if I still have no luck I'll make the call. I'm hoping they will work it out and do some sort of update. Fingers crosses.


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

Ann in Arlington said:


> Bethany, on the home page, is it saying Books or My Items? Because if it says 'Books' you won't actually see the collections. That's different to the previous non touch K's -- and the Touch K, too, I think but I never had one of those so not sure.
> 
> If it says My Items, it'll show collections first, as on other kindles, if you have the sort on the right set to collections.


Thank you! That just fixed my import issue! But - I have so many collections, when I see them - how do I get to the next page of collections.. If i tap on the screen - it is taking me inside one of the collections..

OK - I figured that out - by swiping.. but now - when I show All Items, I see the book twice - once inside its collection and then on its own. How do you just view the collections?? OK Fixed that too. geezz.. this really does work differently..


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## DD (Nov 9, 2008)

Dragle said:


> So... where did you all find these "instructions" on how to import your collections? I don't find anything in the Users' Guide.


I looked for it in the User's guide too. Not there. I found it online on Amazon's Kindle Help page.


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

I have been googling for solutions to problems that come up.  Takes me directly to the section of the user guide.


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

So now I can import from my touch but not all the collections went over. I guess I'm not going to worry about it. At least my two biggest collections imported so I don't have to worry about sorting those out. I just want to know what's causing the problem. If it's all an Amazon problem, no worries. Things will get fixed with time. But if it's a PW problem, well I'd rather just sort it out now than when I've taken a ton of books off cloud.


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## Vicki G. (Feb 18, 2010)

Ann in Arlington said:


> Not true. . . .but Steph is not exactly right either.
> 
> What you can do is re import collections _any time you want_.
> 
> ...


Oops, my bad!! I was misinformed and so went forward with placing about 200 books into Collections individually. Time consuming chore. I'm happy to say that Collections imported beautifully for me on the PW.


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## Pushka (Oct 30, 2009)

My collections took a few hours to appear. I ended up with dups as I had recreated them thinking they weren't going to download.


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