# Absolutely horrible Kindle Firmware Update 5.14.2



## Mike999 (Sep 11, 2021)

My wife's Paperwhite has just updated to software version 5.14.2 and it is absolutely terrible. It says that what's new is "performance improvements, bug fixes and other general enhancements" but this is not true. It is actually a major update to the whole interface and one that is so bad that the device is now almost unusable. I can hardly describe how atrocious the new system is but I will be advising anyone who asks to never buy a Kindle - and anyone who has one to permanently turn off their wi-fi before the update ruins it. Assuming you can find the book you want reading is still okay, but unless you know exactly what books you have finding something to read is going to be a nightmare.

I'm now wondering if I can get a refund from Amazon on the basis that their action has made our Kindle's unusable?

The only solution I can think of is to strip the DRM from all the books and use another e-ink device. Can anyone recommend one with decent software? We do have a few old Kindles which will never suffer from this problem but their memory is much too small to hold our book collections.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

I've got the new update on my 10th gen Paperwhite but I can't immediately see any difference from 5.14.1.1 - that was the one with the major changes to the interface that happened last October. It sounds as though you got both updates together.

There have been quite a few threads on here mentioning the October update to 5.14.1.1 and it's true that some aspects of it have been unpopular. If you prefer the previous layout (as I do) just use the 'library' option instead of 'home'. It will mean in some instances having a couple more presses to get where you want, which can be irritating when it was better before, but on the whoIe I think it's somewhat of an exaggeration to say it's "unusable".

They've been changing and updating the firmware periodically from the very beginning and each time there are always some people who prefer the old version and some who like the new one and I suspect this is one is no different. It's highly unlikely that Amazon will refund you the cost of your Kindle because you don't like this version.


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## Mike999 (Sep 11, 2021)

Linjeakel said:


> I've got the new update on my 10th gen Paperwhite but I can't immediately see any difference from 15.1.1 - that was the one with the major changes to the interface that happened last October. It sounds as though you got both updates together.


I was puzzled by your 15.1.1 reference as the on help line pages refer to 5.14.2 as the latest version (and, as I'm in the UK I did check and the amazon.com version also uses 5.14.2).

Anyway, we got the October 2021 (5.14.1) update some time ago and I didn't like some of it (in fact I complained here at the time). What turned up on my wife's machine today is referred to as January 2022 (5.14.2) and is quite different: everything other than the screen when actually reading a book is totally changed, useless pictures everywhere - in "list" as well as "grid" format - so lots of wasted screen space and only four titles per page when viewing a list of books, no apparent go to function in either the collection view (just a unresponsive and hard to control "scroll through the collections" function) or within a collection, no distinction between downloaded and non downloaded collections and lots of other things I dislike (intensely). My wife hates it enough that she has asked me to get it to revert to the earlier version (which I've no idea how to do though there must be some software guru out there ...). Anyone know what will happen if I do a reset? If it took it back to it's original settings I could update with the previous software version but I fear that it would reset with the current production of the brain dead Kindle developers.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Yes, sorry about the confusion with the version numbers - I did correct it almost immediately but you must have picked up my original answer before I saved the amendment.

I'm still confused by what you say has changed in this latest version. I have 5.14.1.1 on one Paperwhite and 5.14.2 on another. I have them both open side by side and have been going through them, looking at the menus and the list of collections and books etc and, as I said before, I can't immediately see any differences between them. For example you say there is "no distinction between downloaded and non downloaded collections". On the Kindle where I have 5.14.2, if I filter collections, it still shows a * next to the ones which I have on the device but nothing next to the ones not on the device, same as before. You say that there are "useless pictures everywhere - in "list" as well as "grid" format". In Library view (as opposed to Home) the "list" setting gives me just that - a list with no thumbnail cover pictures in sight, just as before. I'll be interested to see what happens when my other Paperwhite gets the update and if it's the same as the first one.

I suppose there's a possibility that the update didn't install properly (though I'm not sure that's really likely) so you could always try downloading the update and reapplying it.

As to going back to what you had before, if you do a reset to factory defaults it won't revert the firmware - it will just remove all your content and personal settings but you'll still be on 5.14.2. As far as I know, no-one on KBoards has ever been able to work out a way to revert to a previous version. You could try the people over at the* MobileReads Forum *- they are much more into the technical nuts and bolts side of things.


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## mikejstb (Aug 7, 2010)

I just got this new firmware on my Oasis and I too find it horrible!

I used to view my library with collections first then books/items not in a collection. Can't seem to do that anymore. My old brain is not coping with this at all.


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## Mike999 (Sep 11, 2021)

I may have jumped in a bit too hard (but only a small bit) and too quickly in response to my wife's impassioned complaints about what had happened to her Kindle - having played around with her Paperwhite this morning I've got it to a state where it is almost usable and not the total hot mess she initially showed me. Her view is that each update in the three years since I bought it for her has degraded the user interface, with the latest change being a particularly bad one, and I have to agree with her. We both think that our old Paperwhites which are stuck on version 5.6.1.1 are much better than anything more recent with clean displays showing eight collections or books per page, and no silly images or wasted space (but far too little memory).

Since you mention the library, I can confirm that everything I've written is about the library view. I avoid the home page as currently being of zero value to me and regret that the ability to permanently hide it was withdrawn several updates ago.

I don't think I've seen version 5.14.1.1 - certainly our not yet updated Paperwhite is on 5.14.1, which is shown as an October 2021 update from 5.13.7. When I do a side by side comparison with the updated Paperwhite on 5.14.2 there are huge differences. I was wrong about "no distinction between downloaded and non downloaded collections" as I've found that using both the "downloaded" and "collections" filters I do only see what are now called "favourite" collections (but which match those we had previously downloaded) and in the list view this shows 4 collections per screen (each with its pseudo book cover thumbnail whose only purpose seems to be to repeat the collection name and the "favourites" star which already appear to their right. This differs from 5.14.1 as the latter has no images and the collections are on pages rather than one scrollable list.

When I open a collection - still in the list view - I get a scrollable list showing four books per screen each with a thumbnail book cover image. The fact that it is a scrollable list rather than a page one can turn plus that it has the images - which I can't get rid of - are the big differences from the previous version. It appears that you are seeing something totally different which I don't understand, though I in no way doubt your report.

Looking past the user interface it does look as if there might actually be some useful new functionality for collections involving bulk downloads and the bulk removal of downloads, but I've not tried these out. Bulk downloads - if it works properly - would be very useful when setting up a replacement device as the current methods are a nightmare for someone with several thousand books that they want on the device rather than floating in the cloud.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Mike999 said:


> When I open a collection - still in the list view - I get a scrollable list showing four books per screen each with a thumbnail book cover image. The fact that it is a scrollable list rather than a page one can turn plus that it has the images - which I can't get rid of - are the big differences from the previous version. It appears that you are seeing something totally different which I don't understand, though I in no way doubt your report.


That's very strange! On the device I have with 5.14.2, in Library list view I get 5 collections listed per page and when I open a collection I get 5 books listed and no thumbnails. 
























There must be something you need to adjust in the settings. Quite often with updates you find that some new options are set to 'on' by default and you will need to change them if you don't want them. With major updates I usually go into settings and methodically go through each option on every menu to see what's there and set them how I want them, paying particular attention to the device options and reading options menus (and sub-menus). Other than that I don't know what to suggest.

Is there someone else here who has one of these versions and knows what settings to change?


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## Mike999 (Sep 11, 2021)

Linjeakel said:


> That's very strange! On the device I have with 5.14.2, in Library list view I get 5 collections listed per page and when I open a collection I get 5 books listed and no thumbnails.
> 
> View attachment 22951
> View attachment 22953
> ...


My wife is complaining about my borrowing her Paperwhite for investigations but I'll look into this after she has gone to bed. I have been doing as you suggested but may have not covered everything. Your pictures look pretty much the same as our un-updated Kindle, not just because of the lack of images but because they are clearly "pages" with those page numbers at the bottom right, where we have a scroll bar down the right hand side and no "pages".


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## jkingrph (Jun 10, 2012)

Honestly over the years I have had mostly positive thoughts about updates, with a few minor exceptions, and I got used to them without problems, but, this 5.14.2 IMHO really sucks. I totally dislike, no hate the vertical scrolling the library mode to view books vs the old horizontal scroll. What was their purpose in doing away with a method that thousands of us were used to, in order to go to a method that has no real advantage. DUMB on Amazon/Kindle part


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Mike999 said:


> Your pictures look pretty much the same as our un-updated Kindle, not just because of the lack of images but because they are clearly "pages" with those page numbers at the bottom right, where we have a scroll bar down the right hand side and no "pages".


Which model of Paperwhite do you have? The photos are of my Paperwhite 10th Gen which has updated. My PW 11th Gen hasn't updated yet so I'm wondering if it will be like yours. That would be something I've never known to happen before - usually the same version firmware would give the same results on all models of Kindles it was on.

Anyone else getting different results on different Kindles?


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## Mike999 (Sep 11, 2021)

Linjeakel said:


> Which model of Paperwhite do you have? The photos are of my Paperwhite 10th Gen which has updated. My PW 11th Gen hasn't updated yet so I'm wondering if it will be like yours. That would be something I've never known to happen before - usually the same version firmware would give the same results on all models of Kindles it was on.


Both my and my wife's "modern" Paperwhites are 10th Generation (my wife's being the one that updated).

I just spent some time going through the settings, filters, sorts and views trying various things out and whilst I can get considerable variations in the on screen results none gives anything like your pictures or gets rid of the images included in the lists of collections and books. For what it's worth my firmware version is Kindle 5.14.2 (3807140059). To give you and idea what the software looks like on my wife's device I took a few pictures, the first of a list of the downloaded (favourite) collections, the second of the books in a collection and the third of the "What's New" message for the software version.
























You will note the scroll bars down the right of the page. This is consistent with what jkingrph is reporting which suggests that what you are seeing may be an anomaly.


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## Andra (Nov 19, 2008)

I have emailed Amazon multiple times about my displeasure in their latest "improvements." They are really not trying to please those of us who have been using Kindles for years and have large libraries.

The last time I actually spoke to a person, the agent just could not get over the fact that I have 6,000+ items in my library. Well duh! I have had a Kindle for 13 years and I read a lot. Most of their "improvements" lately have made dealing with my content a nightmare.

I will pull out my two latest devices and see how they look compared to your views. However I decided a long time ago that collections are not for me. I just leave most of my stuff in the cloud and send items as I want to read them. I try to keep fewer than 10 pages on my device. That has gone up since I can only see 5 items at a time instead of the 7 that we had before.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Mike999 said:


> You will note the scroll bars down the right of the page. This is consistent with what jkingrph is reporting which suggests that what you are seeing may be an anomaly.


Well, I admit to being completely baffled by this. Although my device info page clearly showed my 10th gen PW to have version 5.14.2, as I didn't have the same results as you I decided to manually download the update file and re-apply it.

So I copied the update file to my Kindle and ran the option to 'update your Kindle' which completed without error. Again it shows me having 5.14.2 but it's still the same as it was before. No scrolling lists, no thumbnails in list view etc. I have no explanation. 

My 11th Gen PW has yet to update but I'm going to allow that to happen automatically.


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## jkingrph (Jun 10, 2012)

If they had made that scroll bar a little "fatter" it might be a bit more responsive. I find that often if I try to scroll my finger outruns it. It would in my opinion helped had they gave the view page a number so when using the up/down arrows you would know which page you are viewing.

Bottom line is that when they have something that works, why play with changing it.


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## MI 2 AZ (Dec 7, 2014)

jkingrph said:


> If they had made that scroll bar a little "fatter" it might be a bit more responsive. I find that often if I try to scroll my finger outruns it. It would in my opinion helped had they gave the view page a number so when using the up/down arrows you would know which page you are viewing.
> 
> Bottom line is that when they have something that works, why play with changing it.


Probably the difference in mindsets between an engineer and a technician.

An engineer comes up with 'brilliant' ideas, sometimes with no experience on the product they are working with and a technician with experience on the product, has to fix what the engineer comes up with, usually while cursing all engineers.


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## jkingrph (Jun 10, 2012)

MI 2 AZ said:


> Probably the difference in mindsets between an engineer and a technician.
> 
> An engineer comes up with 'brilliant' ideas, sometimes with no experience on the product they are working with and a technician with experience on the product, has to fix what the engineer comes up with, usually while cursing all engineers.


Probably so, a pox on those engineers!


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## MI 2 AZ (Dec 7, 2014)

Mike999 said:


> My wife's Paperwhite has just updated to software version 5.14.2 and it is absolutely terrible. It says that what's new is "performance improvements, bug fixes and other general enhancements" but this is not true. It is actually a major update to the whole interface and one that is so bad that the device is now almost unusable. I can hardly describe how atrocious the new system is but I will be advising anyone who asks to never buy a Kindle - and anyone who has one to permanently turn off their wi-fi before the update ruins it. Assuming you can find the book you want reading is still okay, but unless you know exactly what books you have finding something to read is going to be a nightmare.
> 
> I'm now wondering if I can get a refund from Amazon on the basis that their action has made our Kindle's unusable?
> 
> The only solution I can think of is to strip the DRM from all the books and use another e-ink device. Can anyone recommend one with decent software? We do have a few old Kindles which will never suffer from this problem but their memory is much too small to hold our book collections.


If you have a PC computer, what you could do is connect the Paperwhite to the computer via USB cable, then, after the computer recognizes the device, you should see a Windows Explorer window open up with the device. If you click on Open Folder To View Files, you will get another window showing the folders/files. You can either Copy the Documents folder to a location on your PC or open the Documents folder up to view all of your books arranged by Author and copy the ones you want to another location on your PC. When you are done, be sure to safely disconnect the device by using the Safely Remove Device icon located on the bottom of the screen near the right side.

If for some reason, you don't get a Windows Explorer window, you can always open one up to view the Kindle files. They will be located under Computer like a hard drive or dvd/cd drive.

By doing this, you will be able to copy any of the Authors folders you want back to another of your older Kindles to read from there. Just connect the Kindle to the PC and open up the Documents folder for that Kindle and move/copy the folders you want over to it. Your main collection of books will be stored on the PC and you will just move the Author folder that you are interested in reading to the older Kindle. When you're done, just move the read Author folder back to the PC for storage. 

Don't forget, if you have bought any books from Amazon, they should be stored on the Amazon cloud so you could download any of those books back to a Kindle at any time, no need to store those on the PC unless you want to.


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## enodio (10 mo ago)

View only favorite Collections in Library View and the books inside a Collection in List View

I have been reading in Kindle since it first came out, Accustomed to see my books in List view.
Now I got a new Kindle 11 with the 5.14.2 firmware and, what a surprise: List view disappeared!

After fondling with my Kindle for several hours, I finally found how to do it, here is how:

1. If you have many Collections, as I do, Mark the Collections you want to permanently view in your Library View as Favorites: click on the three dots on the right and click Mark the Collection as Favorite.

2 Goto Settings\Device Options\Advanced Options\Home & Library\Collections
Mark: Show favorites in Library

If you want to see all your Collections, mark Show all in Library

3. Return to Library View
Click on the three lines on your top right, just below the three dots
Mark: Sort by at your convenience
Mark: List in View Options

Now you will see all the Favorite Collections and ALL your books.
To view only your Collections, click on the three lines with a small circle on the upper left of the screen.
In Filters\Type mark Collections.

And there you are:
You will only view the Favorite Collections on the Library Screen, and, if you click a Collection, you will see the books in that Collection in List View.
It still shows a thumbnail of each book, but at least you get five lines on the screen.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I've been semi-following this thread with mild interest but mostly confusion. Like Linda, neither of my updated devices show anything different to what they did before. so strange .....


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## Julip55 (10 mo ago)

I am also not a fan of the newest version. I usually view by collections, displaying only uncollected, downloaded items in list format. 

I keep downloaded books in collections, but don't want them cluttering up my main library view, or losing them in the "most recent" sort. Now, by viewing the "uncollected" collection filtered on downloaded, only the grid view is an option. Let's not talk my views on how unusable the grid view is when you're looking for a book. The covers are cool, but cluttered. There's all this space on my new Paperwhite, but I really can't utilize it unless I want to slog through a few hundred books I'm keeping in collections. Sigh... Kindle do better.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Though I've had 5.14.2 for a while, the device just this morning switched. It's different. Don't see it as worse. I wrote more in Linda's thread about the issue.

There are some adjustments you can make to showing collections via Device Options/Advanced Options/Home & Library in Settings.


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## jennga (Mar 30, 2010)

Does anyone know how to view their favorite collections AND unread books that have been downloaded to the library? used to be if I had the collections in the library and i set a book to go to a collection it would disappear from the library, now it doesn't. Totally unusable interface.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

jennga said:


> Does anyone know how to view their favorite collections AND unread books that have been downloaded to the library? used to be if I had the collections in the library and i set a book to go to a collection it would disappear from the library, now it doesn't. Totally unusable interface.


I think you have to tap on the 'filter' icon on the top left just under the search box. Then you choose downloaded.

I'm not sure but I think that might then only show collections which have downloaded items in them and any uncollected downloaded items. Would that do?

I agree though, not a user friendly interface at all, much more complicated, more choices perhaps, but not the ones we're used to and still want!


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## Avila Kitten (10 mo ago)

enodio said:


> View only favorite Collections in Library View and the books inside a Collection in List View
> 
> I have been reading in Kindle since it first came out, Accustomed to see my books in List view.
> Now I got a new Kindle 11 with the 5.14.2 firmware and, what a surprise: List view disappeared!
> ...


I was really hopeful when I saw your post - but I don’t have a “sort by your convenience” option from the three little lines on my library page. Only: most recent, title, author or publication date. Am I missing it somewhere?


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## NanD (May 4, 2011)

I hate that I can only see thumbnails now. I preferred just seeing a list of books. I'll probably get used to it, but wished they offered a chpice.

Sent from my SM-A516U using Tapatalk


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

NanD said:


> I hate that I can only see thumbnails now. I preferred just seeing a list of books. I'll probably get used to it, but wished they offered a choice.


Yes, it's strange how they've managed to give you more options but somehow less choice. I realise that doesn't make any sense but that's the impression I'm left with!


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## Mike999 (Sep 11, 2021)

enodio said:


> And there you are:
> You will only view the Favorite Collections on the Library Screen, and, if you click a Collection, you will see the books in that Collection in List View.
> It still shows a thumbnail of each book, but at least you get five lines on the screen.


I'd already done all that and it seems to be the best one can get with the latest software, but the end result is still only four collections in view on screen (complete with four totally useless thumbnails that only waste screen lines repeating the text beside them) and a scroll function which, at least on our devices, doesn't work properly: apart from the scroll bar being too narrow, I suspect the processor is not up to the task so that things are delayed, jump around and rarely arrive where one wants to be.

Were it not for the fact that it has too little memory for the way I use my Paperwhite, I'd revert to using an older one stuck on software version 5.6.1.1: nice clean screen design with eight collections per page in list view and eight books per page when viewing the collection.

What they seem to be trying to do works fine in grid view on my 10 inch Samsung tablet as one can see a lot of collections on the screen and the scrolling works smoothly and precisely. I suspect the same developers are involved with both devices and have somehow not noticed that what works on a largish tablet is awful on a relatively small non colour e-ink screen with an underpowered processor..


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## Phil On The Hill (10 mo ago)

I also have a problem with the Uncollected Folder in that I now have audible content appearing, where it has not been selected in filters, despite Show in library filter only being set. I have no desire to see audible here at all. Any ideas welcome. I would just like it back as it was.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Phil On The Hill said:


> I also have a problem with the Uncollected Folder in that I now have audible content appearing, where it has not been selected in filters, despite Show in library filter only being set. I have no desire to see audible here at all. Any ideas welcome. I would just like it back as it was.


I did have the idea of putting all the Audible things in their own collection and then not marking that as a favourite so the whole collection wouldn't show up. But not marking a collection as a favourite only excludes it from the list view, not the collections view, and in any case you can't actually put Audible items into a collection anyway, so they ALWAYS show as 'uncollected'.

They shouldn't be showing anywhere - I have set the option in settings that says "Audible books will only be available in the "Audible" filter in the Library unless they have been downloaded to this Kindle." This option was available previously and it worked, but not with this new update. I think it's an error on Amazon's part which may get corrected.


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## Phil On The Hill (10 mo ago)

Linjeakel said:


> I did have the idea of putting all the Audible things in their own collection and then not marking that as a favourite so the whole collection wouldn't show up. But not marking a collection as a favourite only excludes it from the list view, not the collections view, and in any case you can't actually put Audible items into a collection anyway, so they ALWAYS show as 'uncollected'.
> 
> They shouldn't be showing anywhere - I have set the option in settings that says "Audible books will only be available in the "Audible" filter in the Library unless they have been downloaded to this Kindle." This option was available previously and it worked, but not with this new update. I think it's an error on Amazon's part which may get corrected.


I had the same thought, but you cannot put Audible content inti collections. I think it os a bug. I am going to ring Audible today.


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## Phil On The Hill (10 mo ago)

After a 20 minute conversation with Kindle Support, reached via Audible first (0800 496 2455 ) who transferred me. The advisor ran a remote diagnostic on my Kindle Signature and determined that there was a core fault with the device and they are sending me a replacement item!

So some success. We shall wait and see what happens when the new device arrives.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Phil On The Hill said:


> After a 20 minute conversation with Kindle Support, reached via Audible first (0800 496 2455 ) who transferred me. The advisor ran a remote diagnostic on my Kindle Signature and determined that there was a core fault with the device and they are sending me a replacement item!
> 
> So some success. We shall wait and see what happens when the new device arrives.


If that's the case, there must be a 'core fault' with all of them. I'm more inclined to believe the fault is with the firmware, not the hardware. Let us know what happens with your new device!


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## Phil On The Hill (10 mo ago)

So I got a reconditioned Kindle sent back to me.

Nothing has changed, I still get an unallocated folder, packed with all my unwanted Audible content, despite the setting being to exclude all this stuff.

This is a real mess from the perspective of my ability to find what I want.

I have an old Kindle paperwhite and it is on Firmware 5.14.2 (3807140059).. Whereas my new kindle is Firmware 5.14.2 (3807140060). Both are buggered!

Who knows what they are up to. The whole collections thing is a mess.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

Phil On The Hill said:


> Nothing has changed, I still get an unallocated folder, packed with all my unwanted Audible content, despite the setting being to exclude all this stuff.


Me too, I haven't been able to find a way around this. I definitely have the setting on for excluding non-downloaded Audible items from everywhere except the 'Audible' filter, but they still show up in Collection view in the 'unallocated' folder. 

I thought I could solve it by putting them all in their own collection and then not having that collection on the device but it turns out you can't put Audible items into a collection on a Kindle. That's never been a problem before as the filter exclusion option worked, but they've somehow screwed that up with this latest update.

I'm finding my way around all the new stuff now and in general I would say there are some things I used to be able to do which I now can't, and the things I can still do often take a good few more steps to achieve. The text is smaller and the screen somehow manages to show less while simultaneously seeming to be more cluttered. I can't honestly say I've found anything that's an improvement. I hesitate to say it, in case I jinks it, but at least the reading a book experience remains the same. For now.


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## jeanniespc131 (Jun 1, 2017)

Ann in Arlington said:


> Though I've had 5.14.2 for a while, the device just this morning switched. It's different. Don't see it as worse. I wrote more in Linda's thread about the issue.
> 
> There are some adjustments you can make to showing collections via Device Options/Advanced Options/Home & Library in Settings.


I have


Ann in Arlington said:


> Though I've had 5.14.2 for a while, the device just this morning switched. It's different. Don't see it as worse. I wrote more in Linda's thread about the issue.
> 
> There are some adjustments you can make to showing collections via Device Options/Advanced Options/Home & Library in Settings.


I have a Kindle Oasis and I hate the new update too. Makes it hard to find what I want. I also hate the new Kindle Manage website...it used to be very easy to add ebooks to a Collection and now its hard to find the Collection you want to add an ebook too.


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## Eltanin Publishing (Mar 24, 2011)

Yeah, I'm having this frustration. I used to view my (three) collections, one of which was "Cathy's Already Read". after the 3 collections, all books NOT in a collection would be listed. Now all those other books are in a collection called "uncollected". That's not what I want. It used to be the 3 collections, and all books not in a collection listed after the collections, and once I read something, I'd add it to the collection "Cathy Already Read" and it would disappear (go into that collection). Now my only choices are JUST seeing the collections - 4 including the "uncollected" collection, OR seeing ALL books whether they're in a collection or not.


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## CS (Nov 3, 2008)

This update is the pits.

I can live with the bad, clunky UI - as truly horrible it is - but my Paperwhite 4 *freezes* every time I download new books. Restarting it is the only thing that works. This, as you can imagine, gets very annoying very quickly.


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## BFulghum (9 mo ago)

CS said:


> This update is the pits.
> 
> I can live with the bad, clunky UI - as truly horrible it is - but my Paperwhite 4 *freezes* every time I download new books. Restarting it is the only thing that works. This, as you can imagine, gets very annoying very quickly.


I also have significant complaints with "Update" 5.14.2. I don't have comments on the layout of the UI. I can't get passed the *horrible screen flickering* it does now when I open and close books, and that it *freezes*, requiring a soft reboot. It never used to do this. The flickering is much much worse in Dark Mode, which I prefer when reading at night.

I hope the next update corrects these problems.


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## CS (Nov 3, 2008)

Another issue I've noticed with this update is that downloading books depletes way more of the battery than it did before. What a mess!


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## gdae23 (Apr 30, 2009)

CS said:


> Another issue I've noticed with this update is that downloading books depletes way more of the battery than it did before. What a mess!


Yes, I’m noticing this every day when I download my newspaper.


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## MI 2 AZ (Dec 7, 2014)

CS said:


> Another issue I've noticed with this update is that downloading books depletes way more of the battery than it did before. What a mess!


Is it the downloading that is depleting the battery faster or is it the restart because of the freezing? I noticed once when I had to restart one of my Kindles because it had frozen that the battery level dropped quite a bit during that process.


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## CS (Nov 3, 2008)

MI 2 AZ said:


> Is it the downloading that is depleting the battery faster or is it the restart because of the freezing? I noticed once when I had to restart one of my Kindles because it had frozen that the battery level dropped quite a bit during that process.


I think it's the downloading, because if there are a small enough amount of new books (2-3), it won't freeze but the battery will still deplete more than normal.


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## gdae23 (Apr 30, 2009)

Unbelievable - I've just received an email from Amazon crowing about how wonderful the latest Kindle update is. It's headed “Introducing improved Kindle Home and Library”. It links to this Amazon page: *New Kindle update*. They are really out of touch with their Kindle customers! I'm still seeing many, many comments on line from users who hate this new update.

I've decided they have gotten lazy, and are trying to treat ereaders as if they’re tablets. Many of the recent updates, like adding hard-to-avoid-clicking-on hyperlinks in my daily newspaper and the scroll bar would have a use on a tablet, and not be disruptive. But they don’t work well on an ereader, and make the Kindle more difficult and frustrating to use.


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## Jodi O (Mar 3, 2010)

Yes, they really need to re-design from the ground up. Everything has become so fussy. I already have a phone and a tablet, I just want my eReader to allow me to read books simply and without distractions. I think that's what most of us want.


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## bbirdsrp (9 mo ago)

The update really messed up my Oasis. The customer service fix? I have to do a factory reset and basically start over with it. 

It's the only way I've been able to actually open some of my books for reading. 

Really badly done update.


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## MelUsa (9 mo ago)

Mike999 said:


> My wife's Paperwhite has just updated to software version 5.14.2 and it is absolutely terrible. It says that what's new is "performance improvements, bug fixes and other general enhancements" but this is not true. It is actually a major update to the whole interface and one that is so bad that the device is now almost unusable. I can hardly describe how atrocious the new system is but I will be advising anyone who asks to never buy a Kindle - and anyone who has one to permanently turn off their wi-fi before the update ruins it. Assuming you can find the book you want reading is still okay, but unless you know exactly what books you have finding something to read is going to be a nightmare.
> 
> I'm now wondering if I can get a refund from Amazon on the basis that their action has made our Kindle's unusable?
> 
> The only solution I can think of is to strip the DRM from all the books and use another e-ink device. Can anyone recommend one with decent software? We do have a few old Kindles which will never suffer from this problem but their memory is much too small to hold our book collections.


THIS IS ME. I HATE IT


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## MelUsa (9 mo ago)

enodio said:


> View only favorite Collections in Library View and the books inside a Collection in List View
> 
> I have been reading in Kindle since it first came out, Accustomed to see my books in List view.
> Now I got a new Kindle 11 with the 5.14.2 firmware and, what a surprise: List view disappeared!
> ...


This has def helped, thank you. But I'm still furious because I just want A LIST.


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## mwvarian (9 mo ago)

Mike999 said:


> My wife's Paperwhite has just updated to software version 5.14.2 and it is absolutely terrible. It says that what's new is "performance improvements, bug fixes and other general enhancements" but this is not true. It is actually a major update to the whole interface and one that is so bad that the device is now almost unusable. I can hardly describe how atrocious the new system is but I will be advising anyone who asks to never buy a Kindle - and anyone who has one to permanently turn off their wi-fi before the update ruins it. Assuming you can find the book you want reading is still okay, but unless you know exactly what books you have finding something to read is going to be a nightmare.
> 
> I'm now wondering if I can get a refund from Amazon on the basis that their action has made our Kindle's unusable?
> 
> The only solution I can think of is to strip the DRM from all the books and use another e-ink device. Can anyone recommend one with decent software? We do have a few old Kindles which will never suffer from this problem but their memory is much too small to hold our book collections.


I, too, absolutely hate this update. I've been a Kindle user since Kindle 1 and have thousands of documents on my Kindles. I currently have an Oasis 10 and two Oasis 8's, all of them at 5.14.2.
The 10 and one of the 8's have the nasty scroll bar on the Library screen (I avoid the Home screen completely). The other 8 looks like it has been looking for the past few years, just a list of books without the stupid thumbnails taking up its memory and with page numbers, not scrolling. The
only differences I can see between the two 8's is that the one without the scrollbar is the most recently updated and also doesn't have 3G like the other. I can't see any setting that differs between them, except that the one without the scrollbar also does not offer the new setting about collections. So, clearly, there is a software difference even though both display the same software level.

I am convinced that the people "improving" the interface don't read books and don't have more than ten documents on their Kindles. They _really_ need to give us an option to turn these idiot "improvements" off!

Melinda Varian


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## mwvarian (9 mo ago)

mwvarian said:


> I, too, absolutely hate this update. I've been a Kindle user since Kindle 1 and have thousands of documents on my Kindles. I currently have an Oasis 10 and two Oasis 8's, all of them at 5.14.2.
> The 10 and one of the 8's have the nasty scroll bar on the Library screen (I avoid the Home screen completely). The other 8 looks like it has been looking for the past few years, just a list of books without the stupid thumbnails taking up its memory and with page numbers, not scrolling. The
> only differences I can see between the two 8's is that the one without the scrollbar is the most recently updated and also doesn't have 3G like the other. I can't see any setting that differs between them, except that the one without the scrollbar also does not offer the new setting about collections. So, clearly, there is a software difference even though both display the same software level.
> 
> ...


To answer my own question of not understanding why one of my Oasis 8 Kindles still had the usable lists in the Library view, I just picked it up and found a message that Amazon had updated my reading experience, meaning that they have trashed this Kindle now, too.

This update just doesn't scale for people who keep their libraries on their Kindles (as Bezos promised us we could do back in Kindle 1 days). I have 2200+ Kindle books plus other documents, and a scroll bar clearly isn't the right tool for searching such a long list. I really dislike having the thumbnails for the simple reason that it means fewer books will fit on the screen. The original interface showed us 10 books at a time and that is now down to 4. It's hard to believe that they think we need pictures to help us find our books -- we are literate, obviously, or we wouldn't be buying books. 

We need to be able to turn off the thumbnails to fit more books on a screen and we need to be able to find the position we want in the alphabetical lists (author or book title) by typing a search string that will take us to that place in the list (as it always has in the past).

Amazon ought to be considering the needs of the people who buy the most books from them.

Sigh.

Very disappointed in all this.


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## Mike999 (Sep 11, 2021)

mwvarian said:


> This update just doesn't scale for people who keep their libraries on their Kindles (as Bezos promised us we could do back in Kindle 1 days). I have 2200+ Kindle books plus other documents, and a scroll bar clearly isn't the right tool for searching such a long list.


We have over 4,000 books in well over 100 collections and "just doesn't scale" really sums it up (though I'm tempted to be more forceful and less polite in my description). What is particularly frustrating - other than that there seems to be no way to get through to Amazon that they've just done the equivalent of launching Windows 8 (but even worse) - is that we had perfectly good first generation Paperwhites which are (luckily) stuck on software version 5.6.1.1, which is much better than than 5.13, let alone 5.14.2. The only problem with these was that they had too little memory and topped out at about 1,200 titles. If we hadn't wanted to keep all our books on the Kindle - doing so proved very useful pre-pandemic when we were taking holidays in places without an internet connection - we would have stuck with the old Kindles and never spent the money on the 32 Gb Oasis or late generation Paperwhite that Amazon have just devalued.

Maybe I should have seen this coming given the way in which "Manage Your Content" on the PC was mucked up. Clearly the developers have no idea that they have users with thousands of books and hundreds of collections and no comprehension of the fact that their changes had a huge adverse impact on, for example, the "add to collection" functionality.


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## mwvarian (9 mo ago)

Mike999 said:


> We have over 4,000 books in well over 100 collections and "just doesn't scale" really sums it up (though I'm tempted to be more forceful and less polite in my description). What is particularly frustrating - other than that there seems to be no way to get through to Amazon that they've just done the equivalent of launching Windows 8 (but even worse) - is that we had perfectly good first generation Paperwhites which are (luckily) stuck on software version 5.6.1.1, which is much better than than 5.13, let alone 5.14.2. The only problem with these was that they had too little memory and topped out at about 1,200 titles. If we hadn't wanted to keep all our books on the Kindle - doing so proved very useful pre-pandemic when we were taking holidays in places without an internet connection - we would have stuck with the old Kindles and never spent the money on the 32 Gb Oasis or late generation Paperwhite that Amazon have just devalued.
> 
> Maybe I should have seen this coming given the way in which "Manage Your Content" on the PC was mucked up. Clearly the developers have no idea that they have users with thousands of books and hundreds of collections and no comprehension of the fact that their changes had a huge adverse impact on, for example, the "add to collection" functionality.


Yes, I've sent in a "feedback" from my big Oasis (painful as it is to key in anything of substance with that interface), but one doesn't have any confidence of even the most politely-worded protests ever reaching the people who need to see them. For my purposes, the whole user interface has been growing less and less usable over the past several years. They think they are making it prettier or more glamorous or something, but they've not really added any function, so it feels like change for change's sake. And there are a number of updates I'd find really helpful, such as the ability to edit the book name and author name, as they are so often in error (and the author names are not consistently last name first). Again, sigh.


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## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

mwvarian said:


> And there are a number of updates I'd find really helpful, such as the ability to edit the book name and author name, as they are so often in error (and the author names are not consistently last name first). Again, sigh.


This is something I have wanted from the very beginning. I particularly dislike it when books have a whole sentence of description cluttering up the title. (I've already bought it, you don't need to keep selling it to me!).

And as you say, the metadata is often wrong, with authors' names not always sorting correctly and some books, when listed alphabetically, will ignore the "A" or "The" at the beginning while others don't. Finding these books used to be relatively easy (especially if you weren't sure of the exact title or author) when you could use a search string and it would take you to the nearest place in the list. Now it displays a whole load of pictures that you have to squint at to find the one you want - but not all book covers translate well to tiny black and white thumbnails.

I think you're correct in that they're trying to make it look prettier and more modern and more like a tablet - and in doing so are sacrificing functionality. It feels like they're appealing to the occasional reader and ignoring those of us with larger libraries who (having been promised we would be able to) like to keep the bulk of our books on the Kindle and have them sorted into numerous collections. (What's the point of constantly increasing the capacity of these things if they don't expect people to do just that?) On the face of it, as a business plan, that seems like madness to me, as though they've totally misread their target audience.

The other side of the coin of course is that those of us who are on KBoards are probably here because we're more prolific and "serious" readers and Kindles users and we're the ones who are most likely to be unhappy about the changes. (I know not everyone here dislikes it). Maybe there are millions of other Kindle users out there who don't use collections and never have more than a couple of books on their device at a time and think it's all just peachy.


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## gdae23 (Apr 30, 2009)

I also look in at the Amazon discussion forums, including the one for Kindle, and many people there are also very unhappy with the recent updates. Here’s a link for anyone not yet familiar with the Amazon forums:

*Amazon Kindle discussion forum*

The people posting there seem to have large collections so they’re probably more than casual readers. (And sometimes I recognize a KB member on there too.) But it may be that more casual readers don’t care enough to give feedback to Amazon. There are enough comments on line, though, that I believe Amazon is aware of many unhappy Kindle users, but apparently, they just don’t care. With many device updates (not just Amazon devices) It seems this type of problem could easily be avoided by giving people options, such as, in the case of the Kindle, ”show covers“ or “hide covers’. Then the new elements could be introduced (and touted by the company) without making a lot of users unhappy.


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## MI 2 AZ (Dec 7, 2014)

*This will probably go nowhere but had to try.*

Shubham | Customer Service
Hello, my name is Shubham. I'll be glad to help you today.
S
4:30 PM

Hi, could you leave a message with the Kindle development team?
4:31 PM

Shubham | Customer Service
Yes please go ahead
S
4:31 PM

Okay, I represent many Kindle users who immensely dislike the recent updates. Please forward the below link to them.








Absolutely horrible Kindle Firmware Update 5.14.2


My wife's Paperwhite has just updated to software version 5.14.2 and it is absolutely terrible. It says that what's new is "performance improvements, bug fixes and other general enhancements" but this is not true. It is actually a major update to the whole interface and one that is so bad that...




www.kboards.com




4:32 PM

Shubham | Customer Service
I understand, I will submit this to the concerned team


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## gdae23 (Apr 30, 2009)

Thank you MI 2 AZ! It’s good to bring these comments to Amazon’s attention. I sent feedback some weeks ago, and got a stock reply about bringing my remarks to the attention of the hierarchy. (Their wording!) Hopefully all these remarks together will help bring about a change. I have to admit I'm not very optimistic though.


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## Claire79 (9 mo ago)

I've just got the update - absolutely hate it. Had to go through all my books to see which ones were still on and found 8 which had completely disappeared - luckily downloads were still on my PC but it's taken three hours to get them back on even though the mobi files had been on the kindle previously. Also had to turn Whispersync off as all I could see was my kids books that they have on their devices which I don't want to see


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## nlubbren (9 mo ago)

Mike999 said:


> My wife's Paperwhite has just updated to software version 5.14.2 and it is absolutely terrible. It says that what's new is "performance improvements, bug fixes and other general enhancements" but this is not true. It is actually a major update to the whole interface and one that is so bad that the device is now almost unusable. I can hardly describe how atrocious the new system is but I will be advising anyone who asks to never buy a Kindle - and anyone who has one to permanently turn off their wi-fi before the update ruins it. Assuming you can find the book you want reading is still okay, but unless you know exactly what books you have finding something to read is going to be a nightmare.
> 
> I'm now wondering if I can get a refund from Amazon on the basis that their action has made our Kindle's unusable?
> 
> The only solution I can think of is to strip the DRM from all the books and use another e-ink device. Can anyone recommend one with decent software? We do have a few old Kindles which will never suffer from this problem but their memory is much too small to hold our book collections.


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## nlubbren (9 mo ago)

I completely agree and feel your pain. Ever since the update, I have reverted to physical books as I just hate this new interface so much. On top of that, the kindle keeps freezing, not downloading queued documents and suddenly going into restart mode. I can't find anything. I can't read the titles of many books as the cover design is cluttered with unclear font. I hate grid view. I have 3172 items on my kindle, incl 2156 documents that have no cover at all. My friend has bought a Kobo and I tested it out with her over Easter. I'm buying one tomorrow and leaving the kindle ecosystem after 11 wonderful years. But this is just no longer viable or pleasant.


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## jeanniespc131 (Jun 1, 2017)

mikejstb said:


> I just got this new firmware on my Oasis and I too find it horrible!
> I used to view my library with collections first then books/items not in a collection.
> Can't seem to do that anymore.
> My old brain is not coping with this at all.


I just added a post called
*Found out how to get Collection Folders in List View in new Kindle Update*
that fixes this with the Collection Folders.


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## Samantha (Jul 16, 2010)

mikejstb said:


> I just got this new firmware on my Oasis and I too find it horrible!
> I used to view my library with collections first then books/items not in a collection.
> Can't seem to do that anymore.
> My old brain is not coping with this at all.


I did mine that way too and I hate the new version. HATE IT.


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## Samantha (Jul 16, 2010)

Eltanin Publishing said:


> Yeah, I'm having this frustration. I used to view my (three) collections, one of which was "Cathy's Already Read". after the 3 collections, all books NOT in a collection would be listed. Now all those other books are in a collection called "uncollected". That's not what I want. It used to be the 3 collections, and all books not in a collection listed after the collections, and once I read something, I'd add it to the collection "Cathy Already Read" and it would disappear (go into that collection). Now my only choices are JUST seeing the collections - 4 including the "uncollected" collection, OR seeing ALL books whether they're in a collection or not.


This is the way I do it too. I like having my books in collections and then sometimes I'll have a few that I'm going to read next just on the page after the collections. And I might not read them and put them in a collection. Or I'll read them and put them in my Read collection. 

I don't want to see ALL the books. That's why I have collections! And I hate the collections now. Those thumbnails are ugly.  I wanted it the way it was. 

And DON'T get me started on the Uncollected Collection. No, no, no, no, no just no! They weren't on my Kindle FOR A REASON. Who spent an hour getting rid of them? 

I also hate on the home page all those reading suggestions. I'm a reader - I have TONS. I can find books easily. Just back off. 

I hate this update so much. 

I have a Kobo too and I'm considering moving over to it and leaving my Oasis in a drawer to languish and I LOVED the Oasis. But the update is pure garbage. Just awful. 

I did send an email to Kindle and they did get back to me and said they would send it on.


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