# Battery Issue



## skieblue (Jan 1, 2013)

I'm probably overreacting here, but I want to make sure whether or not this is something to worry about.

On Saturday, I deleted a bunch of documents off of my Kindle, and then loaded a lot of new ones onto it. I used Calibre to add most of these, but I also downloaded a few from my archive that was I thinking about rereading. I also used a Calibre plugin to create collections on my Kindle, so I restarted it right after I'd loaded all these books, so that it would recognize the collections. That evening I noticed the battery looked a little low, but I just assumed it was from managing the collections so I just left it alone.

On Sunday night, I left it plugged in overnight so that it could charge fully. Then I left it turned off all day yesterday. When I checked it today, the battery had gone down at least a quarter of the way. I did a search, and no books are currently indexing, although I guess it's possible that they finished indexing sometime yesterday or even earlier today, and that's what wore down the battery to that point its at now.

Is it possible that it could have taken the documents that long to index? (there were a lot of pretty long documents--I think the average length was about 100,000 words, but some were over 300,000, and I would guess there were a few hundred books added. There are over a hundred collections, and most collections have multiple books, but some books are in two collections, so I can't get an accurate number) Should the battery life go back to normal if everything is done indexing. I was getting at least a couple of weeks of battery life depending on how much I used it, so this drain just showed up after I added the new documents.


----------



## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Short answer: yes.

It's also possible that one of the many things you loaded is hung up -- a corrupted file or something.

Do a search on some nonsense string and note the results.  It won't find anything, but will tell you how many items still need to index.  Note the number, leave it for a half hour or so, and repeat.  If it's not changed, something's stuck. Tap the number of items and you should get a list. . . . .page through and if you see one that's gray, it's likely the problem child.  Note the title, go back to the home page, and delete it.  

Then leave it again and repeat until it shows all are indexed.  Then you can reload the books that were hanging up one at a time to be sure it doesn't happen again.


----------



## wvpeach (Jul 12, 2010)

As an add on to Ann's post. No device, not a Kindle an ipad or a computer is meant to download and then delete that many items be they books, personal documents or whatever on a regular basis. Due to the large amount of data I am seeing your downloading be aware that downloading and then deleting in mass or frequently may fragment the memory on any device.

By the sheer volume I am seeing : "There are over a hundred collections, and most collections have multiple books, but some books are in two collections" 

Very few devices are meant to take that kind of volume on downloads and the ones that are are far more expensive than a Kindle.


----------



## skieblue (Jan 1, 2013)

Just to clarify a few things, adding and removing this many things is not something that I do on a regular basis. It is only a year end thing, and was slightly more intensive this year because I was using that plugin to create collections, and because I had renamed most of my personal documents, and then ended up with more collections than I wanted. I'm planning to fix the collections the next time I have it plugged in. Also, the majority of the items were transferred over USB, not downloaded, but I don't know if that makes a difference.

I did check yesterday, and nothing was indexed, but as far as I could tell, the battery usage seemed to have leveled off. It seems have stayed at the same level all night, so it may have just been catching up, and even could have finished that sometime on Monday. I mainly just wanted to make sure this wasn't some kind of serious problem.

And as far as the memory issue, I'll see if I can at least run an analysis on it the next time it's plugged into the computer and see if it's fragmented.

Thanks for all your help.


----------



## Morf (Nov 18, 2010)

skieblue said:


> And as far as the memory issue, I'll see if I can at least run an analysis on it the next time it's plugged into the computer and see if it's fragmented.
> 
> Thanks for all your help.


You won't get fragmentation of the Kindle's memory as such - at least, not that you can fix using defrag from a PC. The general opinion is don't try! http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104923 

What you will get is that the indexes contain a lot of entries for books you've deleted and are therefore un-necessarily large.

If you remove a lot of books, it's a good idea to clear out the indexes before you add more books back on. There are instructions (from Amazon) here: http://www.amazon.com/CS-Dont-defrag-reindex/forum/FxBVKST06PWP9B/Tx20MFZ9YH0NAOX/1?_encoding=UTF8&asin=B000FI73MA.

Even if you've already copied all the books on, you could carry out the reindexing steps again. It will take a while to do, and will eat the battery, but the Kindle should hopefully be faster afterwards.


----------



## skieblue (Jan 1, 2013)

And now I'm seeing a new issue, that once again I don't know if it's a problem. The battery drain seemed to have stabilized, and stopped at about one third of the battery being drained. I decided to plug it in tonight just to top it off so that I could check. Three hours later, the light is still orange. I unplugged it and checked the battery indicator and it was just short of full, but if it wasn't down all the way, shouldn't three hours have been enough time for it to fully charge? Could my battery indicator be inaccurate on top of everything else? Could it have been down even further than it said it was? There is nothing indexing right now, because I used the search feature on Tuesday afternoon and everything was indexed and I haven't added anything to it since Monday.

I'm so stressed about this that seeing that orange light is keeping me awake at the moment, because I can't stop thinking when hasn't it turned green already?

I know I'm probably overreacting, and it might turn green anytime now, since it has actually been charging (battery indicator did go up). I'm just really worried about it developing a serious problem because I have had it for almost two years, so is no longer under warranty, and I can't afford to replace it until March, and I'm afraid of losing the personal documents in my archive. I don't know if they'd stay there is I replaced it.


----------



## Linjeakel (Mar 17, 2010)

If the battery indicator is going up, then it must be charging, so eventually it should go green.

There are standard chargers and superfast chargers, so it depends on which you're using as to how long it takes. I tend to charge my stuff overnight - I plug it in and then don't bother to check it till the morning and it's always finished by then - but I have no idea how long it actually takes.

I know it's a worry if you can't afford to replace it, but I do think you're stressing unnecessarily. As for your personal documents, if these are in your Amazon archive then they will remain there, just like your Amazon books and be available for any Kindle you might get in the future. They won't disappear even if you Kindle breaks down and has to be replaced. If you haven't sent them via Amazon and you don't see them in the archive at your Manage Your Kindle page - in other words you transferred them via USB - then you need to back them up, unless of course you still have the originals on your PC.

Just plug your Kindle in, go to bed and get a good night's sleep - your Kindle should be charged by morning!


----------



## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

It's my belief that the kindle has a harder time with stuff loaded onto the device over USB, than that downloaded wirelessly via Amazon -- even when it's personal stuff sent through Amazon for archiving.

Now, I don't really have any hard evidence about that, but it seems to me that the people who usually come on here relating memory issues have often been loading the thing up via USB. Whether that's a real correlation or nothing more than a coincidence I don't know. BUT. . . . I've never had any memory issues and I've pretty much never loaded anything via USB except once or twice on my old K1 just to test the procedure. But even then, having to use email I found it much easier to just send stuff through Amazon to get it onto the device.

And, thinking back, the only 'corrupt book' I've ever had was one I'd gotten elsewhere and loaded via USB. I don't remember if it made any problems other than that it just wouldn't open and was a pain to remove -- I couldn't use the usual 'delete' or 'remove' process via the kindle -- had to hook it BACK up via USB and remove it.

It is true that when I reloaded a bunch of stuff at one time -- when I first got my K3 -- I had some indexing get stuck, but it was easily fixed. I still hadn't really noticed memory issues; I'd just been paying attention to it. 

So _*I*_ would always recommend sending things via Amazon. The Send to Kindle applets work great.  Send to Kindle for PC is available to download at www.amazon.com/sendtokindle/pc and Send to Kindle for Mac is available for download at www.amazon.com/sendtokindle/mac.


----------

