Amazon removed books from my Kindle

[Julie Paradise]

Unfortunately I don't trust Amazon anymore in this.

Having used Kindles since 2009, I never ever had a problem, until last year (or 2022?) when I noticed that sometimes covers would change or certain books couldn't be opened or downloaded. I didn't pay too much attention until I spent a large sum of money on reference literature and academic books in January that I need for a new project in my work, instead of the rather cheap Collected Works, the random novel, or books on sale.

Then, some weeks ago (around Easter) I opened up the Kindle desktop app on my PC as I usually do when I want to make a purchase and be sure that I am not buying something twice, then bought a book on Amazon in the browser, "welcomed" it in the app (send to 1 or 2 collections and download) and wanted to proceed from there to also download my new book on my other devices, since I happily take full advantage of the fact that you can have most Kindle books on up to 6 devices. (Only once did the app tells me that 5 would be the max. number of devices to download this specific title -- Fenton/Kiefer Lee: Nicely Said -- to.)

Then I turned on Wi-Fi on the other devices where I wanted to DL this new book to, but: On my Paperwhite my library was completely empty, all downloads gone, the same on my Supernote Nomad and 3 Boox devices (Poke5, NA3C, TabX), where I found myself logged out of the Kindle app and all downloads gone. Logging in and refreshing "gave me back" my library, but having to download 950 titles (and not only once) is not exactly what I would like to do again so soon. Around 100 mostly older titles that I had bought around 2009-2013 couldn't be downloaded or accessed at all. WTF!?

So, what did I learn from that? Don't trust the cloud.

Luckily a book-loving friend of mine had told me in January that he had bought an e-book twice inadvertently, and instead of just annulling that purchase, his entire Tolino library was cleared by mistake. He got all his books back, but this alarmed me enough to look into Calibre then and treat my books with its functions.

tl;dr: Opening the Kindle app and starting up the Paperwhite to find all my books gone was some kind of a (healthy) shock and reminder to not trust the cloud (completely).

[haertig]

Originally Posted by Julie Paradise

...but this alarmed me enough to look into Calibre then and treat my books with its functions...

You will like Calibre. It adds so much functionality and fun to book ownership, in addition to handling local copies of your books for safety/security. Using the book sellers cloud service to save all your books can indeed get you into problems. Both accidental - as your described problem appears to be - and intentional problems created by the seller themselves. YOU bought the book with YOUR money, it's YOURS to do with as you please, so YOU need to be the one in control of it. (I am only emphasizing my point here with the caps, not directing anything at you personally.)

Welcome to Calibre. Despite probably having ended up here due to the initial fright of a disappearing book collection, you're going to like Calibre for everything it can do. There is nothing that even comes close to it.

[Julie Paradise]

Originally Posted by haertig

You will like Calibre. It adds so much functionality and fun to book ownership, in addition to handling local copies of your books for safety/security. [...] Welcome to Calibre. Despite probably having ended up here due to the initial fright of a disappearing book collection, you're going to like Calibre for everything it can do. There is nothing that even comes close to it.

Yeah, thanks so much for welcoming me!

And yes, I already really like Calibre and made it do for me what I wanted to do, in conjunction with, ahem, several Boox devices to now enjoy my books on. I am a professional (copy) editor and thus really truly need to work with most of my books, so losing them would be very awful. I also just want to freely use my books in more ways than Kindle would let me do it, so having enhanced functionalities like handwriting on EPUBs (which Kindle's format sadly does not support) is a game changer.

Knowing that my local safe files are ... well, safe ... is just amazing. (And yes, since I am in the business of producing books and even e-books myself I know that pirating is not cool and hurts people, but on the other hand these books are meant to be read, used, worked with, not to rot on a shelf.)

But: Books disappearing from my Kindle was a serious red flag and a huge no-no.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Julie Paradise

Yeah, thanks so much for welcoming me!

And yes, I already really like Calibre and made it do for me what I wanted to do, in conjunction with, ahem, several Boox devices to now enjoy my books on. I am a professional (copy) editor and thus really truly need to work with most of my books, so losing them would be very awful. I also just want to freely use my books in more ways than Kindle would let me do it, so having enhanced functionalities like handwriting on EPUBs (which Kindle's format sadly does not support) is a game changer.

Knowing that my local safe files are ... well, safe ... is just amazing. (And yes, since I am in the business of producing books and even e-books myself I know that pirating is not cool and hurts people, but on the other hand these books are meant to be read, used, worked with, not to rot on a shelf.)

But: Books disappearing from my Kindle was a serious red flag and a huge no-no.

There is a solution. You can by a Kobo Reader. Books do not get removed by Kobo.

[Julie Paradise]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

There is a solution. You can by a Kobo Reader. Books do not get removed by Kobo.

Most of the books I need can be either found as PDFs in repositories for academia ... or on Amazon, sometimes also on the publishing houses' sites. To be honest, I cannot even recall getting a search result for the Kobo shop at all ever (I'm mostly talking about very niche subjects like theology or Islamic law).

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Julie Paradise

Most of the books I need can be either found as PDFs in repositories for academia ... or on Amazon, sometimes also on the publishing houses' sites. To be honest, I cannot even recall getting a search result for the Kobo shop at all ever (I'm mostly talking about very niche subjects like theology or Islamic law).

Amazon books can be converted to read on a Kobo, and you can read any old epub file on Kobos. There's not much point in converting PDF files, of course.

But whatever floats your boat.

[Julie Paradise]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Amazon books can be converted to read on a Kobo, and you can read any old epub file on Kobos. There's not much point in converting PDF files, of course.

But whatever floats your boat.

No, there's no point in converting PDFs.
(I am mainly settled on the Boox platform for now also because of the e-note functions. So Kobo is neither an option for their devices, their shop, nor their firmware.)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Julie Paradise

No, there's no point in converting PDFs.
(I am mainly settled on the Boox platform for now also because of the e-note functions. So Kobo is neither an option for their devices, their shop, nor their firmware.)

You can buy eBooks from any shop that uses ePub with no DRM or standard Adobe DRM. That means shops like Kobo, eBooks.com, Google Play Books, Smashwords, BAEN, and any others you know of that sell ePub wit Adobe DRM or no DRM. These ePub can be read on a Kobo Reader.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by jhowell

I have a Kindle Oasis 2 running 5.16.2.1.1 firmware that has been offline for a couple of months so I thought I would use it for a test of e-book deletion. The device only had books on it that were purchased from Amazon or delivered using send-to-kindle.

I created some additional e-books for testing and sideloaded them via USB. This included at least three books each in AZW3 (KF8) and KFX formats. Some were marked as a Kindle purchase (CDETYPE=EBOK), personal document (CDETYPE=PDOC), and not specified (no CDETYPE metadata).

I saved a copy of the documents folder of the device, turned off airplane mode, and synced it with Amazon. The result was the deletion of all of the books I had USB sideloaded with CDETYPE=EBOK. No other books were deleted from the device.

A system log created using ;dm showed the same number of the following messages as the number of books that were deleted:
240429:145014 cvm[10279]: I ReaderSDKImpl:Information::Processing remove item
240429:145014 cvm[10279]: I ReaderSDKImpl:Information::Successfully deleted content

To me this appears to be evidence of the intentional deletion of books that are marked internally as having come from Amazon for which there is no associated record in the user's account.

This makes me very glad to be a Kobo user.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by jhowell

To me this appears to be evidence of the intentional deletion of books that are marked internally as having come from Amazon for which there is no associated record in the user's account.

Maybe, but I still think it's possible that the sync process is a rickety bug-ridden Rube Goldberg mess that relies on possibly incorrect assumptions, with some triggers being implicit.

From their POV, all EBOKs have been bought from amazon and can only get on the kindle OTA or DL&T for that particular S/N and a record thereof in the server farm. When a user deletes from a device via the website the server might just delete that the book was delivered or downloaded. During a sync the kindle might as for each EBOK "Has this book been deleted?". If the server has no record of the book for that particular kindle, it might reply "Yep" and the kindle then deletes it. The actual details might be different, but I have the impression that is how kindle firmware rolls. And, of course, incoorect time on the kindle might also come into play regarding the details of book status.

[zuma]

Originally Posted by haertig

You should test the theory. Report back on the results if you do.

I will. Not sure when since I'm not keen on transferring all my books again but I'm sure I'll connect to wifi at some point. I buy books on Google books sometimes so this is a pain in the ass. My next e-reader will not be a kindle, although I'm in no hurry to ditch my Oasis.

[Stingo]

This was the final straw for me. I used to have a Kobo and I thought the operating system was so much better. Not only did it give me more control over the books but I could select articles online, add them to pocket and they update to the device automatically. However, because Kobos are slower to get in the US I went back to Kindle when my Kobo broke. After having all of my sideloaded content wiped once and with the release of the Kobo Colour I took the plunge again. Very happy with my decision. I can even annotate sideloaded books directly on the page. I hope that someday Amazon decides to release the reigns a little and makes the Kindle device more user friendly. If a user's chosen content is not respected then it is not the user's device.

[haertig]

A key point for me these days, when looking for a new electronic device, is if it will provide what I need under local control (no access to the internet). This research is getting more and more important to undertake, but is also getting harder to accomplish. Devices include my Kindle, my water sprinkler timer, my security cameras, my home lighting, etc. Sometimes you simply cannot find the device you want that can be freed from internet access. e.g., Alexa voice assistant devices. And in those cases, I evaluate the cost of the device in the framework of "will I have recouped my money spent before I have to trash the device due to new intrusive features added via update, or a wasn't-there-before added subscription fee?" This is the main reason my Kindle stays in airplane mode (there are a couple of reasons). I don't want Amazon to get ahold of it and add things I don't want. Like deleting side loaded content for one. Yes, they hold a carrot out in front of you with "Look, we can sync all your devices if you just give us access!", but then they follow that up with the stick and delete your side loaded content that you didn't buy from them. In this case, the carrot wasn't enticing enough for me to tolerate the stick.

[Pen&Paper]

Originally Posted by Julie Paradise

So, what did I learn from that? Don't trust the cloud.

Good advice.

All my ebooks are stored on my computer and into a cloud, not only Amazon.

But all my music, pictures and documents are stored in a cloud. Never had any problems so far with company like Apple, Google, Dropbox, Mega...

[haertig]

Originally Posted by Pen&Paper

But all my music, pictures and documents are stored in a cloud. Never had any problems so far with company like Apple, Google, Dropbox, Mega...

If any of my stuff goes into that kind of cloud, it's only as a secondary backup for local handling on my end. And it is all encrypted before going up into such a cloud. And I don't mean encrypted by that cloud providers software. I encrypt it separately myself. The cloud provider may encrypt it again after I do, but I don't care about that.