Daily Archives: June 17, 2016

Freetime update causes problems for children’s Fire tablets

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freetimeFurther information has surfaced in the Amazon forums on the latest issue with Fire tablets de-registering themselves. Earlier today, I noted that this seemed to be affecting Fire tablets with Freetime installed. According to the latest messages on an Amazon forum thread, that Freetime update is the root cause of the issue.

According to a poster on one thread:

Just got off the phone, received confirmation that ALL content and progress is lost. It sounds like it is something to do with the update to FreeTime, and that update accidentally de-registered the kindles.

Others report being told the same thing. While Fire tablets have a backup and sync function, content in Freetime on children’s accounts is a separate backup setting. (You can set Freetime to default to a backup on the cloud under the Freetime settings tab.)

There are also an increasing number of reports (like this one) that many Fire tablets with Free time will not stay registered when the own re-registers them again. In some cases, the tablets are not even showing up on the account owners Manage Your Kindle page. One customer reported being told that the problem was caused by the home’s slow wireless connection!

This problem sees to be affecting a very large number of Freetime users. That means a lot of upset children who have lost not only any personal data, but also all their progress in games like Minecraft. That also means a lot of upset parents who are trying to figure out what is going on. As a parent, I would be pretty upset if this happened to my kids’ devices. Kids tend to take this kind of thing very personally.

Last time, it took a while for Amazon to post an official statement on the issue. We’ll see who soon we hear something. More to come on this.

Daily Links and Deals: 13 Types Of Readers Everyone Knows

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daily_links_1Today, a  fun article on the different types of readers. Also, a Chrome extension that outlines the salient points of articles and look at what Android apps look like on a Chromebook. In deals, a telescope, a drone and last call for Amazon devices for Father’s Day delivery.

Daily Links for Friday, June 17, 2016:

This Chrome extension will give you the gist of online articles (PC World) As someone who reads a lot of articles and RSS feeds, I can certainly see the appeal with this one….

Android apps are now available on Chrome OS (Engadget) This in an exciting thing! Remember, not all Chromebooks will be able to run Android apps. Here’s a list of the ones that can.

13 Types Of Readers Everyone Knows, Because We Aren’t All Alike (Bustle) Can you be more than one of these at the same time? Asking for a friend….

Deals of the Day:

Amazon’s selection of Kindle Daily Deals includes The 10 Habits of Highly Successful Women by Glynnis MacNicol and Rachel Sklar.

In Today’s Deals, the Celestron 21061 AstroMaster 70AZ Refractor Telescope and a Veho Muvi Drone UAV Quadcopter with 1080p HD built in camera, Satellite Navigation and Live view APP. Sure, Dad would love a drone, right?

It’s last call for Kindles, Fires and Alexa devices for a Father’s Day gifts! The Amazon device sale is still offering savings, but you are almost out of time for delivery by June 19th.  Here’s what you can find:

The Barnes and Noble Nook Daily Find is  A Perfect Heritage: A Novel by Penny Vincenzi for $2.99. The Romance Daily Find is Status Update by Annabeth Albert for 99 cents.

Kobo’s Daily Deal is The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie for $1.99. The Extra Daily Deal is #Erinyes Is Now Following You. Forever (God Complex Universe – Book 1) by George Saoulidis for 99 cents.

iTunes’ Weekly Bestsellers Under $4 includes cyberpunk classic Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan for $1.99.

(A note on Daily Deals: All prices current at the time of posting and subject to change. Most items marked Daily Deals are good for only the day posted.

Many large promotions have discount pricing that is set by the publisher. This usually means that titles can be found at a discount price across most platforms (with iTunes sometimes being the exception). If you have a favorite retailer you like to patronize, check the title on that website. There is a good chance that they will be matching the sale price.)

Daily Links are interesting links I discover as I go about my online day. The frequency and number of links posted depend upon the daily news. I also post other, different links of interest on Twitter, Facebook, and on the Google Plus eBook Evangelist Page.

Did your Fire tablet just de-register … again?

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50_fireBack in April, there was a huge a problem with Fire tablets suddenly de-registering themselves. That issue predominantly affected the 8.9 Fire models.

There are multiple threads on the Amazon forums (such as the latest post on this thread), that indicates that the problem is back and it is affecting a lot more Fire tablets this time around. This time around, the problem seems to be involving the $50 fires and Fire tablets purchased for children that are running Freetime.

There are multiple descriptions of the devices spontaneously de-registering, profiles lost, and pins that will not work on the devices. Content, game progress and other data are also disappearing from the tablets. Many Fire owner owners have multiple Fires registered to their account and are reporting that it is the newer devices that are de-registering while the older ones are not. Some customers are also having a problem getting the devices to re-register when they try to correct the problem.

April’s de-registration issue was rumored to be a software glitch and this one may also be tied to a software update. One customer noted in this thread:

My two Fire Tabs for my young children spontaneously deregistered yesterday while they were charging, all content, progress and profiles appear to be lost and require you to start over completely. I put in a message to support and I have an email from them acknowledging this as a known problem on their end (server-side) and their only solution was to re-register and start over anew, losing any saved data and game progress. [Emphasis added]

It is also not clear from the forums if this problem also affects e-ink Kindles, particularly those for children. Some people are referring to problems with their children’s Kindle, but as people often interchange the name Kindle and Fire, I am not clear on which devices this problem actually affects.

More on this as additional info becomes available.

Related Update: Freetime update causes problems for children’s Fire tablets