Further 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.
The eBook Evangelist 
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Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog and commented:
In case you are wondering what is going on with your Kid’s Fire Tablet…
Thanks for the reblog, Chris! 🙂
Welcome Glinda, it’s important information 👍😃
Has Amazon bitten off more than it can chew? Another new headache?
This is the second “update” problem in as many months. It does make you wonder, doesn’t it?
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This apparently happened to my kids’ Kindle Fires as well. Didn’t get the kid-specific version, but it’s the same one without the extra warranty. They also won’t run apps previously downloaded to the SD cards, saying to install the SD card with the app on it.
That’s frustrating. Did you contact Kindle support to see if they can help you?
Have you heard any further info on this? I have 4 kids with fires/free time that have deregistered twice now… once in June and again July 8th. They all lost progress on all of their apps and photos as well. So sad and frustrating! Amazon has been impossible to get any support. They are so vague with their responses, as if they don’t know what’s going on and I’m the only one calling!?! I have been promised by several representatives that they will get back to me with feedback… still waiting on that.
Michelle, I am sorry but I haven’t heard any news on the problem. 😦 I am still following the issue and soon as I hear something, I will post an update.
Have you called or emailed support and asked to speak to a supervisor?
I have. She was actually the least helpful! Lol! I get too frustrated every time I call, so that’s why I was searching the Web for other info. Thanks for providing what you have!
I will keep a look out for any news. 🙂
We have a couple fires this suddenly started happening to yesterday (11-19-16). One has done it more than once in 2 days! Any known fixes yet?
Robbi, I have not heard any news. I would suggest you try a hard reset (unplug power and hold the power button for 20-30 seconds until device restarts). If that does not solve problem, I would call Kindle customer service on Monday. (CS is available today, but I have had better luck with reps by calling through the week. Weekend support reps do not always specialize in Kindle devices. )
Mine, too, just started doing this over the holiday weekend (an “excellent” time for my kids to not be connected!). I have re-registered multiple times even after a hard reset. It’s frustrating. I swear it resets every time we turn it off! If this is going to be the case, anyone have recommendations for a different tablet for kids??
I literally just returned two kindles because I thought they were faulty because they both erased my content. But my HD 6 just did the same dang thing. It erased all my son’s content. So annoying!!! At least it’s a software issue and not a firmware issue. Maybe I’ll go ahead and take advantage of the black Friday sale and get the HD 8 32gb.
This happened to all four of my kids fires twice this summer. I will not be happy if it happens again. So far ours have been ok. It is frustrating when the kids lose all the progress on their games. I thought my daughter had lost all of her pictures (which were with her bff that had just moved), but just recently they re-appeared. So a little hope that maybe all is not lost! Unfortunately Amazon has not been helpful at all with handling these issues.
I have 3 – one Fire HD 7 and two of the newer 50 dollar ones. They ALL deregistered while they were charging at night a few nights ago. I re-register them, and now they’re all doing it again this morning. It’s insane and is driving my kids crazy (and me!). Trying a hard reset on the older one. We’ll see if that works. I’m sick of re-adding all their stuff.
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Crap. I was hoping for a fix here. Same thing happening to my kid’s Kindle when launching FreeTime. 😦
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