[htamas]

My Kindle had this "bug" where my side loaded books randomly disappear. As a workaround, I have to keep it in flight mode at all times. Not a big issue since that’s what I would do anyway, but in case my Kindle would break, I wouldn’t think long to buy an alternative

[andwaal]

This happend to my kindle to! After keeping in in flight mode for years I put it online again in order to buy a few new books from the kindle store, poof suddenly my entire library of side loaded books was gone, with progress and everything. I could see random metadata files related to the books on the drive, be books was gone. Super annoying as many of the books I didn't have locally anymore and to loose the "archivement" of finished books sucks big time. I can see this may be implemented by amazon to counter piracy, but alot of these books was perfectly legal. So the result of this is that I will never put my kindle online again and just stop buying from the Kindle store.

[gullevek]

Keep mine in Aeroplane mode. Download books I buy on Amazon directly from amazon and drop them into calibre. Amazon doesn't get to touch my Kindle ever.

Thinking hard if I ever want to get another Kindle when Amazon can just screw around with what I put on my Kindle ...

[bufferoverflow]

I just email epubs (as .txt) to my kindle's email address and they show up on the device in a couple of minutes. Never had any books just vanish.

I find it easier than converting to Kindle format and then copying over USB.

[heelix]

Same, though I don't think it is going to help Amazon the way they hope it does. I moved books over to my kindle and had it nuke my humble bundle collections when I added a purchase from Amazon. I've not connect it again until I figure out how to backup and restore MY metadata.

[throwaway48476]

I had an issue exactly like this with my iPad.

[lostinroutine]

This actually happened to me after connecting to wi-fi but there is a workaround that I found:

Convert your book to .azw3 in Calibre

Instead of sending it to the device in Calibre, locate the azw3 file (Right click -> Open book folder).

Copy the file to your Kindle, but not to the "documents" folder (where Calibre usually puts it) but rather into Downloads->Items

This folder is where books go when you buy them from Amazon or receive them after using the Send to Kindle feature. I have only tried this with azw3 so far but it might also work with .mobi format.

[thimabi]

You’re lucky. I’ve seen books disappear from my Kindle even in flight mode. I wonder what is behind such a persistent bug.

[freedomben]

> I wonder what is behind such a persistent bug.

At what point do we stop giving the benefit of the doubt that it's a "bug"?

[AcerbicZero]

Out of all the devices where having a physical airplane mode switch would be nice, I'd put the kindle pretty high up. Kinda sucks having a battery that lasts ~45 days in airplane mode, and like a week and a half when I forget to turn it off.

[wkat4242]

Since the kindles with 3G have disappeared, the need for airplane mode for actual airplane use is a lot less though. Where I am most airlines permit WiFi use and even offer it themselves in flight. Only mobile network connections still have to be switched off.

[thimabi]

Rather than a physical switch just for that, why not a few reminders in the UI if one keeps the airplane mode off for a certain amount of time?

[widowlark]

I basically always keep it offline, pushing updates via usb-c