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Amazon Confirms Fire Tablet De-Registration Problem – Also, How To Protect Yourself

17990211551_3d56b2e5f2_hAmazon has yet to come out and explicitly confirm that some of its tablets have been spontaneously developing amnesia, but on Saturday Amazon did tacitly admit that this was a widespread problem.

eBook Evangelist noticed that Amazon had posted the following message in its official support forums:

If you’re having trouble finding your photos, apps, or other content on your Kindle Fire HD 8.9”, please check your current registration status by swiping down from the top of the screen, selecting More, and then selecting My Account. If your device is not registered, tap the Register button and then enter your Amazon account information. After you register your device, you may need to download your content again. To learn more, go to http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201730090.

That’s great, but it doesn’t exactly help those who have already suffered from Amazon’s snafu.

As we’ve been hearing for the past week, many Fire tablet owners are reporting that their tablet has spontaneously deregistered itself, wiping its memory in the process.

Anything not backed up has been sent to the great Recycle Bin in the sky.

Speaking of which, Amazon does offer a backup option for its Fire Tablets, one which ill save your "device settings, network settings, bookmarks, installed apps, and more" to Amazon’s servers.

This option was enabled by default in my $50 Fire tablet, but it was not enabled in my Fire HD 7 (2014). That tablet was upgraded to Fire OS 5.1 Bellini earlier this year.

I don’t know when Amazon added the feature, so I can’t say with any certainty which generations of the Fire tablets have it, but if your tablet has a backup option you’ll be able to find it in settings menu > device options > backup & restore.

Depending on the model year, some Fire tablet might not have this feature, so it would be a really huge help if we could crowd-source a list of tablets which do and do not have a backup option.

Does your Fire tablet have this option?

{list to be added here}

image by Open Grid Scheduler

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Comments


Lola April 24, 2016 um 8:42 pm

My Fire HD 8 (5th generation) has the backup option.


Shari April 24, 2016 um 9:15 pm

My Fire HD 6 has it as well.


Fjtorres April 24, 2016 um 10:32 pm

HD8.9 – no.


Purple lady April 25, 2016 um 1:52 am

I’ve always wondered how the network settings backup works. You have to connect to the network to retrieve your backups, so you need to connect to your network first. What is it that is backed up and restored?

Nate Hoffelder April 25, 2016 um 5:49 am

If you have saved connections for multiple networks, this feature will come in handy.


Mike Hall April 25, 2016 um 3:44 am

My 7″ Fire HDX has the back up option but it seems to have been turned off by default. It’s just run – was very quick, presumably because nearly everthing was downloaded from Amazon in the first place. I presume that it doesn’t back up the contents of the SD card as Amazon won’t want togive me 60+Gbyte of free back up storage?

Nate Hoffelder April 25, 2016 um 6:05 am

"HDX"?

I thought that model did not have a card slot.

Mike Hall April 25, 2016 um 5:12 pm

Sorry, my mistake, getting confused with my other tablet. But the HDX does have 64 Gbyte memory into which I can load all my audio files, so it still raises the possibility of lots of free back up space.


Nate Hoffelder April 25, 2016 um 6:43 am

Thanks, Felix, Shari, and Lola!


SLee April 25, 2016 um 10:05 am

My Kindle fire 8.9 does not have the backup feature. Neither does my mom’s Kindle. I was finally able to get all my contest visible and working, but my mom’s books refuse to appear, though her music, apps, and video works. GRRRRRRRRR


The Fire factory resets: How to back your tablet up to the cloud – TeleRead News: E-books, publishing, tech and beyond April 25, 2016 um 10:15 am

[…] way to back up devices to the cloud the way Google did. However, it turns out that’s not correct. The Digital Reader notes that there is, in fact, a way to back up your Fire device to the cloud, at least on more recent […]


Sarah April 28, 2016 um 5:03 pm

My HD 8.9 doesn’t have the backup option, but when I re-registered it, everything was still there. All of my apps, all of my saved game data, all of my books and magazines and videos. I was incredibly relieved, and I just got an email from Amazon today about a $5 credit for this so it all worked out for me. I feel bad for those who lost everything though.


Laura Barling January 13, 2017 um 1:28 am

My daughter has a Amazon fire HD 6 4th generation tablet,we registered it a year ago and since she hasn’t been home,it hasn’t been used,today we found it again and it’s asking to register it,but yet it has games on it still. Says it’s not registered and when I tried,it says can’t be registered due to internet connection wireless. We have our own WiFi and it is hooked up on the tablet..
We said screw it,we couldn’t (backup) up anything due to it not supposably being registered. So we reseted it.and it’s doing all the same things..
How can we register it? I’ve tried using both my emails yahoo and gmail and still won’t let me register it when I have an Amazon account.. I can sign in on my phone but not on this Amazon tablet? Why?
Please help


trickledownsucks March 27, 2020 um 12:08 am

This problem just randomly happened with my Kindle Fire HD 8, and the year is 2020. The usual Amazon customer service options are closed during the massive COVID-19 pandemic, which means that I’m troubleshooting this un-acknowledged problem of theirs solo. I can’t wait to purchase an Android tablet to replace this one: never using an Amazon device again.

Kat April 14, 2020 um 1:13 am

this just happened to me now..and I keep trying to reregister it and it loads then unregister it again…


Cathy March 27, 2020 um 8:39 pm

I had the same thing happen a week ago. Registered again & everything seems to be fine.


Richard P May 18, 2020 um 10:40 am

In the past two years I haven’t been able to register with NO lock, I think ? need to a better Job.


Shirlene Laws May 30, 2020 um 3:35 pm

I purchased my HE Fire last spring and have had to re-registered it multiple times, loosing bookmarked pages and favorites. Extremely annoying!


Pat Webster February 9, 2021 um 4:48 pm

I have a kindle hd10 about 7 months old .Today 9/02/2021 it switched off and said I had to register.Checking settings it has a back up and restore but it was not switched on.Have now reregistered and activated back up and restore.


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