The Kindle Paperwhite e-book reader has a number of bugs. Amazon do not allow bugs to be reported to them, so these bugs will probably last for ever. We are documenting them here so that people understand that the bug has nothing to do with the e-book they are reading.

Blank screen

This applies to newly-installed e-books. The symptom here is that you open the e-book and when you try to turn the page, the screen goes white. After a few seconds the Kindle re-starts itself. When the restart is complete, it displays… another white screen.

The cure here is to press the power button for 10-20 seconds until the Kindle asks you what you want to do. Select “Restart” from the menu. After a minute or two the Kindle will finish restarting itself and you will be able to read your book.

This bug has also been reported on the Kindle app on the iPhone and iPad.

Jumping backwards or forwards

This bug applies to a wide range of e-books purchased from the Kindle Store. You are steadily reading through a book, tapping on the screen to turn to the next page, and then suddenly, on one particular page, tapping takes you back to the previous page instead of going forwards. Or it takes you back 20 pages. Or it takes you to the very end of the book.

There is no way of going back to where you were, short of remembering what you were reading and searching for a word or two.

The problem is permanently associated with the page in question and you will never be able to get past that page just by page-turning.

The cure is to keep a constant eye on what the “Loc” indicator in the bottom left-hand corner is saying. When the problem occurs, press the button at the bottom of the screen which gives you a miniature view of nine pages at a time. Scroll through this until you get to the page whose “Loc” value you have noted, and tap on the one after it.