How To Troubleshoot Kindle Not Showing Book Covers Correctly?

Question

After purchasing a new Kindle Paperwhite, the thumbnail covers appear blank. Resyncing hasn't helped. Are there known fixes for this ebook metadata bug? This issue makes organizing a digital library frustrating.

kimbelchers7 · Answer

A lot of these problems can be caused by the file type of the book (older MOBI files sometimes have these sorts of problems, for example). Try converting it to an EPUB using Calibre and seeing if that helps, or try re-downloading the book from your library. If you’ve sideloaded the book, then adding the metadata for the book using Calibre can sometimes force it to show the correct cover. I was really pleasantly surprised by the official artwork for the leads of this book, ‘Accidentally Marked By The Alpha King’, a fantasy romance book that starts off with a case of mistaken identity. The artwork really sets the right mood for the book when you’re browsing through your library.

shunda83b · Answer

This brings me back to my suspicion that Amazon has designed their Kindle ecosystem to stream book covers down from the cloud, rather than storing them on your Kindle. And it explains why the ‘remove download’ trick I mentioned above can fix broken book cover displays – the removal of the local reference causes the Kindle to download a fresh copy of the cover from the cloud. Obviously, for sideloaded e-books, there is no cloud reference for the book cover, which is why the local file has to be 100% perfect. USB transfer of a well formatted file to the Kindle is far more reliable than wireless transfer of the same file.

My Kindle library is a series of web pages. The file for each book is a HTML file, and the cover is typically an image which is hosted on a CDN (content delivery network) - or embedded in the HTML file directly (as it is with Amazon cover images). A broken image link results in a placeholder image. To have an image show up for a sideloaded book, you have to host the image yourself within the HTML file for that book. In general, this means the image has to be embedded within the HTML file for the book. The way that calibre converts such images and inserts them into the HTML files for sideloaded books is to embed the image data directly into the HTML file for that book - thus creating a complete "webpage" for that book. Such a book will always display the cover for that book - as opposed to a book that does not show up the cover for that book in the library listing of books. The difference between these two kinds of books is where the image data resides.

Hannah · Answer

Many Kindle issues with not showing covers are caused by a cache or format issue. Restarting your Kindle typically solves such problems. For issues with sideloaded books, converting them to AZW3 in Calibre can help. If a book has been purchased from Amazon and not showing its cover, it is best to simply re-download the book from the Amazon Library. Sometimes just switching the Kindle Library view from List to Grid will cause the book covers to reappear. Make sure you are running the latest software on your Kindle and if you added the book via Calibre check the metadata for that book. Generally speaking the fixes for these types of issues are simple and fast.

Sabrina · Answer

I experience the same kind of frustration. The first thing to check is whether the book file has an embedded cover. Some books that you sideload might not have a cover, in which case you have to add a cover with tools like Calibre. You open the book, edit the metadata and make sure the cover is attached properly.

Kindle cache. Sometimes you just need to restart your Kindle and get all the latest books re-rendered. Go into Settings > Device Options > Restart. If that doesn’t work, try removing the book and re-downloading it from Amazon. There are times when Amazon’s servers get a little out of whack, and re-downloading the book resolves the issue. For side loaded books, converting the book to an AZW3 or KFX formatted book (if it’s not already) also seems to resolve this type of issue (MOBI does not render the cover correctly for side loaded books).

This problem may also occur when you are uploading books to Amazon using the Amazon Personal Document Service. Make sure to add the email account from which you are sending the email to your Kindle’s “Approved Personal Document Email List” in the device’s settings. If none of the above solutions work, it is best to contact Amazon customer support in order to force a refresh of the book cover.

armando taluban · Answer

I will try waiting 48 hours on charge and connected to Wi-Fi. My experience with sideloaded books was that only 5 out of 20 immediately showed the covers. I had to start fixing them but two days later all covers were there. I guess the Kindle was slow to update the graphical database for the books and generating the thumbnails in the background. But it was probably busy indexing the text for search purposes first. E-ink processors are slow compared to the processors in phones.

However, there is one caveat. If you have an older Kindle, or you’ve just added loads of new books to your device, the system can take longer to prioritize cover rendering over text indexing. This means that whilst the text is being indexed for search, the cover for the current book you’re reading might not appear. However, you can search for text within a book and the covers will update one by one. Sometimes you can even see the cover thumbnail generation progress bar. But if after two days the covers still haven’t appeared, then it’s time to move on to some of the more proactive fixes for missing book covers. But often, all the Kindle needs is a bit more time to catch up with itself.

Una · Answer

I have had this issue on and off and usually it can be fixed by updating the Kindle’s software (go to Settings > Device Options > Advanced Options > Update Your Kindle to check and update). Sometimes switching between List view and Grid view in your library can also cause the book covers to reappear.

Sideloading books can be a problem too. Usually MOBI files are side loaded because AZW3 files are purchased from Amazon. MOBI’s usually don’t have any covers anyway but to fix this you can use Calibre to convert your MOBI files to AZW3. Then the covers should appear. As well you should check the metadata for the sideloaded book. Sometimes the covers are there but not linked correctly. In Calibre you can edit the metadata for the book and then reupload the book. For books you purchased from Amazon just restart your Kindle and download the book again. This problem usually goes away after doing this.

smooth · Answer

This could be a new feature on the latest Kindle models. Optimize Storage is referred to as Storage Management on some of the newer Kindles. If you have this feature enabled on your Kindle it could be removing the high-resolution cover images from your device in order to save space. This would then leave a low-resolution placeholder that does not always load. Go to Settings > Storage and look for an option to adjust the cover quality or change the Storage Management to optimize storage less. This may force the device to store the full cover size locally.

Another, somewhat related, thing to check is whether or not your Kindle is indexing your huge library. When you add new books to your Kindle, it has to index them in the background in order for you to search for them later. This can take a while, and in the meantime, you may not see the covers on your new books. To check if your Kindle has finished indexing your books, search for a rare word in one of your newly added books. If it doesn’t appear in the search results, then the Kindle is still indexing that book. Just let it do its thing for a few hours, charge up your Kindle and make sure it’s connected to Wi-Fi. The poor thing needs to do some housekeeping from time to time!

Jack · Answer

I used to get so frustrated with this problem, but it has a couple of solutions. First, if you got the book from Amazon, try removing it from your device and then downloading it again. I find that the cover will then download correctly the second time around. Sideloaded books need to be in AZW3 format, not MOBI. I use Calibre to convert my books to this format.

You might find your missing book covers in ‘Archived Items’. If you have put your books here before, try unarchiving them to see if their covers reappear. Also, note that Kindle books need an internet connection to be downloaded with covers. Make sure your Kindle is not in airplane mode. A full reset of your Kindle (not to be confused with a simple restart) is also an option that should not be ruled out.

Moya Mcguire · Answer

Is your Kindle a Paperwhite 4 (10th generation), because that model had some very well-documented problems with covers after Amazon updated the firmware to a certain point. As I recall, there was no fix short of rolling back the firmware to previous versions, which is not recommended by Amazon and can be somewhat of a nightmare to do. I would suggest searching the online forums for your specific Kindle model plus the words “missing covers after update”. There may be a problem that has yet to be fixed by Amazon.

One thing you could try to get your covers back is to turn off ‘Home screen view’ which enables your Kindle to show you recent books and other recommendations on your home screen. Go to Settings > Device Options > Advanced Options > Home & Library and switch ‘Home Screen View’ to Off. By switching home view to off, your home screen will now revert to just a list of all your books. Interestingly for some people their covers seemed to come back once they had done this and then switched home view back on. A bit of a long shot, but it’s a setting switch so no harm done in trying and it will be switched back on for you once you’ve found out what’s caused the problem with your Kindle.

Inday Diaz · Answer

One more thing to keep in mind: cover image dimensions. Kindle’s library grid expects certain aspect ratio of thumbnails. Embedding a long vertical poster or even a square image to a book’s metadata will likely result in Kindle not being able to generate a proper thumbnail and thus – in display being blank. To avoid this, it’s best to stick with typical paperback cover’s aspect ratio – 2:3. To prepare an image, you can use free image editor GIMP (if you have experience with editors, it’s sufficient) or online tools, resize and crop it to 1000x1500 pixels (or so) and then add it to your Calibre’s metadata edit window.

This is especially important for public domain ebooks (where you might just pull some random image from the web) and for sideloaded books (most store-bought Kindle books will work just fine in the Kindle, but sideloaded books are not as “bailed out” by Kindle software). In the edit metadata window of Calibre you can see a preview of the cover. If it appears to be distorted or does not fill the window properly, you probably need a better image for a cover. A little up-front work with your image file can save a lot of heartache downstream.

Ian Abela · Answer

This drove me nuts for weeks with my brand-new Kindle Paperwhite not showing the covers for about half my library of books. As usual with these kind of problems, the fix in the end was nothing like I expected. Yeah, the “restart and re-download the book(s)” trick didn’t work, but after searching the Kindle forums (buried deep, as usual), I found this one post that seemed to make sense regarding problems with book cover metadata. So I fired up Calibre on my computer, opened up each of the books with coverless metadata, right-clicked on each to bring up Edit Metadata and then changed the metadata in the “Cover” tab to include an embedded image for the book’s cover, saving the changes to the book file. Then, I removed each book from my Kindle and re-sideloaded the book via USB connection. Each book’s cover then displayed correctly. It’s kinda a pain for lots of books, but worth it for your special favorites and such.

I’ve also heard reports that Amazon’s servers sometimes return a low-resolution image of the cover, and toggling Wi-Fi on and off sometimes fixes this. In general, however, for someone who sideloads a lot, Calibre is a huge help. Note, however, that when you save metadata for a book in Calibre, you need to save it to the book file itself, not just to the list of books in the Calibre library. A full factory reset (which can also, incidentally, clear up some other seemingly random graphical glitches) is a very last resort, but do back up your notes and highlights first.

NJ · Answer

My dog managed to sit on my Kindle and in the process, removed all the covers for my books. I'm pretty sure it was an accident, but a restart fixed the problem. Why pets man?

How To Troubleshoot Kindle Not Showing Book Covers Correctly?

12 Answers

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