Can't Amazon on my Fire
December 27, 2017 4:53 PM Subscribe
Yay, Santa brought me a new Fire 7" 7th gen tablet to replace my aging first gen Kindle! And in a matter of hours, I've managed to mess it up by overwriting the Amazon shopping app. Help???
Fired up my new Fire tablet today and got everything properly initialized, a few of my favorite apps installed and my library of reading material downloaded. Then I went to install my password manager and found, to my great dismay, that LastPass is not available in the Amazon AppStore. Google to the rescue, found a solution -- install four Google APKs to get Google Play on the Fire, then install LastPass from there. Twenty minutes later, LastPass is installed, I'm signed in, my passwords are working and all is well.
Then, as is my habit, I checked My Apps & Games for needed updates. Amazon for Tablets was listed, so I clicked to start the update. Downloaded, installed and reported all was well. I closed the Play store and went on with my business, until I tried to use the Amazon shopping app from the home screen a bit later. I clicked the icon, the screen went black for a few seconds, and I was back at the home screen.
About rinse-and-repeat number four, it finally dawned on me -- updating an Amazon app on a Fire OS device while in the Google PlayStore was obviously not a bright move.
Because the basic Amazon shopping app is a core installation in the Fire ecosystem, I can't uninstall/reinstall it. (In fact, I can't even find it in the AppStore.) Since this is day one with a new tablet, a factory reset is clearly an option, though it wouldn't be much fun reliving the past five or six hours.
A faint hope burns that there's a simple solution I'm just not seeing because of my relative unfamiliarity with FireOS. Do you see it?
Fired up my new Fire tablet today and got everything properly initialized, a few of my favorite apps installed and my library of reading material downloaded. Then I went to install my password manager and found, to my great dismay, that LastPass is not available in the Amazon AppStore. Google to the rescue, found a solution -- install four Google APKs to get Google Play on the Fire, then install LastPass from there. Twenty minutes later, LastPass is installed, I'm signed in, my passwords are working and all is well.
Then, as is my habit, I checked My Apps & Games for needed updates. Amazon for Tablets was listed, so I clicked to start the update. Downloaded, installed and reported all was well. I closed the Play store and went on with my business, until I tried to use the Amazon shopping app from the home screen a bit later. I clicked the icon, the screen went black for a few seconds, and I was back at the home screen.
About rinse-and-repeat number four, it finally dawned on me -- updating an Amazon app on a Fire OS device while in the Google PlayStore was obviously not a bright move.
Because the basic Amazon shopping app is a core installation in the Fire ecosystem, I can't uninstall/reinstall it. (In fact, I can't even find it in the AppStore.) Since this is day one with a new tablet, a factory reset is clearly an option, though it wouldn't be much fun reliving the past five or six hours.
A faint hope burns that there's a simple solution I'm just not seeing because of my relative unfamiliarity with FireOS. Do you see it?
Best answer: If turning it off and rebooting does not work, I would do a factory reset and start again. It has only been a week. Should be easy to reload your data.
posted by AugustWest at 5:59 PM on December 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by AugustWest at 5:59 PM on December 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Factory reset. Honestly, anything else you do at this point has probably just as great a chance of making things worse, and this is going to be the easiest way to get back to a known good state.
Also, I'm 99% sure that any official support channel is going to tell you to do the same, because honestly, you'll probably spend more time trying to fix it than doing the reset and setting it up again. Chalk it up as a lesson learned.
posted by Aleyn at 12:04 AM on December 28, 2017
Also, I'm 99% sure that any official support channel is going to tell you to do the same, because honestly, you'll probably spend more time trying to fix it than doing the reset and setting it up again. Chalk it up as a lesson learned.
posted by Aleyn at 12:04 AM on December 28, 2017
Best answer: I'm 100% unfamiliar with FireOS, and I would just do a factory reset, on the sheer principle of "I don't know this OS well and even if I manage to unfuck this, there's no telling what else I'll fuck up by doing it and potentially only notice many months down the line when I have a lot more stuff on this device".
posted by sailoreagle at 1:58 AM on December 28, 2017
posted by sailoreagle at 1:58 AM on December 28, 2017
Google and Amazon don't get along. Don't assume you did something wrong. It may be deliberate obstruction by one party or the other.
posted by SemiSalt at 7:10 AM on December 28, 2017
posted by SemiSalt at 7:10 AM on December 28, 2017
Response by poster: Thanks, all. Reboot didn't work, it's a new day, and the prospect of a factory reset and subsequent reconstruction is less daunting. And yes, Aleyn, I'll take it as a lesson learned. Too soon old, too late smart, eh?
posted by peakcomm at 7:55 AM on December 28, 2017
posted by peakcomm at 7:55 AM on December 28, 2017
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1) do a full power down and restart and then see if you still get the black screen after clicking the icon.Amazon has instructions here on how to restart.
2) I believe that Amazon now offers online help sessions for some Fire devices -- a support person can actually connect to your tablet and help you get it working. It's called Mayday. I'm not sure if your device is one of the ones that includes this option.
posted by duoshao at 5:51 PM on December 27, 2017