Alternate "Simple" debricking methods for K5-Touch, K4-Mini, & K3-Keyboard

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by knc1

There is a basic problem with the recovery process that uses the Freescale provided code.

With the exception of the off-chip RAM and 2 models of USB UARTS, the Freescale code only handles on-chip devices.

The battery charger and management is done off-chip.
Without code to control the off-chip battery management, things are more than a bit non-deterministic.

The good news is the source code license which the ATK is under - it covers derivatives of the client side code (mis-named by Freescale as a "RAM kernel").

The bad news is that same license prohibits the addition of any code that would bring the Freescale provided code into the "Open Source" world. I.E: You can not add GPL licensed code (or any other "viral" license) when making your derivative.

The only known (to me anyway) sources of battery management chip code is GPL licensed.

The solution is to re-write (rather than derive) the client side code so that existing GPL code can be re-used.

In the time I have been posting about this, I have not been exactly over-whelmed by offers of assistance and it is too much of a project for me to do on my own.

Which leaves the end-user with the next-best alternative - remove the battery and re-charge it with an "Amazon approved" charger outside of the Kindle.

Now that you worded it this way you have attracted more of my attention. My problem is not enough time, and I spend far too little of that time in the forums and not in the code. I need to spend more time studying code and manuals, and writing and testing code, and less of it reading and posting here...

But about posting, I want to do a TOTAL REWRITE of the simple debricking method, because now we have much simpler methods, based on things I have though about and wanted to do for a long time, but I never got around to implementing. Now thanks to other devs here who have provided a couple of these tools and methods that I did not get around to doing myself, we have the major critical components to do debricking WITHOUT fastboot, and without MfgTool as well. I need to organize and test and add some glue code to tie all this together, but there will soon be an easier way to debrick/jailbreak/install apps (partly replacing what yifanlu announced he was working on). But it takes time, and I have little now...

[twobob]

Originally Posted by knc1

There is a basic problem with the recovery process that uses the Freescale provided code.

With the exception of the off-chip RAM and 2 models of USB UARTS, the Freescale code only handles on-chip devices.

The battery charger and management is done off-chip.
Without code to control the off-chip battery management, things are more than a bit non-deterministic.

The good news is the source code license which the ATK is under - it covers derivatives of the client side code (mis-named by Freescale as a "RAM kernel").

The bad news is that same license prohibits the addition of any code that would bring the Freescale provided code into the "Open Source" world. I.E: You can not add GPL licensed code (or any other "viral" license) when making your derivative.

The only known (to me anyway) sources of battery management chip code is GPL licensed.

The solution is to re-write (rather than derive) the client side code so that existing GPL code can be re-used.

In the time I have been posting about this, I have not been exactly over-whelmed by offers of assistance and it is too much of a project for me to do on my own.

Which leaves the end-user with the next-best alternative - remove the battery and re-charge it with an "Amazon approved" charger outside of the Kindle.

Hmm explains a lot about the battery issue.
Solid research.

[knc1]

The **external** battery management chip can generate interrupts for conditions that need attention. Things like excessive current, battery temperature, **low voltage**, others.

To write to flash memory -
you need an erased 'erase block' (or have to erase one)
and then re-program the entire block.
Both "erase" and "re-program" are power hungry operations.

At least in the lab126 code included in the 2.5.8 firmware u-boot, they disable interrupts while doing the "erase" and "re-program".

I.E: If you don't have enough battery capacity to complete the operation, they don't want to hear about it.
A really great piece of logic.

[twobob]

I can report my K5 "occasionally" just decides that it should be remounted after being ejected from the computer. often ages afterwards.

possibly a change in charge level to maximum or something stupid?? but I've noticed it happen plenty of times to know it is a true "glitch".

It also -just now- refuses to use my wall charger currently (works fine on all other kindles) for no obvious reason. Might be going back to the shop.

Ooh, and I ran my k3 into the ground the other day accidentally for power. full shutdown job. the wall charger did manage to revive it after about an hour. Did have a few tense moments though

Ah power. what a joy

[geekmaster]

Question: Should I remove the dead gitbrew URLs from the pastebin?

The gitbrew site did not yet get resurrected as I had expected, so I think those links should go away.

Especially, I think that the noobs guide for K3 debricking should stop using the 3.3 images, and should use the known-good 3.0.2 images instead...

You can always update to a newer image later.

As I recall in a PM from ixtab, it was suggested that the pastebin should only contain for each kindle model one old "no hacks" firmware, plus the latest firmware with pre-installed popular hacks.

EDIT: I think it is time to clear out the dead links so we do not confuse noobs. And the noobs guides should probably not link directly to gitbrew...

[qlob]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Question: Should I remove the dead gitbrew URLs from the pastebin?
The gitbrew site did not yet get resurrected as I had expected, so I think those links should go away.
Especially, I think that the noobs guide for K3 debricking should stop using the 3.3 images, and should use the known-good 3.0.2 images instead...
You can always update to a newer image later.
As I recall in a PM from ixtab, it was suggested that the pastebin should only contain for each kindle model one old "no hacks" firmware, plus the latest firmware with pre-installed popular hacks.

EDIT: I think it is time to clear out the dead links so we do not confuse noobs. And the noobs guides should probably not link directly to gitbrew...

I'll update the noobs guide when possible. (If anyone else wants to do it, go right ahead, it may be a while here...)

I would remove the links. I also agree with ixtab's suggestion, however I think there should be more than "choclate"(modded) and "vanilla"(unmodded), but that would probably take up some time....

[ixtab]

Originally Posted by qlob

I'll update the noobs guide when possible. (If anyone else wants to do it, go right ahead, it may be a while here...)

I would remove the links. I also agree with ixtab's suggestion, however I think there should be more than "choclate"(modded) and "vanilla"(unmodded), but that would probably take up some time....

Just a small clarification: what I said is that we don't need to make images of every single firmware revision available. My suggestion for the Kindle Touch is 5.0.0 and 5.1.2. That's the oldest, and the most recent, one. Everything in between doesn't make sense, IMO - if somebody really wants to run, say, FW 5.0.4, they can flash the 5.0.0 image and then apply the update. Plus, providing too many images will only lead to confusion about which one is "the right one".

...but yes, I'm currently providing two variants of the 5.1.2 image: one "vanilla" (without anything additional), and one "chocolate" for convenience (with the Jailbreak, SSH, and Kindlet jailbreak preinstalled).

[geekmaster]

Okay, so three versions per kindle model: old, new, and new with popular hacks.... It seems like a good idea to get that done soon. And all the fionaXXX password hashes should be replaced with the mario DES hash...

And the pastebin should have the md5sums too, and a README file telling how to extract compressed images.

[qlob]

Okay. I may end up flashing my kindle again anyways...
old new and new with hacks sounds good..

[geekmaster]

The pastebin from the first post has been updated. The labels have been modified to be a bit more consistent. The redundant gitbrew links were removed. The URLs were changed to a "[dead gitbrew link]" comment on the unique files.

But more importantly, I have added URLs for a 3.4 kernel and a 2-part zip file for mmcblk0p1-3.4+jb+keys.img file. As the name implies, this has the jailbreak and dev keys pre-installed.

EDIT: This 3.4 debricking repair image is from a K3 that also has the usbNetwork hack installed (which was used to create the backup files). That hack will not function after debricking, until it is reinstalled, due to hack files on the USB drive that are not included in the main partition.

[geekmaster]

Pastebin is down right now. It would be great to have a copy of it somewhere on a different site. It says something about "heavy load" and "back online soon".

That offsite mirror copy would need to be kept updated to match the main pastebin copy though...

[geekmaster]

Even more cleanup to the pastebin (including header and footer content, and more mirror URLs).

And we now have an exact duplicate mirror of the pastebin.com page (with simpler URL):
http://snipurl.com/debrick

[geekmaster]

Another success report copied from a PM debricking session:

Originally Posted by kasumi

Thank you!!! I spent hours trying to find a fix, and your message gave me the right push!

I found the script for a factory reset and everything is fine now!

A quick question though: my device was jailbroken (with the K4 wiki method) before all this but now I don't see those files when mounted as a usb device. Is it reverted back? Would it function properly if I jailbreak it again?

A Million THANKS AGAIN!!! DDD

Factory reset erases and repopulates the USB drive with default files. You need to reinstall stuff.

[adi23]

Hello,

I have a Kindle Touch and all partitions were erased (including the u-boot partition). I have attached a serial port cable to the kindle and i can successfully connect it with putty.

I have tryed to run MfgTool with Diag mode and i can see in putty that the boot process fails becouse The Board Id and S/N are blank.(this happens before loading u-boot, which doesn't exist anymore anyway)

I need to know how can i flash the partitions using the serial port when everything was wiped out from the kindle?

Thank you

[knc1]

Originally Posted by adi23

Hello,

I have a Kindle Touch and all partitions were erased (including the u-boot partition). I have attached a serial port cable to the kindle and i can successfully connect it with putty.

If you erased u-boot just what are you: "successfully connect(ing)" to?