What device do I have? -> no usb downloader mode possible?

[dingo35]

Hi all,

I recently bought Kindle Touch and I am trying to jailbreak it. My device is running firmware 5.3.7, and I understand I should follow the Kubrick live-cd procedure.

My problem is that my device has no Home button anymore. I am aware of the fact that the "old" Kindle Touch has speaker-looking stripes in the middle part under the screen, which hides a touch-like home-button, but my Kindle is absolutely flat without any obstruction and/or speaker stripes, so it has no Home button. Only home button is on the touch screen, after pressing the upper part of the screen to have the menu bar appear.

Does this mean that the last jailbreaking-entry of Amazon, that is through the usb-downloader mode, now closed, or are there any options out there that I am not aware of?

I was surprised I didn't find any other questions on this subject, is this because my Kindle Touch is so new (or do I have another Kindle? It has paper-white touch-screen without any buttons; I guessed by the firmware version I have Kindle generation 5, and with touch-screen that is called KT or Kindle Touch??).

[aditya3098]

Not a touch. Its a paperwhite. And it cannot de debricked AFAICT. The one with the home button is the ONLY touch.
It is silver in colour. Paperwhite is black

[dingo35]

You're right that it is black; so Paperwhite is in touch and non-touch version, good to know, thx!

[twobob]

eeerrr no

Touch Screen YES + YES LIGHT = Paperwhite

Touch Screen NO + NO LIGHT = Kindle 4 (Now is colored Black not silver)

[knc1]

You have a Kindle Paperwhite.

Both the Kindle Touch and the Kindle Paperwhite (version 1 & most likely the version 2) run the '5' firmware series.
Although **not** the same version of the '5' firmware series (same series, different versions for the the 2 (3?) devices).

"Bricked" is a fairly non-descriptive term - -
Please give details of how your device looks and acts in response to each of the things you have tried.

Depending on what the failure is, it may be possible to recover your device without using the serial port.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by dingo35

You're right that it is black; so Paperwhite is in touch and non-touch version, good to know, thx!

No!

The touch screen e-ink Kindles come in two models:

The "Kindle Touch" - with the centered home button on the lower bezel.

The "Kindle Paperwhite" - without the centered home button on the lower bezel, it has the "Kindle" name there instead.
But it does have an adjustable front light.

So there are two **touch screen** models - one with a front light and no button, one without a front light and with button.
(soon to be 3 models)

[dingo35]

Ok, so now I know where to look it turned out not to be so difficult to jailbreak my home-button-less Kindle Paperwhite with Touchscreen:
1) first downgraded to firmware version 5.3.5 with these instructions; the file can be found here.
2) Then followed these instructions to apply the jailbreak.mobi hack, which isn't using the usb networking option.
3) Then I tried to find more info on the rescue-pack that is installed with this jailbreak, and found it:

Q: How do I use it?
A: There should be (at least) a short period of time in which even a bricked Kindle will shop up as a USB drive, when it is
booting while connected to a computer. During that time, place a file called "ENABLE_DIAGS" directly on the Kindle drive
(Note: the filename is case sensitive... and: *no file extension*, i.e., it's really "ENABLE_DIAGS", not "ENABLE_DIAGS.txt"
or anything like that. If you're using Windows, double-check your settings, or better yet, just switch to a decent Operating System).

Once the device has rebooted into diags mode, issue the following on-screen commands, in sequence, to enable SSH access: N-U-Z-X. The
device should show up as a networked device soon thereafter (if it doesn't, disconnect and reconnect the device).
You should now be able to connect to the device using the following settings:IP=192.168.15.244, USER=root, PASSWORD=mario

Once you're done with your modifications and fixes, and want to reboot the Kindle into "normal" (main) mode, issue the following commands
through SSH:

idme -d --bootmode main
reboot


...so SSH now opens up my kindle, which was the ultimate goal of my quest.
BY THE WAY learned that after placing the ENABLE_DIAGS file the Kindle should be disconnected before rebooting to enter diags mode (undocumented).

Now the only thing bothering me on my Kindle is that when I open a book and start reading it, after closing it is not showing at the top of the list. On my Paperwhite - Non Touch (firmware version 4.x.x) selecting the "show collections" option did this.

Anybody know why we did lose this small but (to me) invaluable functionality, and, is there some package to reinstall it?

[dingo35]

Ok, solved with:

date -s 201309150352
hwclock -w

Isn't that Linux a great OS? Never seen a Kindle, and here I am, configuring it to my own needs :-)

[ixtab]

Glad you got it sorted. However, you're still wildly mixing model names, which is not helpful, because it's confusing both you and possibly other readers. Get your terminology correct, it will also help you to find the right information applying to your device.

The one without touch screen and FW version 4.x.x is simply a Kindle 4, not a Paperwhite. The Kindles with Touch screen are Kindle Touch (no light, but home button), and Paperwhite(frontlight, but no home button). Both the Touch and Paperwhite are known as Kindle 5 here, because they come with FW 5.x.x (but with a mutually exclusive subset of released FW versions for the models).

[knc1]

Originally Posted by dingo35

Now the only thing bothering me on my Kindle is that when I open a book and start reading it, after closing it is not showing at the top of the list. On my Paperwhite - Non Touch (firmware version 4.x.x) selecting the "show collections" option did this.

Anybody know why we did lose this small but (to me) invaluable functionality, and, is there some package to reinstall it?

Do you have the display order set to "most recent" ?
Do you have the system date/time set close to reality ?

Most likely cause: PEBKAC

[dingo35]

@ixtab, you are right, I misunderstood the Kindle model terminology and that hindered me a lot in searching; not aiming at misguiding co-users, so sorry for that. Thanks for your correction!

@knc1, it was solved by setting date and time (see post above).