Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner....
Subject #1
I have 2 PW3's and 2 PW2's.... all have been JB'd (using Branch Delay's wonderful solution, and the Hotfix has been done on all) and all are still on 5.6.5 with airplane mode on and "update.bin.tmp.partial" folder put in root directories... KUAL menu and MrPI menu extensions are installed on all, that covers the first 3 steps above....
Are the other remaining steps fairly easy? I use a Windows 7 laptop (no Linux terminal training) and I am not a hardware person so no Serial work for me.... if this only involves downloading, unzipping, moving files to proper directories, updating my kindle, etc., I can do that....
Are these things benign? Please no bricked device(s), if possible
I don't let the batteries run down.... if a battery gets down to 50%, I recharge it back to full, and sometimes with so much sideloading, trying Calibre options with a Kindle plugged into the laptop, lots of unintentional recharging happens... no discharged batteries for me (as strange behavior is known to happen without adequate juice left)
So will this be helpful? in light of fully or near-fully charged batteries?
The "reset button" issue will not be a problem.....
Subject #2
(I knew my luck would run out...)
I just received yet another USED PW2 from Amazon.... the previous ones were on 5.6.5 but this latest one has unfortunately been shipped out with 5.7.2.1... so no JB on that one... the unit was received unregistered and in sleep mode, and when it "woke up", the battery was completely discharged with an on-screen warning to recharge it before doing anything else.... that means that Amazon either updated the OS with an almost dead battery or the update to 5.7.2.1 and left in sleep mode killed the battery... I have just recharged the battery for several hours and I am leaving it in sleep mode overnight with no ebooks loaded to it and no registration just to see what happens....
Some remarks in the following non-scientific forum post
https://www.reddit.com/r/kindle/comm...latest_update/
seem to state that updating to 5.7.3 has cured the "battery-drain problem", but those folks may or may not be reliable, though I am sure they mean well...
Any easy experiments I could run on the latest PW2 on 5.7.2.1 will be limited since it cannot be JB'd under the current non-serial methods... but I am open to doing battery-life trials with it since I expect it to kill the battery quickly between charges... but I will know more tomorrow after it has sat in sleep mode for 24 hours.... just to see if the meter has gone down noticeably
I appreciate your help and it would be great if a definitive fix for the battery-drain issue can be found so others can move forward.... it doesn't help with Amazon not being at all transparent about OS updates and no info on the exact issues that are changed or addressed
Let me know your thoughts (sorry to be so long-winded)
Thanks again