MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - Troubleshooting Kindles bricking in Papua New Guinea

SenorClean · 04-15-2019, 08:36 PM

I've got an interesting issue for you all to ponder - 3G / LTE kindles seem to be bricking themselves when taken to Papua New Guinea.

My mother in law lives in Port Moresby, is an avid reader and uses her kindles heavily - particularly because getting paper books locally can be a pain.

A bit of history:

Original kindle is a 3G keyboard - still works but obviously isn't as nice to use as newer ones. This one was sourced from the USA before they are available in Australia.

Next kindle was a PW3 3G - had been working fine until late 2018 when it bricked and got stuck on the 'boy under a tree' screen. Amazon support couldn't help revive it, and offered a discount on a replacement Kindle. I couldn't get it to mount the internal storage to be able to factory reset it but I eventually opened it, soldered in serial port connections, wiped the MMC (stupidly) but was then able to flash a fresh imagine, bring it back to life and it has been working well since (even took an OTA update fine). It hasn't been to PNG though - just Australia, USA and Kiribati. Frustratingly, I didn't keep enough logs to be able to fine down on what was stopping the boot sequence when I first connected over serial.

Her new Kindle was bought in December from Amazon AU and is a current 10th gen waterproof LTE unit. It was used for a few weeks in Australia, taken to the UK - working fine but, then bricked in the same way (boy under the tree) shortly after being taken to PNG.

Amazon replaced it with a refurb under warranty. Before sending the old one off - I tried to see if I could get the internal storage to mount, but couldn't.
The replacement was delivered to me in Australia, I updated it to the latest firmware and downloaded a bunch of her books on to it, sent it to her in PNG and now it is stuck on the boy under a tree screen too before she got a chance to use it!

So... Where to from here? Give up on LTE and replace it with a wifi model?

Any ideas what could be causing this and how I can properly report it to Amazon in a way that will get it fixed? What on earth could it be? Some kind of message about 'roaming fees' that prevents them from booting maybe?

I asked Amazon support how I can stop this happening again after the second time and they told me not to overcharge them.. ugh.

PNG doesn't seem to be on the Amazon coverage maps - but the 3G Kindles have worked up there over the last 10 years or so regardless.

04-15-2019, 08:36 PM	#1
SenorClean Member Posts: 19 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jan 2019 Device: Kindle 3, PW3, PW4(Bricked)	Kindles bricking in Papua New Guinea I've got an interesting issue for you all to ponder - 3G / LTE kindles seem to be bricking themselves when taken to Papua New Guinea. My mother in law lives in Port Moresby, is an avid reader and uses her kindles heavily - particularly because getting paper books locally can be a pain. A bit of history: Original kindle is a 3G keyboard - still works but obviously isn't as nice to use as newer ones. This one was sourced from the USA before they are available in Australia. Next kindle was a PW3 3G - had been working fine until late 2018 when it bricked and got stuck on the 'boy under a tree' screen. Amazon support couldn't help revive it, and offered a discount on a replacement Kindle. I couldn't get it to mount the internal storage to be able to factory reset it but I eventually opened it, soldered in serial port connections, wiped the MMC (stupidly) but was then able to flash a fresh imagine, bring it back to life and it has been working well since (even took an OTA update fine). It hasn't been to PNG though - just Australia, USA and Kiribati. Frustratingly, I didn't keep enough logs to be able to fine down on what was stopping the boot sequence when I first connected over serial. Her new Kindle was bought in December from Amazon AU and is a current 10th gen waterproof LTE unit. It was used for a few weeks in Australia, taken to the UK - working fine but, then bricked in the same way (boy under the tree) shortly after being taken to PNG. Amazon replaced it with a refurb under warranty. Before sending the old one off - I tried to see if I could get the internal storage to mount, but couldn't. The replacement was delivered to me in Australia, I updated it to the latest firmware and downloaded a bunch of her books on to it, sent it to her in PNG and now it is stuck on the boy under a tree screen too before she got a chance to use it! So... Where to from here? Give up on LTE and replace it with a wifi model? Any ideas what could be causing this and how I can properly report it to Amazon in a way that will get it fixed? What on earth could it be? Some kind of message about 'roaming fees' that prevents them from booting maybe? I asked Amazon support how I can stop this happening again after the second time and they told me not to overcharge them.. ugh. PNG doesn't seem to be on the Amazon coverage maps - but the 3G Kindles have worked up there over the last 10 years or so regardless. Last edited by SenorClean; 04-15-2019 at 08:41 PM.