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tomsem · 04-20-2020, 05:23 PM

Well, I tried to update my Voyage, and now it is bricked.

As I have been doing for awhile, I hooked it up to my iPad mini and copied the .bin over. As soon as I disconnected the cable (there is no ‘unmount’ necessary or even possible), I got an error message of some sort that I could not dismiss. This particular Kindle was set for Russian UI and I did not bother to work through translation, but tried power button reset. When it tried to boot up, I got an ERROR 5 message and since then it gets stuck on the splash screen (in fact I cannot even turn it off, the screen is lit up). It’s fully charged. It won’t go into USB mode any more, either on iPad or my Mac.

Amazon CS made me repeat the troubleshooting I’d already done on my own but the only remedy they offered was 20% trade-in, same as if the device was still working. They erroneously claimed it was running ‘the current software’, 5.12.4, even though I pointed out that 5.12.5 was available on their website. I tried to impress that if it was an issue for me, there might be some issue with the update itself but I don’t think I was successful (they are too deferential to what developers tell them, in this case they were told I had put the wrong update file on there - but that doesn’t brick the device).

I might have reminded them of how many Kindles I’ve purchased over the years, how many thousands of dollars I spend every year with them etc. but I didn’t want to add to their undoubtedly stressful day. But maybe I should have closed with “I’ll never buy another Kindle again!!!” Which is probably true, even ignoring this incident.

04-20-2020, 05:23 PM	#17
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,949 Karma: 27060153 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	Well, I tried to update my Voyage, and now it is bricked. As I have been doing for awhile, I hooked it up to my iPad mini and copied the .bin over. As soon as I disconnected the cable (there is no ‘unmount’ necessary or even possible), I got an error message of some sort that I could not dismiss. This particular Kindle was set for Russian UI and I did not bother to work through translation, but tried power button reset. When it tried to boot up, I got an ERROR 5 message and since then it gets stuck on the splash screen (in fact I cannot even turn it off, the screen is lit up). It’s fully charged. It won’t go into USB mode any more, either on iPad or my Mac. Amazon CS made me repeat the troubleshooting I’d already done on my own but the only remedy they offered was 20% trade-in, same as if the device was still working. They erroneously claimed it was running ‘the current software’, 5.12.4, even though I pointed out that 5.12.5 was available on their website. I tried to impress that if it was an issue for me, there might be some issue with the update itself but I don’t think I was successful (they are too deferential to what developers tell them, in this case they were told I had put the wrong update file on there - but that doesn’t brick the device). I might have reminded them of how many Kindles I’ve purchased over the years, how many thousands of dollars I spend every year with them etc. but I didn’t want to add to their undoubtedly stressful day. But maybe I should have closed with “I’ll never buy another Kindle again!!!” Which is probably true, even ignoring this incident. Last edited by tomsem; 04-20-2020 at 06:10 PM.