First post...interesting problem, IMO

[armstid]

Hi all,

Go easy on me here but this is my first post and I have searched for weeks about this issue with no success.

I bought my wife a Kindle 3g/wifi with ads from Amazon.com a month ago and it arrived days later. After charging, I noticed the screensavers were of dead authors. I was pretty sure this was wrong. Then we tried to register the device (something Amazon should've done before shipping) and saw that it wasn't registered. Went into the account and clicked manage kindle and it told me that it hadn't left shipping yet. I thought maybe if I put it online it would somehow magically register the device and become an ad wifi3g kindle.

I tried connecting to wi-fi...nothing (bars no connectivity)

3g...nothing (no 3g symbol).

I am a librarian and do the majority of the networking at my library...that is to say...I KNOW that everything I did to connect to the wi-fi was correct.

Getting to my point. A couple of weeks passed with me calling Amazon to "check the status of my shipment" and them calling me back numerous times to apologize for the inconvenience but they had no record of the purchase or tracking # or serial # or anything. It was on my things ordered but never processed.

I sort of never really told them that I had gotten the thing. I didn't want to interrupt their eloquent apologies to tell them about MY menial problems.

A few days ago they over-nighted me a brand new upgraded ad-free version.

I can put books on the broken one just fine. Everything I would ever want a kindle for is reading and jailbreaking. Now my wife has a fully functional Kindle and I have a wonderful ebook reader that I can shred to pieces.

Commencing jailbreak 3.2.1... took! usbnetwork hack... took! Can see all root files but haven't touched a thing yet.

I'd like to see if I can fix the wifi issue. Any suggestions of where I might start to debug this thing?

And if I do, will the horribly apologetic souls at Kindle find me when I connect and come down on me with the hammer of Thor?

Sorry for the lengthiness. I'm just real proud of myself and had to tell the story. And after researching all the dev talk in this forum it seems you folks might be my only hope.

Help me Developer's Corner. You're my only hope.

[Helgetus]

Welcome armstid!

From what I understand is
1. you have purchased one Kindle that was never registered and wifi and 3g is not working. But you were able to install the jailbreak via USB ...

2. you have a 2nd kindle that is registered and wifi and 3g work

So fine.

If you want to get wifi and 3g working on your 1st kindle and if that works ... want to register it as a 2nd kindle on amazon? I am sure that will raise some questions and it probably does not work in the first place. Amazon knows exactly which MAC addresses and serial numbers the kindles have they sell/ship.

I can not help you with the wifi/3g repair.

Happy reading!

[HarryT]

Your course of action is perfectly clear: return the extra device to Amazon. You haven't paid for it; it's not yours to keep.

[armstid]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Your course of action is perfectly clear: return the extra device to Amazon. You haven't paid for it; it's not yours to keep.

Hmmm...I am not experiencing an ethical dilemma about keeping the device, just about whether or not I should count my blessings and just read.

Thank you, Helgetus. I'm currently reading an idiot's guide to unix on my found Kindle and will probably be ditching all efforts of enabling wi-fi as it does in fact have a MAC address listed....though no serial # (I'm assuming that's because it's not registered).

Thanks!

[dasmoover]

Go to menu - settings, take a look at your WIFI mac address, if it says unavailable it has to do with your SN/ID/MAC/MFG not corresponding with each other correctly.

Run "idme ?" in a shell to obtain these values. You may be able to bring up wifi and setup your network via wpa_cli through the shell.

You can also try a factory reset, this usually resets the model via Amazon.

[yifanlu]

I don't know why you are telling us how you got the kindle. If you think it's not working because of a block from amazon or something, we can't legally help you. If that's not the case, there was no point in telling us.

[armstid]

Point taken yifanlu. This was not procured through any illegal means. I was told after the fact that if it showed up in the mail I could keep it...I did. I told the story because I tell stories.

Thanks Dasmoover. I'm gonna try going through the shell.

This thread can be closed btw. Seems the ethical has overtaken the technical and I'd hate to be flamed by coders.

Thanks

[yifanlu]

Originally Posted by armstid

Point taken yifanlu. This was not procured through any illegal means. I was told after the fact that if it showed up in the mail I could keep it...I did. I told the story because I tell stories.

Thanks Dasmoover. I'm gonna try going through the shell.

This thread can be closed btw. Seems the ethical has overtaken the technical and I'd hate to be flamed by coders.

Thanks

Your question was about wifi not showing bars. I'll tell you right now that there is no feature on the kindle that prevents wifi from working by choice. Your problem is most likely the wifi router. Unsupported encryption or unsupported wireless mode. There was no point in bragging about getting a free kindle. I don't think anyone "flamed" you. There's a couple of pointed opinions, but no insults or accustions or anger. Luckily nobody I know so far on this forum acts that way, but you will know when you're being flamed. Again, check your wifi spot or try connecting to another wifi point, maybe a public open acces point. If nothing works, your kindle may have a broken wifi chip, but that's unlikely.