Select Boot for K4 and Touch

[murz_07]

Yes, great!
Now I cant boot in diags mode
I tryed to mount mmcblk0p1 to mnt/mmc and obviosly made some mistake, so my kindle now is comlitely bricked. Thats nice, now I can stop thinking that I can repair ir myself and just wait for your tools

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by ItsMee

Hi,

its feels I messed up bad :-) Hope you can convince me otherwise.

- Started out with jailbreak and ssh access. Thought it would be nice to block amazon ads via /etc/hosts, while doing that i messed up passwd by replacing sh with bash (which exists) for root.
- Stupid to do that without 2nd ssh session - locked me from root as I got permission denied afterwards. Setting password with ";un password pass" as i ad done earlier didn't help

- Was still able to boot etc.. But wanted root back. Used custom RUNME.sh to sed back passwd.
- Not sure how, but I ended up with a Kindle that stops at Kindle start screen with tree and reading person

- Searched for Kindle Touch recovery and found your site. Helpful stuff!
- Was able to get into diagnosis. Was able to patch back /etc/passwd

So I'm still stuck:
1) Kindle boots only via MfgTool. No reaction to power button / hw reset at all
2) Not sure how to diagnose? See attached log as per your advice
3) No way to recovery by flashing back a backup partion via dd? If so - where to get one w/o buying a second kindle?

ItsMee

It might NOT be bricked. It takes a LONG time to make a backup image of mmcbl0p1. I am going to comment out that line in the previous post, just to eliminate confusion. Try rebooting with it connect to a power adapter, and let it complete the backup. Sorry...

[ItsMee]

Hi,

I don't think its bricked - I'm still able to go into diag. I'm also looking inside your backup (on another linux box).

Question is - why would it not react to power button (HW reset) or simply boot up :-) /var/log/messages is slightly outdated in the backup and doesn't help me much.

Is there a chance that the local bootloader or similar got disturbed in diag / any of the related tools?

ItsMee

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by ItsMee

Hi,

I don't think its bricked - I'm still able to go into diag. I'm also looking inside your backup (on another linux box).

Question is - why would it not react to power button (HW reset) or simply boot up :-) /var/log/messages is slightly outdated in the backup and doesn't help me much.

Is there a chance that the local bootloader or similar got disturbed in diag / any of the related tools?

ItsMee

There were other discussions about this payload (mntus.params) not reliably running when you do a hard reset (long power button hold). It is better to boot to diags and do a normal "reboot" from there.

On linux file systems, there is always a chance of disturbing the file system if you do a hard reset (long power hold) while files are open in write mode. The normal "sync" (cache flushing) gets skipped during a hard reset or unclean power down. And the kindles DO write to the root file system occasionally, especially during startup (look in the startup scripts). This will be an even bigger problem when using "copy on write" file systems, as are in use on other devices, and are planned for in the near future on kindles too. A hard reset should be avoided if possible.

[ItsMee]

I see your point - and agree. However I'm just desperatly looking for a way to reboot from local storage without avail..

Diag -> Reboot freezes w/o any further changes on the display, too..

Any ideas on how to get a handle on the root cause?

ItsMee

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by ItsMee

I see your point - and agree. However I'm just desperatly looking for a way to reboot from local storage without avail..

Diag -> Reboot freezes w/o any further changes on the display, too..

Any ideas on how to get a handle on the root cause?

ItsMee

Not yet. My touch is bricked because of a bad change I did to my copy of mntus.params.

That script worked for me, but I let the backups run until they were finished.

You can erase the main USB Drive that contains RUNME.sh from fastboot. You can reflash the main system partition with an mmcblk0p1.img file. I successfully did that for my K4NT when I copied partitions from one K4NT to another to repair it.

But I have not successfully written an image to my touch yet in fastboot. There are "forensic" copies of mmcblk0p1.img for the touch on the net: http://gitbrew.org/~dasmoover/kindle/touch/forensic/

I cannot help you fix that particular problem until I fix my own kindle touch. Sorry.

It is extremely easy to make things worse, even when you know what you are doing. Things do not always behave as you expect them to when you are trying to recover from a mysterious bricking problem. Unless you are a brave soul, it would be best to wait for simple and complete recovery tools, instead of raw "developer mode" access to diagnostics and root consoles and partition flashing tools.

Unlike older kindles, these new kindles are EXTREMELY easy to brick even when making simple changes from an SSH shell, as can be seen by comments posted to the forums and wikis. You can quickly go from "mostly repaired" to "only boots to fastboot" much too easily. Despite a huge amount of study devoted to the inner workings of kindles, I feel like there is much more that I do NOT know about know them than what I DO know, and I still keep bricking them when trying new things.

The touch with "upstart" seems to be especially touchy, and the AUTOMATIC payloads (like this one) that start on startup seem to be especially risky. It seems that a bad script (or payload sourced by a startup script) can make GOOD startup scripts refuse to run, making the device no longer able to boot until repaired

It is a LOT safer to just use your kindle to read books, like amazon intended.

[geekmaster]

My mntus.params should only call RUNME.sh if there is no RUNME.done, so it should behave identical to the original mntus.params that it replaced, with the benefit of not requiring different versions for each kindle model (where using the wrong one can brick your kindle).

As far as I can tell, the RUNME.done file is created BEFORE the RUNME.sh file runs, so rebooting while it is backing up mmcblk0p1.img SHOULD disable it, and mntus.params should continue as the normal version. It should reboot fine to diags again like it did with the previous (display only) RUNME.sh.

EDIT: Perhaps I need to change mntus.params to add a "sync" after "touch /mnt/us/RUNME.done", but before starting RUNME.sh, to make sure that the new "disable" file actually gets written to disk and is not just sitting in a cache in memory somewhere.

Can a more experienced kindle developer (or linux / upstart guru) suggest what may be going wrong as described in previous posts (people used this tool to gain diags access, but then later bricked it so only fastboot works, when using the "diagnostic messages" RUNME.sh posted above). ???

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by murz_07

Yes, great!
Now I cant boot in diags mode
I tryed to mount mmcblk0p1 to mnt/mmc and obviosly made some mistake, so my kindle now is comlitely bricked. Thats nice, now I can stop thinking that I can repair ir myself and just wait for your tools

That is the problem with low-level access to your device (needed to repair it). I am losing count of how many times I have bricked a kindle now from one "tiny little error" in a startup (or repair) script.

That is why I made RUNME.sh a "one-time run" script, which is disabled by RUNME.done before it is called. That way a damaged RUNME.sh should not be a problem after rebooting.

I think the problems were caused by resetting the kindle with the power button while it was making a backup copy of the partition (which takes a lot longer than you think it should).

[thatworkshop]

A.
Yoohoo! My Kindle is back on her feet!!! Wow!

My advice to those who have bricked their device OR the brickers of future generation is to not give up at all. I tried I think more than 50 times rebooting and trying different combinations of RUNME.sh files and in different modes (main and diag) and this is the way I (read geekmaster) debricked my holy Kindle which had dust on it (not used for months in shelve ):

1. In MfgTool, select diags mode
2. MAGIC REBOOT which is {push reset button + Magic button as our geekmaster said}
3. In USB folder, copy data.tar.gz and this RUNME.sh:

#!/bin/sh
mntroot rw
/usr/sbin/factory_reset
echo "Goddamn! Geekmaster is Awesome man!" > /mnt/us/holycrap.txt

4. Then do MAGIC REBOOT still in diags mode.
5. Now you should have holycrap.txt file on the USB of Kindle.
6. Push Stop button of MfgTool and select main mode and push Start.
7. The do MAGIC REBOOT again.

UPDATE: You might have to boot in main mode one more time (repeat steps 6 and 7).

Guess what? Your little gorgeous Katie is back home!

Geekmaster: You deserve a BIG HUG from me and the whole community. Just wanted to say your time and effort will not be avoid and sometime some where in future, it will do good for you. Thanks man.

Originally Posted by geekmaster

But I have not successfully written an image to my touch yet in fastboot. There are "forensic" copies of mmcblk0p1.img for the touch on the net: http://gitbrew.org/~dasmoover/kindle/touch/forensic/

Also, is this image from a 5.0.0 version of Touch firmware?

EDIT: One headache in working out this debricking procedure is that novice end users don't know when to go in main mode and when in diag mode, when to push start button and when to stop, things like that just add to the frustration of it... I suggest adding one "just give me something that works" step-by-step instruction (like my 7 steps) that just does the job in the original post.

B.
If this didn't work for you, here's my 2nd RUNME.sh that I used to happily recover when my KT bricked in a very strange way for second time!

#!/bin/sh
mntroot rw
dd if=/mnt/us/bak/mmcblk0p1.bin of=/dev/mmcblk0p1 bs=4K
mntroot ro

[ItsMee]

You guys made my day!!

It is a LOT safer to just use your kindle to read books, like amazon intended.

Lots of wisdom in that one. Will follow for today and tomorrow. Maybe the day after :-) But toys are tempting?

/usr/sbin/factory_reset

MAN! I did all kind of crazy stuff during my 50 reboots, find, cat, ls, backup, ... Your answer looks so simple, seeing it now. SWEET!

Be hugged - Kindle is back to life. But as I did factory resets via Menu before - that alone wasn't enough. I had also to revert my initial changes (sh -> bash, /etc/hosts) via RUNME.sh to have this fixed.

ItsMee

[geekmaster]

So, it looks like I should add /usr/sbin/factory_reset to my "display only" demo RUNME.sh in the original post. Thanks for that information cscat!

This is exactly WHY I published my tools before they were completely ready, so that others could improve them. To run a different RUNME.sh, remember to delete RUNME.done from your USB drive.

Things are getting better as we put our heads together and figure out more details about how to use "USB/HID" mode to our benefit. "Standing on the shoulders of Giants" is a noble way to improve our shared knowledge. Let's keep improving this until we have a "One Button" solution.


EDIT: simple step-by-step recovery thread:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=170929

[thatworkshop]

ItsMee: you're most welcome dude! Thanks geekmaster instead.

Originally Posted by geekmaster

So, it looks like I should add /usr/sbin/factory_reset to my "display only" demo RUNME.sh in the original post. Thanks for that information cscat!

Yes I think it's safe enough to be added for general purpose, because those with bricked Kindles just beg to get their devices alive somehow... so best way seems to be simple factory reset.

Geekmaster: I admire your technical skills and I believe old generations of software engineers DO have some great lessons to teach us newer generation; things like patience and anti-instant-gratification that come from being used to the old computers and etc. You know these better than me man... BUT much much much more importantly, your personality that shines through your advices and posts.
Anyways, I try to keep thread just up for its business and not deviate by saying redundant "thank-you" posts BUT dear geekmaster, this is different, you deserve a feast of appraisals and claps with this achievement which literally saves people hundreds of dollars directly (and indirectly, imagine courier services, etc.)... I, for one, bow in front of you as a way of saying "Oh My God! This guy does magic."

[ End Of Rant ]

Also, I edited my previous post, your revision is much appreciated.

[thomass]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Kindle Touch Diagnostics Menu
From SSH: "dd if=/dev/fb0 of=/mnt/us/fb0.raw",
then use IrfanView to crop/resize/convert
608x1792 RAW image to 300x400 PNG image.

Sorry for this a bit irrelelevant question:
I used your tip to take a screenshot. But mine is not clear as yours?

final:

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by thomass

Sorry for this a bit irrelelevant question:
I used your tip to take a screenshot. But mine is not clear as yours?

final:

Your original raw image is 608 wide. Before resizing you need to crop it to 600 wide by cutting 8px off the right side. Depending on image content, it might help to sharpen it before resizing. Then you really should resize by integers, using a good quality resizing filter (like Lanczos). If you shrink an image too far, small text will not be readable. Following are copies of your original raw image that I cropped, sharpened, the resized to exactly 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4 of the original size. Your sample image is 198 wide , which is not an exact integer fraction of the original after cropping, and may cause extra loss of image quality.

I did not sharpen my images after resizing, but it appears that you did. Depending on the image, sharpening can make it better or worse, depending on content.

Personally, I would not shrink images with text below half-size. I would instead crop them to fit (like I did with the MfgTool images that were much too wide to fit a mobileread page).



In the case of my screenshot used in the first post, it was taken from diagnostics mode, which uses a pixel-doubled 5x7 character font. Because each pixel was duplicated in width and height, resizing it to half-width did not lose any of the original content.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by cscat

...
EDIT: One headache in working out this debricking procedure is that novice end users don't know when to go in main mode and when in diag mode, when to push start button and when to stop, things like that just add to the frustration of it... I suggest adding one "just give me something that works" step-by-step instruction (like my 7 steps) that just does the job in the original post.

In retrospect that all makes sense, but for me this is a learning experience as this project is evolving over time into something more refined and easier to use.

I did simplify the post with the snapshots. It original had MANY more screenshots in it. I periodically go back and clean up old posts.

In one post I mentioned that much of the useful content in this thread should probably be moved to a wiki. That would allow it to change easily as new things are discovered. It is a lot harder to clean up a thread, with all the interactive exchanges that usually include portions of previous posts in a quote. I cannot edit mistakes in my text after it is included as a quote in somebody else's post. I really do think *somebody* should make a wiki page based on this (and related) threads.

A *LOT* of my content here is in reponse to other posts, and I add new ideas along the way, to the reply post I am currently creating. When the original post gets too obsolete, I plan to go back and update it. But we do not want that first post to grow too large (like it already is).

At some point, after the first post contents move to a wiki page, I plan to delete most of it and make that post mostly for announcements, downloads, and links to related content.