Kindle PW2 battery issues 5.7.2.1

[knc1]

Brazil is the first country that I have heard of that includes a printed manual.

Trivia:
Some parts of eastern Europe have the 'generation count' off-by-one.

[gmercator]

I received a follow-up report back from the Amazon PW2 user who's device had been on 5.7.2.1 with the "battery-drain" issue, and who had already contacted Amazon support, was not given any alternative other than the offer of a $15.00 discount on a new replacement, and posted his issue in product reviews for the PW2....

He successfully downloaded 5.7.3 from Amazon's site, and completed the OS upgrade...

He reported back 3 days ago that his PW2 was now performing normally but wanted to wait a couple more days to observe the battery meter with 5.7.3

He just reported back again about an hour ago that his PW2 is continuing to behave "normally" and expressed his sincere thanks for saving the device...

I asked him for further clarification about the "DP75SDI" model number, and he stated it was printed on the back of the device itself (guess he has a very good magnifier and a good flashlight...lol). I didn't press him further to dig into settings to see the first 4 of the serial

He was the only one of about 5 users reporting the battery drain issue that responded back.... not sure if the others solved the problem or tossed out their "dead" Paperwhites...

At this point, unless the devs here have discovered a hidden gotcha with 5.7.3, would advise anyone running 5.7.2.1 on PW2, go ahead with the upgrade to 5.7.3 (PW2)

No direct experience yet with PW3's exhibiting this behavior, so that will be open for anyone else to post about it

Hope this helps

[knc1]

Nice follow-up on that situation.

I do not have a PW-2 in my collection of Kindles to play with myself.
But it does have a long history, it was the first i.MX6 based device produced, nearly a year before the other '7th gen' devices.

So unless we get or hear of a lot of complaints about 'feature changes' in 5.7.3, then all we can do is pass along the story of this one person's experience (that 5.7.3 fixes the problems with 5.7.2).

There have been questions scattered around the forum of what version we recommend (5.6.5, 5.7.2.x or 5.7.3.y) -
So for the PW-2, I guess all we can do is point at this story.

= = = = =

There is a more general, "hot issue" for our technical research to spend time with now -
The removal of our "developer keys" by simply making contact with the Amazon servers (just as if a person changed their registration status).

That one will become a real PITA for our users if Amazon deploys it across their system.
(We think it has only been in 'trials' so far on a few of their servers, either by accident or as tests.)
And it effects **ALL** Kindle models, at least back to the K2.
This one is not a rumor - my K2 was effected while I had it in my hands, watching it.
Other people, other models, reported the same thing during the afternoon of April, 4th.

It was just a stroke of luck that we happened to have a 'tool' on hand to recover the 7th gen. devices from that situation.

[gmercator]

Another success story for upgrading a PW2 from 5.7.2.1 to 5.7.3 to cure the "battery drain" issue just trickled in.... this time from the Kindle forum at reddit.com.... the guy got back to me and confirmed his was a 4GB model

So either stay on 5.6.5 with as much protection from OTA updates as you can, or go to 5.7.3 if you want the new UI (but give up any chance of JB for now)

[knc1]

top level of visible USB storage:
FOLDER: "update.bin.tmp.partial"
case matters.

And if extra paranoid:
Add a file or folder of any name to that new folder.
(Which makes it a bit harder to remove.)

[Yolina]

Which reminds me... my PW3 which is currently on 5.7.2.1 has had the wifi on 24/7 for a week with the magic folder as above - still no hint of a forced update so far (and not run out of battery yet either)

@knc1: is 1 week long enough for the 'folder test' to be conclusive or does it need to be left connected for longer?

[knc1]

Originally Posted by Yolina

Which reminds me... my PW3 which is currently on 5.7.2.1 has had the wifi on 24/7 for a week with the magic folder as above - still no hint of a forced update so far (and not run out of battery yet either)

@knc1: is 1 week long enough for the 'folder test' to be conclusive or does it need to be left connected for longer?

Heck, I can only guess.
But I would just stick a fork in it and call it "done".

[Yolina]

I'll refrain from sticking a fork in it but I'll trust your judgement and call it 'done'

[Eagle Reader]

Hello everyone, I have unjailbroken PW2. I don't have wifi at home, and my PW2 does not have 3G access. I usually turn it off when not in use, most of the time I set it back to airplane mode after at a wifi hotspot, and I use a low back light setting. In hindsight, I have the leather cover from Amazon with the magnet, the one which puts it to sleep when I close the cover. I'd say that with reading 45 to an hour or so every day (where sometimes I'd forgot to go back in airplane mode after being at a wifi hotspot) I'd get 10 to 14 days on a charge.

My PW2 updated to 5.7.3 four days ago when I was at a wifi hotspot, where the battery indicator was at about 35%. Since then the battery usage has been terrible. Day after update the kindle prompted me that the battery was low and to recharge, which I did overnight. In the next two days I used it about 4 hours of which about 1.5 hours was with wifi turned on at hotspots. Last night, got the same low battery message when I turned it on and after resetting, recharged overnight.

I am thinking that my PW2 might be re-indexing? I read earlier in this thread that typing gibberish no longer works to indicate when the kindle is reindexing? So, I am thinking that I should leave my kindle plugged in for a day or two to let it reindex and the reset.

I understand that I can't jailbreak my kindle and I think that making the physical connections in my kindle required for serial jailbreaking might be above my pay grade, sorry. But as I said elsewhere, I'll read the instructions in the thread and then see how I feel.

Any thoughts? I'll post back here after I've left it plugged in for a day or so to give it a chance to re-index.

[knc1]

It might be indexing -
They (lab126) re-implemented the indexer, rather than start-stop, it can slow itself way down rather than stopping or hogging the cpu.

For a jailbroken device, we (I?) could give KUAL a button to return the indexer's current status.

Keep it plugged in (wall charger is best, some PC's turn off their USB power when they sleep - I think your Mac is one of them).

[Eagle Reader]

Originally Posted by knc1

It might be indexing -
They (lab126) re-implemented the indexer, rather than start-stop, it can slow itself way down rather than stopping or hogging the cpu.

For a jailbroken device, we (I?) could give KUAL a button to return the indexer's current status.

Keep it plugged in (wall charger is best, some PC's turn off their USB power when they sleep - I think your Mac is one of them).

Thanks for the reply knc1! Yes, I believe you are correct about the Mac, it does appear that my iMac turns off the USB power when it is sleeping. I have my PW2 plugged into a wall outlet in sleep mode. Will leave it plugged in for a couple of days.

The two nights I was recharging I "thought" that I had turned it off, at least that was the intent. Perhaps it did not index?

[knc1]

The only way to turn a Kindle off is to remove the battery.
Really, I kid you not.

[Eagle Reader]

Originally Posted by knc1

The only way to turn a Kindle off is to remove the battery.
Really, I kid you not.

thanks for the giggle. Needed that today. Seriously, I was wondering. Not intending to open my kindle to remove battery. : I'll stick to holding the power button for seven seconds and turning screen off.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by Eagle Reader

thanks for the giggle. Needed that today. Seriously, I was wondering. Not intending to open my kindle to remove battery. : I'll stick to holding the power button for seven seconds and turning screen off.

There is something you can do that might yield some information -
In the main page, search bar:
;dm
The semi-colon is part of the command.

That will "Dump Messages" -
they will appear as documents on the screen and in /documents.

[Eagle Reader]

Originally Posted by knc1

There is something you can do that might yield some information -
In the main page, search bar:
;dm
The semi-colon is part of the command.

That will "Dump Messages" -
they will appear as documents on the screen and in /documents.

Tried that a couple of times on my main page, search bar. Typed ;dm Search everywhere. Changed view first to documents then to all

Nothing. Even plugged into my iMac and looked in my documents folder. It is finding four FAA safety documents (aDMinistration) under my items and 2 entries for text in books (dm and d-m).

Am I doing something wrong? Or missing something I'm normally pretty good at following instructions.