KindleTool: Create/Unpack Kindle update files

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@geekmaster: otaup might indeed require otav2 packages, but MRPI certainly doesn't, so that's intriguing. Could you take a look at its log, to see how it actually complained.

Package 'Update_autorun_k5g_0.1.GM_install.bin' (autorun k5g 0.1.GM I) is not an MR package, skipping . . . :(

That was the OTA (not OTA2) update package I mentioned previously. It works on my K1 if I selecdt k1 instead of k5g. Kindletool creates OTA packages just fine, it seems, but on win32 the OTA2 package creation attempts get that temp file error (moving a file onto itself?).

Are you sure MRPI still supports OTA packages?

[NiLuJe]

@geekmaster: Ouch. Either I broke MRPI w/ a KT update recently, or the mingw version mangles the headers somehow... (Because, yeah, we're supposed to handle OTAV1 packages just fine).

Could you PM me that file?

[geekmaster]

I built a k5g ota2 update.bin, and my eink animation did run there too. You want my K5g ota1 file? So far, the ota2 versions just spats some /dev/urandom on the top 10% of the k5 screen during the update process, and creates an autorun.log file. Will send ota and ota2 now...

BTW, I just rebuild both ota and ota2 from a linux VM, and as expected, ota version failed (destroyed without running, logged "not an MR package") and ota2 version ran fine (but reported an error from script even though it does a "return 0" at the end).

[NiLuJe]

@geekmaster: Yeah, I'd like to take a look at that OTAv1, I can't seem to reproduce that in a sandbox here...

The scripts are run w/ set -e (... on FW 5.x), so if anything returns !0 at any point, it aborts ASAP.

[geekmaster]

I sent a PM. No way I could see to do attachments, so I sent a link to a mediafire download. I just looked at the MR log, and I see the successful write to the screen had a failure trying to force eink update. It updated once when the script exited. Apparently the K1 (same as K3) is different from the K5 in the eink update proc location... No matter for gmplay which uses ioctl updates, *IF* I can figure out how to launch it from my install.sh script (where even sourcing files failed). But for the purposes of this thread, I sent ota and ota2 versions, only one of which works in MRPI.

[NiLuJe]

Just whipped up a (hopefully working) hotfix for the win32 KindleTool builds.

And I just reproduced the MRPI issue with OTAv1 packages, so, I'll work on fixing that as well .

[geekmaster]

The previous mingw version worked on ota but failed on ota2. This new version fails on both. For example, this previously worked but now fails:

..\..\kindletool create ota -d k1 * ../Update_autorun_k1_0.1.GM_install.bin
Couldn't open temporary tarball file: Invalid argument.

[NiLuJe]

@geekmaster: Awesome! I broke everything \o/.

Trying something else, binaries are cooking...

[NiLuJe]

There, 1.6.4.60 is up. *Hopefully* that one's good.

The MRPI snapshots should also be fixed, FWIW .

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

There, 1.6.4.60 is up. *Hopefully* that one's good.

The MRPI snapshots should also be fixed, FWIW .

Up where? The post#1 binaries are still the earlier borked 1.6.4 versions. I discovered this after downloading and refailing both ota and ota2. Or did you mean only the source code is up?

[NiLuJe]

With all the snapshots.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

With all the snapshots.

Okay, the mingw kindletool at that link works for ota, but for ota2 it crashes with a popup window "kindletool.exe has stopped working" with these details:

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:	APPCRASH
  Application Name:	kindletool.exe
  Application Version:	0.0.0.0
  Application Timestamp:	350734e5
  Fault Module Name:	msvcrt.dll
  Fault Module Version:	7.0.7601.17744
  Fault Module Timestamp:	4eeaf722
  Exception Code:	c0000005
  Exception Offset:	00060139
  OS Version:	6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.48
  Locale ID:	1033
  Additional Information 1:	0a9e
  Additional Information 2:	0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
  Additional Information 3:	0a9e
  Additional Information 4:	0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

You mentioned msvcrt.dll being a problem in the past. You are necromancing ancient code bugs? Yeah, windows sux, but that does not prevent it from eating the planet... ...and thanks for your efforts to support it!

[NiLuJe]

Okay, so mkstemp is okay, but my tmpfile hack is borked, that's progress, of a sort ;p.

[NiLuJe]

Pushed 1.6.4.67, *might* be a tad better, but I'm not holding my breath on that one...

It's probably something very stupid, but I guess it'll take a VM and a debugger to get to the bottom of it, which I won't have time to do until a few weeks...

[geekmaster]

Okay, this latest version of mingw kindletool creates both ota and ota2 update files. However, one time it reported:

..\..\kindletool create ota2 -d k5g * ../Update_autorun_k5g_ota2_0.1.GM_install.bin
Building OTA V2 (FD04) update package '../Update_autorun_k5g_ota2_0.1.GM_install.bin' for 1 device (Kindle 5 Touch WiFi+3G), Min. OT
A: 0, Target OTA: MAX, Critical: 0, Cert: 0, 0 Metadata.
a install.sh            <-
a kindletool_create_tarball_a06276
archive_write_header() failed: Can't add archive to itself.
a install.sh.sig
a kindletool_create_tarball_a06276.sig
a update-filelist.dat.sig
a update-filelist.dat

I deleted all the update.bin files and reran it, and it succeeded, so some intermittent glitch. Until that "uninitialized whatever" gets unborked, perhaps the readme should say if it fails run it again? Anyway, it works well enough to be useful, so thanks much for that...

If you have find yourself sitting on your thumbs with nothing to do (), one minor annoyance with kindletool (for windows-dependent folks) is that windows won't do tab-completion for filenames with '/' in the path (but '\' works) and kindletool does not support '\', so I start with '\' then after tab-completion I back-arrow and overtype '/'. Nice if (some day RSN) kindletool could also support '\' (because it is unlikely windows will ever support '/' for tab-completion). Plus, it seems "highly illogical" to see a command line with backlashes on the left and forward slashes on the right.