Tools Software Jailbreak for PW2, PW3, PW3W, KT2, KV, KOA and KT3

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by veereihen6

Thanks heaps knc1 and all involved with this!! Worked on my PW2 (downgraded from 5.8.1). I am currently at 5.4.3.2, jailbroken.

However, I have a question as to upgrading back up:

Must I upgrade to 5.6.5, then JB, then apply bridge hotfix in order to be able to get back up to 5.8.1 with JB?

As knc1 said.

The jailbreak, once successfully installed per this thread, is persistent and will survive all known firmware updates. It includes a "bridge" (installed as part of the 5.0.x - 5.4.4.2 poison filename jailbreak, or via the >=5.6.x hotfix).
Unless you apply a factory reset, which you didn't, so no worries.

Now you are jailbroken, as per this thread, feel free to upgrade or not, as it pleases you.
Which means, do you care about Amazon's latest improvements (and not everyone does).

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Geek is back! @Alex



Yes we would. No single person should ever be crucial to anything, a.k.a. "single point of failure".
Several pioneers helped make this forum the great forum it is... but certainly, geekmaster was one of them and this place would have been much less without his presence and inspiration.

I meant on the computer not just this forum.
Have I mentioned you are pretty great yourself?

[eschwartz]

Lotta great guys built the computer industry too. No matter how nifty geekmaster's personal contributions.

[Cinisajoy]

Oh go read my new thread.
I know what you mean though. One guy can't do it alone.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I meant on the computer not just this forum.
Have I mentioned you are pretty great yourself?

And yet I was the single point of failure in forums I dominated during my time away from here. One website owner even sent my a skype text begging me to return because all the top posters followed me to my next forum website I moved to (both being virtual reality tech forums). And since I stopped posting at the second VR forum, it mostly died too. Though like here, it remains popular through "last post" karma games and such (badges and LOLs over there). This is primarily a reading forum about ebooks, and we just have a little corner. Though when I left the volume of content specific to this forum dwindled, and unless I missed something, I have stimulated more activity since my return. Before leaving I tried hard to make my shared content here survive my moving on, and the Master Index wiki helped a lot I think. It will survive my death as well. Someday future generations of kindle archaeologists will study how to jailbreak their antique kindles here, eh?

Anyway, we have this DGA-1 jailbreak (I hope the name does not attract lawyerly DMCA notices), and soon the DGA-2 (if it has any benefits over this one). It is being studied now. I plan to let nerd-haters hate nerds without my attention from now on. I have better things (leaving a legacy that will last) to think about.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

As knc1 said.

The jailbreak, once successfully installed per this thread, is persistent and will survive all known firmware updates. It includes a "bridge" (installed as part of the 5.0.x - 5.4.4.2 poison filename jailbreak, or via the >=5.6.x hotfix).
Unless you apply a factory reset, which you didn't, so no worries.

Now you are jailbroken, as per this thread, feel free to upgrade or not, as it pleases you.
Which means, do you care about Amazon's latest improvements (and not everyone does).

As of yesterday: >=5.5.0
I don't recall anyone complaining about it not working on 5.4.3.2, so maybe it is >=5.4.3.2 now.
(The oldest, factory initial firmware image we currently have on hand.)

[knc1]

Originally Posted by SteveJordan

Hmm, ok.
So, what I have to do finally ?
Can I expect use my kindle one day ?
To be honest, I'm a little bit confused ,,,

It has been more than long enough now -
And I have even taken an: "old fart's afternoon power nap" -

All I can think of is 'serial port'
Sorry about that, I really, really am sorry that we (I mostly) bricked your Kindle.

Just for background, would you make some guesses about the following?
It might help us to understand what was different between yours and the ones we tested with.

How many documents/books where on the device? Tens, Hundreds, Thousands
Do you make bookmarks, annotations? None, Few, Many
Do you use collections? None, Few, Many
Use the Kindle's Cloud Account or just Local? Cloud, Local, Both

These have been tested and found not to cause an issue since yours bricked, but just the same...
You had a passcode set? Yes, No
This was an ad supported (Special Offers) Kindle? Yes, No

Do you recall what version of the firmware was running when you started this downgrade process?

Was the device registered?

What are the first six characters of the device's serial number (you can find that now in your Kindle account on Amazon).

Although various people have been doing additional testing, all findings have been negative -
Translation: Nobody has been able to duplicate your problem.

And in advance -
I am sorry if any of the above information was already posted here, I would like it all in one lump, in a single post.
Maybe someone will see something in it that will help us duplicate the problem (its real hard to fix something we can't find).

I re-wrote the instructions based on your problems and I think I may have scared a lot of people off from the idea of downgrading this way.

From the server records, there have been about 360 people downgrading with this method, and only this one brick reported that I know of.

[induna]

I just wanted to report that I jail broke my KV without issue. I followed the latest directions in post #1 and performed a factory reset before the downgrade. The only thing worth mentioning is that the initial boot after installing the downgrade took a long time, over 5 minutes. It sat on the boy under the tree screen doing apparently nothing for several minutes.

Thanks for all your efforts! They are appreciated.

[geekmaster]

I just read your top post again. Love it, especially how you did the spoilers. Much simpler and less "eye-glazing" than pictures-for-their-own-sake when simple (hackeresque) text makes far more sense. And the bold text is in all the right places as well. Pictures have their place in teardowns and such, and graphics software, and other special cases, for sure, but not a jailbreak recipe like this, where oversimplification is not good, IMHO.

"Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.' ~Albert Einstein

Excellent work, and another great contribution you can be proud of.

Yeah there are typos, but nothing that really matters, and my posts are full of them too despite my best efforts and layers of edits. We need a spelling and grammar checker in the MR edit boxes, eh?

[keroro430]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Ryccardo reported on the #kindle-dev IRC channel:

Originally Posted by knc1

It seems that we must advise people to wipe /var/local before the downgrade.

I am working on adding a 'preparation section' to work around these problems.

Nice for someone to test and find that the "Special Offers" and "Passcode" wasn't part of the problem.
Although we do have one user with a bricked PW-3, and unless we can come up with some rescue plan, I guess I will have to buy it from him.

Thank you for the supports.
Maybe I have some collections stored in device. and I don't think it is a wifi problem.

Anyway, I will keep trying to figure out what's going on.
(And maybe I have to take the serial hack.)

[knc1]

Sorry, I forgot about yours -
Make that two bricked Kindles.

Would you please give us the same information that I asked for in post:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...6&postcount=67

We can't fix what we can't duplicate, and we have not been able to duplicate this failure.
We desperately need the help of more information from the people who are having the problems.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by induna

I just wanted to report that I jail broke my KV without issue. I followed the latest directions in post #1 and performed a factory reset before the downgrade. The only thing worth mentioning is that the initial boot after installing the downgrade took a long time, over 5 minutes. It sat on the boy under the tree screen doing apparently nothing for several minutes.

Thanks for all your efforts! They are appreciated.

It was re-building the user's two storage areas, a slow process but the only thing safe to do when downgrading the firmware.

[keroro430]

Originally Posted by knc1

Sorry, I forgot about yours -
Make that two bricked Kindles.

Would you please give us the same information that I asked for in post:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...6&postcount=67

We can't fix what we can't duplicate, and we have not been able to duplicate this failure.
We desperately need the help of more information from the people who are having the problems.

Here you are

Spoiler:

How many documents/books where on the device?
Less than 25

Do you make bookmarks, annotations?
None

Do you use collections?
2

Use the Kindle's Cloud Account or just Local?
Both

You had a passcode set?
Yes

This was an ad supported (Special Offers) Kindle?
Yes

Do you recall what version of the firmware was running when you started this downgrade process?
5.7.4.1

Was the device registered?
Yes? I can use Send-to-Kindle.

What are the first six characters of the device's serial number (you can find that now in your Kindle account on Amazon).
G090G1

[knc1]

Originally Posted by keroro430

Here you are

Spoiler:

How many documents/books where on the device?
Less than 25

Do you make bookmarks, annotations?
None

Do you use collections?
2

Use the Kindle's Cloud Account or just Local?
Both

You had a passcode set?
Yes

This was an ad supported (Special Offers) Kindle?
Yes

Do you recall what version of the firmware was running when you started this downgrade process?
5.7.4.1

Was the device registered?
Yes? I can use Send-to-Kindle.

What are the first six characters of the device's serial number (you can find that now in your Kindle account on Amazon).
G0 90G1

Thanks a lot.
Another early PW-3 model, that might be significant.

Anybody else?
Please do the same.

[Branch Delay]

My unsanctioned opinion: Only proceed with this downgrade if you are willing to risk bricking your Kindle. If you are comfortable opening it up and soldering on a serial port in the worst case, this is probably a good method for you. I'd wait a few days or weeks for more adventurous and technical members to post feedback so we can get a better feel for if this is dangerous or not.

(this is much riskier than simply exploiting a process, i.e. the previous JB.) I'm guessing if we had contact with Amazon they would not recommend this technique.