K5 FW 5.x ScreenSavers Hack

[knc1]

Your welcome.
I was sure that my little reminder list would be enough to get you fixed (no pun intended) up.

[Ruskie_it]

Lately I am having this weird problem with the SS hack: more often than not, it selects the wrong picture as a cover of the book I am reading. It happens with both KFX and AZW3 books (although slightly more frequently on KFX books, I reckon).

Calibre's metadata shows the correct cover, the cover image is also present in the book (it is shown as the first "page" of the ebook when I open it on the Kindle).
Calibre's book editor shows it marked as the cover in the original epub, as well as on the converted AZW3.
I can't say what happens in KFX since Calibre does not have an KFX editor, but I tried to convert the EPUB to KFX, and then the KFX to AZW3, and this final AZW3 still shows the correct picture marked as a cover, therefore I guess that the cover information is retained in the source KFX as well.
Yet, the screen saver hack keeps selecting another image as the cover.
In the case I have at hand right now, by the way, it is a "wrong image", meaning the SS hack should not even support it afaik, cause it's a small icon, like 60x60...

How can I debug this more in detail?

[NiLuJe]

@Ruskie_it: If it picks *another book's* cover, check your date/time, if it picks *another image* in the *correct* book, it's borked metadata.

Check the logs and check the output from KindleUnpack for KF8 files. Or poke at the metadata with... something for KFX files.

[Ruskie_it]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@Ruskie_it: If it picks *another book's* cover, check your date/time, if it picks *another image* in the *correct* book, it's borked metadata.

Check the logs and check the output from KindleUnpack for KF8 files. Or poke at the metadata with... something for KFX files.

No no, it picks another image in the right book. The right image is marked as a cover, though, either in the epub, and the azw3. I can't say what is marked as a cover in kfx, because I don't have a kfx editor, but the azw3 comes directly from kfx conversion, therefore I assume it is right in kfx too.

I now tried to unpack the azw3 with KindleUnpack, and any reference to "cover" points to the correct picture even in the unpacked book. Anything specific I should look at in the metadata?

Regarding the log and the "something for KFX files" I am afraid I don't know what to look for... Can you be more specific?

[Ruskie_it]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

@Ruskie_it: If it picks *another book's* cover, check your date/time, if it picks *another image* in the *correct* book, it's borked metadata.

Check the logs and check the output from KindleUnpack for KF8 files. Or poke at the metadata with... something for KFX files.

Oh well... It is fixed now. In the end, I don't think it was metadata, but you tell me.
Here's what I did after what I already wrote:

• updated the SS hack (no luck)
• updated the Kindle previewer, and of course re-converted the original epub to kfx (no luck)
• restarted the kindle (no luck)
• via kual, set verbose mode and cleared the image cache (no luck); from that moment on, I started having no ss at all, it behaved as if "last screen mode" was set
• restarted the kindle again (still having "last screen")
• Changed to another book (correct cover displayed)
• Started reading my "acutal" book again --> success, the correct cover image started to being displayed

Before writing here I already tried to switch to another book, showing correct cover, and switching back to the offending one, and it didn't work in that case. This time, it did the trick. Who knows...

[NiLuJe]

It's been quite a while since anything relevant was updated, but there was a KFX tweak (I don't really remember any details, though) a couple months ago, so you might have been using an older version.

[Project D]

Ok, I'm at my wit's end. I've been at this for almost 24 hours now, and I'm getting absolutely nowhere. I've combed the thread and the rest of the forum as much as my dyslexia will allow me in an attempt to not waste anyone's time, but enough is enough. I give up, I'm asking for help.

I have a KT w/SO running the latest 5.3.7.3.

*I went into my account device manager and paid to remove Special Offers. I turned on wifi and allowed the KT to acknowledge the change. No more SOs. Wifi turned back off.

*I performed the K5 jailbreak (5.0.x - 5.4.4.2) as per the Snapshots post. Jailbreak reported successful.

*I installed KUAL, KUAL+, MRPI, all per instructions. All apparently installed correctly.

*I copied Update_linkss_0.25.N_install_touch_pw.bin to the mrpackages folder, ejected and unplugged the Kindle, then installed via MRPI. The install reported successful.

*After reboot, I put the Kindle to sleep. I see the stock screen of the woman with the telescope under the moon and a shooting star. No dice.

*I've read through Troubleshooting and the FAQ. I don't see any indication that I've done anything wrong.

*I tried reinstalling the screensavers hack, even installing the Python build in the Snapshots thread, just for gits and shiggles.

If I've done something wrong, if I'm missing something, if there's something I should do that's not otherwise listed in the thread, I don't know. Any suggestions would be welcome.

[NiLuJe]

Originally Posted by Project D

*After reboot, I put the Kindle to sleep. I see the stock screen of the woman with the telescope under the moon and a shooting star. No dice.

From what I remember of my SO PW1, that's the stock SO screensaver when an SO device doesn't actually have an ad to show...

The salient point being that it's still SO, so, no dice on the custom screensavers front.

I don't know/remember how long disabling SO can actually take to trickle down to the device, and whether a simple sync and/or reboot is enough.

So, try forcing a sync and letting it sit for a while, then do a proper restart.

(If push comes to shove, a factory reset should do it, but it's a bit drastic).

[Project D]

That's what I figured it was. I've actually tried that, as well. Well, everything short of a factory reset, at least. God, I hope I don't have to go that far but if I does, I does.

One other detail I should mention, the reason I thought that the SO had successfully disabled itself is because the Kindle was connected to Wifi when I was making the appropriate account changes, and while I was contemplating whether I needed to do anything to facilitate my device updating, about 45 seconds later it rebooted itself, and where I had special offers popping up on my sleep screen before, now I only get the telescope lady. Manually selecting "View Special Offers" from the menu brings me to a screen telling me to connect wirelessly to download the latest special offers, despite the fact I am connected and can access the store, browser, etc.

It's starting to sound like the system developed an error on me and I've been fighting an unwinable war against a wall. Anything else I can try before I resort to the factory reset? Also, will I need to re-jailbreak after a factory reset? I would presume so.

[Project D]

Ok, soooo...this is slightly embarassing, but I believe I figured out what my problem was. And because it's really stupid, I'll share so that others may benefit from my embarassment.

So this KT isn't my primary Kindle anymore. I have a KT3 (2016) that is my go-to. I would've been jailbreaking it if I could, but alas the firmware is too new (current, even. Thanks, Amazon!). I haven't used my KT in months, and hadn't needed to download anything new to it in years.

And I've since changed my account password a few times. ~.~;; I didn't remember that the password would've been out-of-date until after I ran a factory reset and had to log back in, and realized I'd never typed the new password into this device. There was no way that it could update my SO settings, because it wouldn't have been able to log into my account. I didn't twig onto it because the offers were still updating themselves and everything was behaving...well, normally. It's a bit weird that it just so happened to reset itself less than a minute after I updated my account, and that first time it went to the standard wallpaper of a bunch of printing press letter blocks, but maybe that's when the system finally tried to authenticate the account again and the password didn't match? I don't know, I can only guess at this point. All I know is that I've started fresh, gone back through everything, and now I see that lovely "The ScreenSavers Hack has been successfully installed!" wallpaper.

Thank you for your help, and for responding so quickly. I would've just kept spinning my gears if you hadn't offered me the chance at outside perspective.

[Ruskie_it]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

It's been quite a while since anything relevant was updated, but there was a KFX tweak (I don't really remember any details, though) a couple months ago, so you might have been using an older version.

Uhm... I am rather thinking to a newly introduced... bug? I don't know. I just converted another book lately, so with the newest version of the plugin... and the SS hack now is showing as cover a huuuuge, round, facebook icon. It seems it is consistently choosing the wrong image

[NiLuJe]

Pretty much the same answer as before .

(KFX support is minimal, I've never actually used it, and the format is apparently still fluid, so, expect things to subtly break more and more in the future).

[Ruskie_it]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Pretty much the same answer as before .

(KFX support is minimal, I've never actually used it, and the format is apparently still fluid, so, expect things to subtly break more and more in the future).

Yeah, what puzzles me is how can the same book give different results I honestly don't know. Oh well...

[SK-Reg]

Hi.
First of all, many thanks for this great tool. I have always been annoyed that I can't display the current book cover as a screensaver, and now I can.
But there is one thing I would like to ask, because at least with me it is reproducible. When I change a book on the Kindle, the screensaver shows me the previous book cover, no matter how long I read the book. The second time I open the book, the correct cover is displayed. Did I setup something wrong?

[NiLuJe]

@SK-Reg: That usually means the date/time on your device is a bit wonky. There are a few ways to fix that (a sync, the ;setdate searchbar command, a couple of KUAL extensions).

(Or that you attempted to test this extremely early after switching to a different book).