DRM workaround: Kindle for Android

[Cheryl]

Originally Posted by Ma'am-I-Am

Can I do this?
Here's a link which packages everything you need. Read the edited PDF and see the Addendum. https://mega.nz/file/8NhUSSJT#baQsCJ...EMnNOEPnDu1b7E
I only edited the PDF and added the Addendum. The original PDF and the rest is all from the extremely kind folks here.

Hi.
sorry for taking the liberty to write to you privately.... I am the girl you shared the guide to download files from kindle for android yesterday. Thank you again for that. I wrote a message on yesterday's chat but, I don't know why, it wasn't posted to me. I was asking you for explanation about step 8 of the guide.

"8. Once you have the .PRC files, go to Calibre and add it as you would any other book. If the file shows as PRC in Calibre, use Edit Metadata and note the last 4 digits of the ASIN. Import that book again and say Yes when Calibre tells you it’s a duplicate. The newer import should now be .AZW3 or .MOBI. Delete the old one "

This point is not clear to me. There are files that I upload to calibre and they are in pcr format so they don't open. I did not understand the passage where it says to take note of the last four digits of the ASIN code. Do they have to be entered somewhere before uploading the file back to calibre? Because by reloading it a second time the file always remains in prc format
Sorry again for the trouble

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Cheryl

This point is not clear to me. There are files that I upload to calibre and they are in pcr format so they don't open. I did not understand the passage where it says to take note of the last four digits of the ASIN code. Do they have to be entered somewhere before uploading the file back to calibre? Because by reloading it a second time the file always remains in prc format
Sorry again for the trouble

I suspect the last 4 digits of the ASIN is simply to allow you to know which books you are re-importing to calibre.

At a wild eyed guess, you are still having issues with removing DRM from the books you are importing.

[Cheryl]

Originally Posted by DNSB

At a wild eyed guess, you are still having issues with removing DRM from the books you are importing.

Yes I think so too ..I managed to create the file backup.ab..only calibre when it parses it crashes and gives me error.. I will try again. Thanks

[Ma'am-I-Am]

Originally Posted by Cheryl

Yes I think so too ..I managed to create the file backup.ab..only calibre when it parses it crashes and gives me error.. I will try again. Thanks

Sorry so late! I didn't get a notification of your post.
Yes, the ASIN is Amzn's stock ID number. They almost all start with B0 so I just note the last 4 digits instead of the whole number. I'm lazy like that.

If you got a backup.ab over 1Kb (it should be in Mb, really) and customized the Calibre plugin as the PDF instructed, you should not be getting an error message from Calibre.

As for books that have been added still showing as .prc: can you open the book in K4A? If so, it has finished downloading and indexing. Do the whole Export to Windows again, then add to Calibre. If it still doesn't work, let us know what the book is. Maybe someone else will have more insight.

Edit: Really you just need to add the book again to Calibre. For some reason, the 2nd adding makes it work. Then just delete the incorrect one.

[Cheryl]

Originally Posted by Ma'am-I-Am

Sorry so late! I didn't get a notification of your post.
Yes, the ASIN is Amzn's stock ID number. They almost all start with B0 so I just note the last 4 digits instead of the whole number. I'm lazy like that.

If you got a backup.ab over 1Kb (it should be in Mb, really) and customized the Calibre plugin as the PDF instructed, you should not be getting an error message from Calibre.

As for books that have been added still showing as .prc: can you open the book in K4A? If so, it has finished downloading and indexing. Do the whole Export to Windows again, then add to Calibre. If it still doesn't work, let us know what the book is. Maybe someone else will have more insight.

Thank you so much!!! you were so kind!!!

[jenrar]

I've looked through the entire thread. I'm still unsure of how to delete the folders within the kindle through the BS media manager. I have the Tweaker unzipped but not sure what else to do.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by jenrar

I've looked through the entire thread. I'm still unsure of how to delete the folders within the kindle through the BS media manager. I have the Tweaker unzipped but not sure what else to do.

If you select the books in Library view and then remove downloads, it will clean up the book folders.

[jenrar]

I figured it out. Thanks!

[booklover2005]

Originally Posted by DuckieTigger

Yes, when I used Android11 in Bluestacks. Try again with Nougat instead.

Thank you so much, I tried both Nougat 32 bit and 64 bit and it's still crashing as soon as I hit "Start Reading." I assume I'm out of luck now?

[booklover2005]

Originally Posted by Montana Harper

Not exactly the same, but very similar. When I first installed Bluestacks it wasn't connecting to the internet, so it gave me the behavior you describe when trying to log in to Kindle, except that BS didn't crash for me, just eventually gave me an error after ages of the spinning circle. Not sure if it's relevant to you, or if it's a matter of you using Android 11 instead of Nougat (as mentioned by another poster), but I solved the problem by rebooting my computer after installing BS.

Thank you so much, I tried this, I tried doing it when I installed Nougat 32 bit, and again when I tried installing Nougat 64 bit. I think I'm just destined not to get this working haha.

[Unseen Entities]

Originally Posted by booklover2005

Thank you so much, I tried both Nougat 32 bit and 64 bit and it's still crashing as soon as I hit "Start Reading." I assume I'm out of luck now?

Had the same problem, didnt find a fix unfortunately. When I tried to sign into the Kindle app BlueStacks consistently crashed to desktop with no error message. However I think it was 8.51 that crashed for me and 4.16 that didnt? Also was using Nougat and tried tweaking BS's performance settings with no luck. Other apps worked normally.

Ended up doing it on another PC where I didnt run into the issue with either Kindle 4.16 (for the working backup.ab file) or Kindle 8.51 (for the HQ downloads).

[toady42]

Originally Posted by booklover2005

Thank you so much, I tried both Nougat 32 bit and 64 bit and it's still crashing as soon as I hit "Start Reading." I assume I'm out of luck now?

Under Nougat 32-bit using K4A 4.16 I ran into a similar problem where I would launch K4A 4.16 and hit the "Start Reading" button and BlueStacks 5 would crash.

I'm not sure if you tried this already but I changed the Graphics renderer from OpenGL to DirectX and that fixed the K4A 4.16 app from crashing in my case.

The setting is in Settings->Graphics->Graphics renderer shown in the attached image.

After I changed the Graphics renderer to DirectX, I restarted BlueStacks 5, launched K4A 4.16 and when I hit the "Start Reading" button I was brought to the Amazon Sign in screen and was able to sign in to my account.

[Cheryl]

Hi all..sorry to bother again.
I repeated the procedure to the end but the backup.ab file it generates for me is maxed out at 2,445,816 KB, so always too small...when I try to put it into calibre ..it returns this error "unexpected end of data".
I also tried the "adb backup -all" command to see if it would generate a larger backup file for me, but instead it created an even smaller file.
I tried downloading different books, since it does not automatically download all the books I have in my library but only those downloaded from amazon after installing kindle android, but nothing changes.
I can't figure out what the problem might be. Could it depend on the version of bluestacks? I installed bluestacks 5 64-bit, however once I download the book it can't open it on kindle android. Could this be the problem? do you have any suggestions? Thank you

[Ma'am-I-Am]

1. 2,445,816 Kb = 2.4 Mb so the backup.ab file was just fine.
2. If you're getting an "unexpected end of data" error from Calibre, it makes me wonder where the heck you're trying to put it. Another reason for the error I suppose could be if you had aborted/cancelled the operation which created backup.ab. Hopefully, someone will chime in on that possibility.
3. What do you mean "all the books I have in my library"? What exactly are you trying to achieve?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Ma'am-I-Am

1. 2,445,816 Kb = 2.4 Mb so the backup.ab file was just fine.
2. If you're getting an "unexpected end of data" error from Calibre, it makes me wonder where the heck you're trying to put it. Another reason for the error I suppose could be if you had aborted/cancelled the operation which created backup.ab. Hopefully, someone will chime in on that possibility.
3. What do you mean "all the books I have in my library"? What exactly are you trying to achieve?

Minor math error. The size was given in KB so 2,388MB or 2.33GB. That is just a bit massive.