Tutorial LanguageBreak - Software Jailbreak for (probably) any Kindle <=

[mergen3107]

All I am sayin is that I can suggest but take no responsibility if this doesn’t come true.

[Mob201503]

Three days post-j’break, I’m very pleased to report nothing but buttery-smooth KOreader goodness, and being dumbstruck at how exponentially the usefulness and worth to me of my eight-year-old PW3 has ballooned since Tuesday.

Background: I was so close (about a year ago) to dismissing KOreader as just another ereader app without even examining it, but the constant refrains of praise I was seeing prompted me to investigate... and boy, am I glad I did.

I started by installing KOreader on my various Android devices, phone/tablet. Like everyone else, I was of course daunted by the quantity of its settings.

It didn't take long to realise it was something special.

I just want to say: I flinch when I read KOreader user reviews describe the UI as 'clunky', the profound irony being the utterly elegant reading experience that that 'clunky' UI facilitates. (In fairness, I've actually only seen the word used by users whose reviews of KOreader are otherwise predominantly positive/glowing, so their usage of it can be forgiven. [Not, of course, that a person’s experience of something needs to always be unequivocally positive: We can like something and still constructively criticize it. Just saying]).

Of course, I know I’m preaching to the converted on this thread, and these remarks likely better belong somewhere like here, for the benefit of prospective KOreader users / j’breakers etc, and I’ll likely place an edit of this post there too. It doesn't bear enough emphasising though: KOreader is an awesome cross-platform app/service, and I love each and every one of you involved in its development and maintenance for what it gifts us.

Anyway, back to my Paperwhite/KOreader ‘pilgrimage’:

Very impressed by KOreader, and thrilled at the idea of getting it on my PW3, I then investigated j’break options, but the only one (“WatchThis”, I believe) I could find at the time (August this year) required FW no higher than 5.14.2. To my disappointment I was/am on 5.16.2.1.1. Duly I promptly placed the device in Airplane mode.

I began planning to invest in a dedicated Android-powered eInk reader, one of whose primary purposes would have been to run KOreader.

My heart almost went into palpitations last week when I stumbled on a post about LanguageBreak.

Flash forward to today.

KOreader for Kindle is praiseworthy in countless ways, but I want to single out for special mention the ability it allows to set a one-finger swipe to go back and forward a page: This mitigates to an uncanny extent for the PW3’s lack of page turn buttons.

Despite its age, my PW3 is a very fine little device, but over the years I’d slowly become disillusioned with and given up on it a bit due to its restricted functionality, to the point where (again, to allow me enjoy the benefits of KOreader) I'd been verging ever closer to investing in a dedicated Android-powered eInk reader.

Make no mistake: Since Tuesday, my PW3 is a new device, and LanguageBreak has allowed me totally park my prospecting for a new eInk device.

It's not an understatement to say that in minute-to-minute, hour-to-hour reading usage, KOreader me gives flexibility in how I read and use my Kindle for reading in a way I wouldn't have dared dream possible prior to experiencing it.

If I could afford to, I’d set up regular sponsorships for those involved in KOreader and LanguageBreak rather than the one-off donations I’ve just made to a number of you.

Please know though how eternally grateful I am for KOreader and for this project.

In no particular order of priority then: Thank you Marek, thank you NiLuJe, thank you Frenzie, thank you mergen3107, thank you hius07, thank you Daviteusz. Where I could find a donate link for any of you, I used it. I’ve likely left out the names of contributors on this thread whose feedback helped, so thank you to anyone/everyone whose constructive contributions aided in any way.

It’s inspiring that a community of individuals can collaborate so successfully to overcome the limitations of a walled garden.

May good karma come all of your ways.



EDIT: corrections (spelling, word repetition)

Originally Posted by Mob201503

I can't allow this day to end without expressing my deep gratitude to all involved in this project.

Spent several days going through all posts here and elsewhere on relevant forums, carefully making notes and taking screenshots etc, but was still sure something would go wrong when it came time for the procedure itself.

It took a retry or two on certain parts, but on first attempt today, I've successfully j'broken my PW3 using the LanguageBreak method.

GB/EN hotfix worked like a dream, and KUAL, renameOTAbin and ... most thrillingly of all... KOreader are now all in residence on my P'white.

I won't go into the collateral benefits for me of this, specifically having KOreader on my Kindle, but suffice it to say, it breathes new life into this eight-year-old little front-lit reader.

In awe right now of, and so immensely thankful to, everyone who made this happen.

Donations will follow.

[Blaubeerchen27]

Can anyone tell me how I would go about changing the library back to the old layout (pre-5.14.2, I think) if I use the jailbreak on my 15.14.3 Kindle (10th gen, PW)? It's the main reason I want to jailbreak it.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Blaubeerchen27

Can anyone tell me how I would go about changing the library back to the old layout (pre-5.14.2, I think) if I use the jailbreak on my 15.14.3 Kindle (10th gen, PW)? It's the main reason I want to jailbreak it.

After jailbreak, downgrade to an earlier firmware with an UI that you prefer.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=347165

[Blaubeerchen27]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

After jailbreak, downgrade to an earlier firmware with an UI that you prefer.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=347165

Thank you, I will try that!

[Blaubeerchen27]

Additional question, where can i find the Update_hotfix_languagebreak bin files? I'm stuck at the step where I would need them, I searched the GitHub repo files up and down but I must be blind, I really can't find them.

[Blaubeerchen27]

Apologies, but I need a bit of help. I followed each and every step and everything seemed to work as it was supposed to, but after finishing the last step (including the "Post post jailbreak" part) I still don't have an mkk folder in the root directory and entering ;log into the search bar yields no results.

I'm doing this on a 15.14.3 10th generation paperwhite.
When i came to the "update your Kindle" step in the post jailbreak section (when applying the hotfix) I realized that my Kindle showed some weird message in chinese while updating - it was only a very short moment and my chinese is very rusty, but it seemed to be something along the lines of "update failed" with a warning sign. Based on the tutorials I also don't udnerstand fully which language bin to choose for the hotfix, since my Kindle is in chinese right now does that mean I should actually use the chinese one? I used the german one at first, which led to the failed message.

Also, my Kindle was bound to my Amazon account, but since I essentially reset it, doesn't that mean I HAVE to use the first option for restoring language and exiting managed mode on the GitHub tutorial page? I'm not connecting to Wifi, after all.

[Blaubeerchen27]

Yeah, not getting any log messages in the step after switching to chinese. I'm honestly at a loss, because I've tried 3 times now and I don't understand what I could be doing wrong. Does that tar.gz file need to be unpacked a certain way? I've never used that file type before and simply unpacked it with 7zip, later I only put the contents of the resulting LanguageBreaker folder into my Kindle main directory, as was instructed.

[Blaubeerchen27]

Another small update (gosh, I really wish we could either delete or update old posts, sorry for cluttering the page):

After manually updating my Kindle to 15.16.2.1.1 I finally managed to successfully install the jailbreak, BUT I'm unable to install the hotfix. The ;uzb command doesn't allow me to establish a usb connection, and I also can't enter the ;demo menu - but I'm most definitely still in the demo mode. After the Kindle rebooted from the first "resell" it already reverted back to english, depite choosing chinese. Any ideas?

[Umbrella6949]

I followed the guide but on step 15 I could not safely eject the device because it rebooted while i copied the files. Now it is stuck in the boot logo. Any suggestions?
PW3, fw. 5.16.2.1.1

[vvvad]

;uzb didn't do anything. So i tried ;demo, and then ;enter_demo, and then rebooted I think via the power butto. On next boot, ;uzb did work (when it does, it shows the usual usb screen)

[mergen3107]

Possible solution to skip OOBE (out of box experience on Kindle Scribe 5.16.2).

Haven't been tested. I am not responsible for any damage to your Kindle if you try.
JB is required to do this, which might be possible after installing JB in demo.

Using command

lipc -a -v > lipc.txt

I was able to get these lines:

com.lab126.booklet.home
...
	r	Int	oobeInitiated	[0]
...
	w	Str	deleteOOBETutorial
...
	w	Str	deleteOOBE

(Fair warning: do NOT post the resultant file from this command, it has ALL credentials and personal info).

So, it might be possible to read status (it is 0 in this example) with:

lipc-get-prop com.lab126.booklet.home oobeInitiated

and change parameters with:

lipc-set-prop com.lab126.booklet.home deleteOOBETutorial 1
lipc-set-prop com.lab126.booklet.home deleteOOBE 1

although, it says `str` (string), so probably not `1` as the value.

I am not going to test this anytime soon though

[arooni]

I had a happily jailbroken Scribe and for some reason the Kindle randomly decided it wanted to be deregistered. I was luckily able to re-register. When I did the KUAL application launcher went away, but I was still able to ssh into the device since I had set that up via USBNet earlier (start SSHD server upon startup).

Even though KUAL was gone, all the directories at /mnt/us/ were still there; mrpackages, extensions, koreader etc.

I was able to use scp to copy over ssh the kual application package, and run ;log mrpi to get KUAL reinstalled.

Once reinstalled to be safe, I re-ran "Rename OTA Binaries" as well as reinstalled the latest hotfix.

Has anyone else faced this issue? Was a bit scary to be honest, but my Scribe is once again a freerange Scribe which I'm very happy about.

[Dumbouser]

Good morning guys.

Firstly I just wanted to say thank you to all the developers and people working on these things to make this all possible. You're expertise is beyond my comprehension most of the time haha.

I have a couple of questions.
I want to get my PW3 jailbroken and to have KOReader for my girlfriend to use.

Stupidly I updated the kindle the other day not knowing that I shouldn't. It updated to FW 5.16.2.1.1
However, I've since jailbroken (I think) using languagebreak. I used the ;log to verify my installation.
'no arg passed. select from mrpi or runme' comes up in the top left. So I'm guessing its fine?

I've been following these steps here to install KOReader on my kindle.
https://github.com/koreader/koreader...Kindle-devices

Firstly being a PW3, following the steps I installed the KUAL-KDK-2.0.azw2 package (I extracted it and put it in the documents folder of the kindle)
However, no menu came up for it at all. The instructions here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=203326
The instructions say this 'You should now have a pretty KUAL button/entry on your Library (on recent FW, make sure you switch to the local Library view. In the same vein, on FW using a dedicated Homescreen page, you will never see KUAL in it)'

My kindle is stuck on the 'downloaded' tab and asks me to register the kindle every time I open the library menu.
Do I need to add the hotfixes in to the same documents folder at all?


I figured I'd done it right correctly and then tried to install KOreader but nothing has changed at all.

Could someone please point me in the right direction. So sorry for the noob questions.

Thank you all again.

[Marek]

Originally Posted by Dumbouser

Good morning guys.

Firstly I just wanted to say thank you to all the developers and people working on these things to make this all possible. You're expertise is beyond my comprehension most of the time haha.

I have a couple of questions.
I want to get my PW3 jailbroken and to have KOReader for my girlfriend to use.

Stupidly I updated the kindle the other day not knowing that I shouldn't. It updated to FW 5.16.2.1.1
However, I've since jailbroken (I think) using languagebreak. I used the ;log to verify my installation.
'no arg passed. select from mrpi or runme' comes up in the top left. So I'm guessing its fine?

I've been following these steps here to install KOReader on my kindle.
https://github.com/koreader/koreader...Kindle-devices

Firstly being a PW3, following the steps I installed the KUAL-KDK-2.0.azw2 package (I extracted it and put it in the documents folder of the kindle)
However, no menu came up for it at all. The instructions here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=203326
The instructions say this 'You should now have a pretty KUAL button/entry on your Library (on recent FW, make sure you switch to the local Library view. In the same vein, on FW using a dedicated Homescreen page, you will never see KUAL in it)'

My kindle is stuck on the 'downloaded' tab and asks me to register the kindle every time I open the library menu.
Do I need to add the hotfixes in to the same documents folder at all?


I figured I'd done it right correctly and then tried to install KOreader but nothing has changed at all.

Could someone please point me in the right direction. So sorry for the noob questions.

Thank you all again.

The kual installation instructions don't depend on your hardware but firmware version.