PW4 Sox Media Player v2 KUAL extension

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by Kindlebaby

Hello, I wonder if it would be possible to be able to play audio files, not via bluetooth but directly via USB-C connected to a headset. Has anyone ever thought of reading an audio book?

You can listen to Audible books with the Kindle's native support directly. You can listen to an audio book in MP3 format by placing it in the music folder.

A USB connected headset could only work if the drivers are present and configured properly. I believe aplay is present on the Kindle and can be used with properly configured drivers.

Dave

[Kindlebaby]

Originally Posted by dhdurgee

You can listen to Audible books with the Kindle's native support directly. You can listen to an audio book in MP3 format by placing it in the music folder.

A USB connected headset could only work if the drivers are present and configured properly. I believe aplay is present on the Kindle and can be used with properly configured drivers.

Dave

Hello Dave,
In fact after several manipulations the extension does not work very well on my PW5 11th (5.14.2 jailbreak)
Sox does not detect the files, or if it does it is 1 out of 5 times. They are however placed in the /music folder at the root in Mp3 format.
I tried to put an MP3 file in the Audible folder but the same my kindle does not detect anything.

[rmib200]

Hi, I'm new to the kindle world, I wanted to know if it is possible to listen to audio in the PW 11 Generation and how can I possibly do that? I would really appreciate any help.

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by rmib200

Hi, I'm new to the kindle world, I wanted to know if it is possible to listen to audio in the PW 11 Generation and how can I possibly do that? I would really appreciate any help.

Does your Kindle support Audible content? If so, then it is possible if you can install the JB and this extension.

Dave

[Hubris]

Hey everyone,

I’m running a Kindle Paperwhite 4 (10th Gen) on the latest HF firmware (5.16.x and higher). I’ve been trying to get the Sox Media Player working (both v1 and v2), but I keep running into issues.

With Sox v2, Python 3.11 is required. I tried installing the latest Python 3.11 build for HF devices, but it fails on my PW4 with “illegal instruction” errors. It seems the build was tested only on Kindle 11th gen and isn’t compatible with GEN 10 (PW4).
With Sox v1, it doesn’t play audio at all. It seems my Kindle firmware lacks the necessary ALSA or GStreamer libraries, or the build isn’t compatible with the HF libraries used in newer firmware.

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by Hubris

Hey everyone,

I’m running a Kindle Paperwhite 4 (10th Gen) on the latest HF firmware (5.16.x and higher). I’ve been trying to get the Sox Media Player working (both v1 and v2), but I keep running into issues.

With Sox v2, Python 3.11 is required. I tried installing the latest Python 3.11 build for HF devices, but it fails on my PW4 with “illegal instruction” errors. It seems the build was tested only on Kindle 11th gen and isn’t compatible with GEN 10 (PW4).
With Sox v1, it doesn’t play audio at all. It seems my Kindle firmware lacks the necessary ALSA or GStreamer libraries, or the build isn’t compatible with the HF libraries used in newer firmware.

Can you play an Audible book on your PW4? If so, the Gstreamer libraries are installed as that is how they are played.

If you can't play an Audible book then you simply don't have audio support on that particular model.

Dave

[Hubris]

Originally Posted by dhdurgee

Can you play an Audible book on your PW4? If so, the Gstreamer libraries are installed as that is how they are played.

If you can't play an Audible book then you simply don't have audio support on that particular model.

Dave

Yes, I am able to play audiobooks with bluetooth. There's just no python version compatible with a 10th GEN so sox v2 does not work and v1 also does not work for me even though it does not need python (I'm guessing it's just too old and doesn't work on Kindle HF....).
If you know any work around, please let me know because this is by far one of the coolest KUAL extensions I've seen in a while!

P.S.(I know that there is new Python version that works on HF but it was tested on a GEN 11 and does not work for me)

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by Hubris

Yes, I am able to play audiobooks with bluetooth. There's just no python version compatible with a 10th GEN so sox v2 does not work and v1 also does not work for me even though it does not need python (I'm guessing it's just too old and doesn't work on Kindle HF....).
If you know any work around, please let me know because this is by far one of the coolest KUAL extensions I've seen in a while!

P.S.(I know that there is new Python version that works on HF but it was tested on a GEN 11 and does not work for me)

I assume that the problem is that the sox binaries and libraries provided with the package would need to be replaced with HF versions for this to work for you. Thus a separate HF package is needed.

I put together the original package by downloading sox and all its dependencies from a Raspberry Pi repository with the same architecture and kernel release as the current Kindle. Assuming that you have installed USBNetlite and can ssh into your Kindle please let me know the results of the
"uname -a" command. Alternatively you can run this in kterm or any other access you may have to a Linux terminal window on your Kindle. It might also be useful to see what messages you get in a terminal window by entering the command line used in the KUAL configuration for sox. It might show if the problem is the sox binary or one of its dependencies.

It will take some time to put together and as I don't have a Kindle with HF firmware I would not be able to test it myself. It might make sense for me to start a separate topic when i gets to that point so that those with the HF firmware can do so and report their problems.

Dave

[Hubris]

Originally Posted by dhdurgee

I assume that the problem is that the sox binaries and libraries provided with the package would need to be replaced with HF versions for this to work for you. Thus a separate HF package is needed.

I put together the original package by downloading sox and all its dependencies from a Raspberry Pi repository with the same architecture and kernel release as the current Kindle. Assuming that you have installed USBNetlite and can ssh into your Kindle please let me know the results of the
"uname -a" command. Alternatively you can run this in kterm or any other access you may have to a Linux terminal window on your Kindle. It might also be useful to see what messages you get in a terminal window by entering the command line used in the KUAL configuration for sox. It might show if the problem is the sox binary or one of its dependencies.

It will take some time to put together and as I don't have a Kindle with HF firmware I would not be able to test it myself. It might make sense for me to start a separate topic when i gets to that point so that those with the HF firmware can do so and report their problems.

Dave

Hi Dave,

Thanks for following up. Here’s everything I’ve found while digging into audio playback on my Kindle Paperwhite 4 (10th Gen) running HF firmware version 5.16.2.1.1.

Starting with the items you asked about:

The Sox extension is installed at /mnt/us/extensions/sox/, but both sox and soxi binaries are missing or broken. Running playall.sh results in:

/mnt/us/extensions/sox/playall.sh: line 52: /mnt/us/extensions/sox/soxi: not found
/mnt/us/extensions/sox/playall.sh: line 68: /mnt/us/extensions/sox/sox: not found

GStreamer 0.10 binaries are present (gst-launch-0.10, gst-inspect-0.10, etc.), but only a few plugins load. Key components like decodebin or mad are not present. For example:

gst-launch-0.10 filesrc location=/mnt/us/music/hymn_for_red.mp3 ! decodebin ! audioconvert ! mixersink
→ ERROR: no element "decodebin"

As for the audio stack:

aplay -l returns “no soundcards found...”

/dev/snd/ only contains the timer node

No ALSA sound card is exposed

audiomgrd is running and likely handling audio internally

Some other findings:

Kernel version is Linux kindle 4.1.15-lab126 #1 SMP PREEMPT Thu Nov 28 11:38:31 UTC 2024 armv7l.
SSH access via USBNetLite is fully functional.
Python is not installed (neither python nor python3 is available).
Attempts to use Sox’s fallback to GStreamer fail due to missing plugins and bad caps formatting.

The available GStreamer plugins include only basic elements like filesrc, filesink, fdsink, fakesink, mixersink, and audiblesrc. Nothing for MP3 decoding.

I’ve used an MP3 file in /mnt/us/music/ for testing throughout.

Where I think we are:

Audible playback over Bluetooth works, which confirms the audio system is functional, but only for Amazon's stack. GStreamer’s output pipeline works (via mixersink), but the decoding side is incomplete. Sox v1 won’t work as-is without the missing binaries, and even if it did, decoding might still fail. A custom static Sox build with basic WAV support could be workable, assuming it can write to the available audio sink. MP3 support would need libmad or pre-converted files.

I’m ready to test any builds or scripts you put together. Let me know how I can help further. Thanks again for all the work you’ve done on this.

—Hubris

(I was running out of time so I had ChatGPT write this up for me. All the info should be correct, but let me know)

[dhdurgee]

If the binaries aren't there something went wrong with the install from the zip file. I suggest you inspect the zip file and if it is damaged or incomplete download a fresh copy. Then copy the missing files from the zip to your Kindle. Here is a test output from the zip:

dhdurgee@A31524PT:~/Downloads$ unzip -t sox-0_2.zip 
Archive:  sox-0_2.zip
    testing: music/                   OK
    testing: extensions/              OK
    testing: extensions/sox/          OK
    testing: extensions/sox/README.txt   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/bookmark.sh   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/config.xml   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/killsox.sh   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libFLAC++.so.6   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libFLAC.so.8   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libgsm.so.1   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libid3tag.so.0   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libltdl.so.7   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libmad.so.0   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libmagic.so.1   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libmp3lame.so.0   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libpng12.so.0   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsndfile.so.1   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox.so.2   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_amr_nb.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_amr_wb.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_caf.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_fap.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_flac.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_gsm.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_lpc10.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_mat4.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_mat5.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_mp3.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_paf.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_pvf.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_sd2.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_sndfile.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_vorbis.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_w64.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_wavpack.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libsox_fmt_xi.so   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libtwolame.so.0   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libvorbis.so.0   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libvorbisenc.so.2   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libvorbisfile.so.3   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/library/libwavpack.so.1   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/menu.json   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/playall.sh   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/playfile.sh   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/playinternetradio.sh   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/silence.wav   OK
    testing: extensions/sox/sox       OK
    testing: extensions/sox/soxi      OK
No errors detected in compressed data of sox-0_2.zip.
dhdurgee@A31524PT:~/Downloads$

Note that both sox and soxi are there as well as an entire library subdirectory.

Dave

[honeylemon]

hii, i manage to install Sox Media Player in my Kindle PW 11th gen. Homepage looks great in KUAL, but I cant listen to the audio... tried using USB C and using my bluetooth earbuds. I wonder where I went wrong? I use the audio format (wav) and added it to my music folder in the root folder. I can't listen to the internet radio either but the options are all there.

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by honeylemon

hii, i manage to install Sox Media Player in my Kindle PW 11th gen. Homepage looks great in KUAL, but I cant listen to the audio... tried using USB C and using my bluetooth earbuds. I wonder where I went wrong? I use the audio format (wav) and added it to my music folder in the root folder. I can't listen to the internet radio either but the options are all there.

First question is can you play an Audible book to confirm audio system works?

After that, what firmware are you on? It is possible that the binaries for the Sox media player will need a separate version for firmware using HF.

Can you access a terminal window via SSH, kterm or other shell access and see what error messages you receive using the playfile.sh script with a local file?

Dave

[KetchupCider]

I can confirm this worked on my Kindle Paperwhite 11 / PW5 SE running 5.15.1. I installed it in the /extensions folder and placed mp3 and flac files into the /music folder.

I only saw two options when opening Sox at first:
- Create new menu
- /

I clicked Create new menu and I believe this closed the application; I gave it a few minutes and opened it again, and it showed the list of file titles I'd placed within /music.

I was able to open both mp3 and flac files with this. There were some glitches in my testing, like when I'd click Stop and try to load another mp3, the two would play at once. A reboot fixed this.

No regrets here regardless though, I'm really glad to have this functionality now.

[honeylemon]

Originally Posted by KetchupCider

I can confirm this worked on my Kindle Paperwhite 11 / PW5 SE running 5.15.1. I installed it in the /extensions folder and placed mp3 and flac files into the /music folder.

I only saw two options when opening Sox at first:
- Create new menu
- /

I clicked Create new menu and I believe this closed the application; I gave it a few minutes and opened it again, and it showed the list of file titles I'd placed within /music.

I was able to open both mp3 and flac files with this. There were some glitches in my testing, like when I'd click Stop and try to load another mp3, the two would play at once. A reboot fixed this.

No regrets here regardless though, I'm really glad to have this functionality now.

So, I just realized I install a different zip. So, I redownloaded everything and got the Sox V2. I got this option too. After clicking on the 'Create Menu', waiting and restarting, nothing happened.

Did I go wrong somewhere?

[dhdurgee]

Originally Posted by honeylemon

So, I just realized I install a different zip. So, I redownloaded everything and got the Sox V2. I got this option too. After clicking on the 'Create Menu', waiting and restarting, nothing happened.

Did I go wrong somewhere?

Sox V2 requires Python as that is how it creates the new menus. Without Python you cannot use the Sox V2 extension. If you have not installed Python do so and try again. Be sure to install the appropriate Python package.

The original Sox player does not require Python as the menus are static.

I still don't know at this point if there needs to be a HF version of the Sox binaries. If this is needed then neither version will work on the latest firmware.

Dave