Kindle PW3 with 5.12.4 firmware - problems and solutions

[SeaBookGuy]

My $ .02

I bought my PW3 on Ebay as refurbished (including new battery) for $60 a year ago. Amazon-purchased books work just fine with 15.15.4 OS. Virtually all PW3 users do not sideload other items, but want to read site-downloaded purchases. Calibre seems to have overcome the book cover issue. So, even if there are no further PW3 software updates, it will continue to work just fine for a while.

Niche-y geek folks forget that we're a very small segment.

[hius07]

And finally the mention about 5.12.4 has been removed
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custo...MQC26VQQMM8XSW

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by hius07

And finally the mention about 5.12.4 has been removed

What do you mean? We have always been at war with Eastasia!

(This is actually good news. Any PW3 running 5.12.4 is now a special edition collectors item. )

[Quoth]

Anyone want my Kindle PW3 with 5.12.4?
Works fine, but I hate the Aa GUI and the checkboxes that look like badly labelled slide switches, but Kobo and Android have that stupidity too. I think that was on 5.12.3.

I'd imagine given how many PW3 there are, the PW3 with 5.12.4 might outnumber some niche ereaders and niche phones.

Maybe they'll release something to fix whatever the problem is.

[shalym]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Anyone want my Kindle PW3 with 5.12.4?
Works fine, but I hate the Aa GUI and the checkboxes that look like badly labelled slide switches, but Kobo and Android have that stupidity too. I think that was on 5.12.3.

I'd imagine given how many PW3 there are, the PW3 with 5.12.4 might outnumber some niche ereaders and niche phones.

Maybe they'll release something to fix whatever the problem is.

So I just checked my ancient Kindle touch (the first one, with the home button), which is running version 5.3.7.3 and it also has the "slider" controls in the settings to turn options on and off. It seems as if "that stupidity" has been in place since the very first touchscreen Kindle. Interesting that you didn't notice it until a few months ago, since it seems to bother you so much.

Shari

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by jhowell

Why didn't they release a fixed 5.12.4 or 5.12.5 for the PW3?

Perhaps the developers discovered that the flaw was actually in the updater contained in the 5.12.3 firmware already installed in the majority of devices. If that is the case then there would be no way to safely update those devices without risking failures that would generate expensive support calls and bad publicity.

This is all just speculation.

I'm fairly sure the thing that does the update is on the diags partition, which is usually shipped with the devices and as far as I know is never updated by OTA updates. (The updated firmware can and does do extra validation first, before deciding to reboot into the diags partition to update, which is how downgrading to factory firmware was blocked.)

[hius07]

fixed

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by shalym

It seems as if "that stupidity" has been in place since the very first touchscreen Kindle. Interesting that you didn't notice it until a few months ago, since it seems to bother you so much.

Maybe it was the change to the Aa Menus and moving stuff from Settings that made it noticeable.

Since I use the Kindle only for testing and read on a Kobo, it doesn't bother me that much on the Kindle. The Kobo has different styles of check box in different places. Also labelling only one side of slide switch graphical replacement (Kobo, Android, Kindle etc) is seriously stupid GUI design. Who started the nonsense? Was it someone in Google doing Android?

[hius07]

Contra spem spero!
https://goodereader.com/blog/kindle/...t-new-firmware

[Mnementh]

Originally Posted by hius07

Contra spem spero!
https://goodereader.com/blog/kindle/...t-new-firmware

I was going to post something about a certain member and humble pie but realised that would possibly be seen as being a bit inflammatory so I won't.


Hopefully though this will now shut certain people up about the PW3 being EOL and stop the round and round bunfight about what constitutes EOL and what doesn't.


It's good to see Amazon actually come out and confirm what some of us thought about there being a problem with the updates that they need to fix before applying it to the PW3 (even if the "confirmation" has come from goodereader so possibly has to be taken with a pinch of salt ).

[Quoth]

Not there yet!

Kindle Voyage (7th Generation)

5.13.1
Download Software Update
View Release Notes

Kindle Paperwhite (7th Generation)

5.12.3
Download Software Update
View Release Notes

Kindle (7th Generation)

5.12.2
Download Software Update