Firmware Update Kindle 5.19.4 software is available

[axu2]

I know mobileread is English-centric, but does anyone have thoughts on this kind of problem I've been seeing posted a lot on reddit?

As many know, the feature to open the entire dictionary was removed in 5.18.6, but that wasn't the worst change in my opinion. As you can see here, when I look up the definition of a word, I don't get the definition of the word anymore:

I've highlighted the word dahertrampelten for example. This is a seperable verb with prefix daher. Before 5.18.6 my Kindle recognized this and would give me the definition of the entire word. After 5.18.6 it only shows me the definition of the prefix. This makes the feature practically useless. If someone actually needed to know what dahertrampeln meant, getting told the definition of daher would be of little to no use. Is there anyway to restore the ability to get the definition of the entire word and not just the prefix?

Regarding a Paperwhite 11th Gen on 5.19.2:

They broke the verb / adjective deconjugator for Japanese, so now it very often doesn't deconjugate those words correctly and just tries to show you wikipedia results. (English example: You highlight "eats". It tries to take you to a wikipedia page, because it could not deconjugate the word to "eat").

They messed up how it searches for alternate spellings. If a word is spelled in a different, but commonly recognised, way highlighting the alternative spelling leads you to a wikipedia search. (English example: example: You highlight "colour". It tries to take you to a wikipedia page, because it no longer recognises "colour" as an alternative spelling for "color".)

They also broke / "fixed" the word parser, so now you can only highlight what Amazon has determined are words, which they get wrong a lot. This means when they get a word's parsing wrong, you can no longer highlight down to the character you want. The smallest unit to highlight is now what Amazon has determined is a "word". (English example: You try to highlight "establishment". It highlights "establish" and gives you the definition. You try to drag the highlight cursor. It highlights "establishme", because those are two words, "establish" + "me". You try to highlight the "nt", but that is not a word, so it also automatically highlight the following word, "was". There are no results found in the dictionary for "establishment was", so it tries to take you to wikipedia. It is impossible to just highlight "establishment", so you cannot ever look up this word.)

Combined with the above, it seems the dictionary tries to default to looking up the shortest word of the highlighted text, instead of the longest. So if I try to highlight a word that's 6 characters long, but the first two characters are a separate word by itself, it only shows me the 2 character word's definition. If I am somehow lucky enough to be able to highlight the whole word, usually the deconjugator breaking makes it not able to be looked up, or it only shows the 2 character word's definition, or it just randomly finds no results. (English example: You try to highlight "lighthouses". It highlights "light" and brings up the definition. You try to highlight "lighthouses", and the deconjugator breaks and shows no results, OR it highlights the next word because "s" is not registered as a word by the parser. You highlight "lighthouse" and it brings up the definition for "light", OR it tries to search Wikipedia because it just gave up looking for the word.)

They broke multiword parsing for phrases, so now if you highlight a commonly used phrase, it just searches wikipedia, even if the phrase is 100% in the dictionary. (English example: You highlight "prime minister". It knows these are two separate words, and searching for two separate words at the same time is no longer allowed, so it tries to take you to a wikipedia page.)

They made it so the dictionary window can only be scrolled up and down. It used to be scroll left and right for different unrelated words spelt the same way (example: bit 1, past tense of bite; bit 2, a small amount; bit 3, a unit of computing data), scroll up and down for the different definitions of the same word. Now, it's "scroll down to look at all the definitions of the first word, when you reach the end, keep scrolling down to start looking at all the definitions of the second word, when you reach the end..." This isn't that bad in English, but in a language with as many homonyms as Japanese, and where lots of words have a large amount or really long definitions, it takes ridiculously longer to scroll through the definition window now!

Also, everything is slower. Look ups take longer, turning the page takes longer, opening any menu takes longer, changing the screen brightness / warmth / day-night mode takes longer. How is it so bad?

All of these things were working perfectly before I connected my kindle to the internet again and accidentally let my kindle update itself.

I hope a method to roll back our version becomes available soon on this firmware, because this update has ruined my reading flow so badly it makes me not enjoy reading on my kindle anymore. At this point I would rather read on my phone or PC. The only thing stopping me is needing my phone not to die at work while not having any place to charge it.

[moshano]

And as all those are not "security bugs", they won't be fixed. Great work and support, Amazon! Never again a Kindle...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I was just going to ask that. I find it strange the older Scribe gets 5.19.4 but not the newer ones. I wonder if it’s safe to load 5.19.4 on my 2024 Scribe

5.19.4 has been pulled from Amazon. I've looked at both the US and UK sites.

if you were to try installed Scribe 2024 firmware on an older Scribe, it would not install. It has to be the correct firmware for the given Kindle and it has be a newer version.

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I was just going to ask that. I find it strange the older Scribe gets 5.19.4 but not the newer ones. I wonder if it’s safe to load 5.19.4 on my 2024 Scribe

5.19.4 no longer appears for ANY Kindle model on the Kindle E-Reader Software Updates page. They must have discovered some serious problems.

Oops, I was behind a page.

[Frogm4n]

Now I'm glad I haven't been in a hurry to install 5.19.4 on my Scribe 2022.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by jhowell

5.19.4 no longer appears for ANY Kindle model on the Kindle E-Reader Software Updates page. They must have discovered some serious problems.

Oops, I was behind a page.

You are correct, it’s obviously been pulled. It was there yesterday but not today.