DRM workaround: Kindle for Android

[scubacat]

Newbie(ish) here. I upgraded my pc, downloaded the newest version of calibre (7.2) and the newest version of dedrm (10.0.9). But my amazon purchased books (downloaded to my device and opened with calibre) are still showing a DRM error. I tried deleting the old files and downloading them again today, but they are still locked. I've done some google searching for this issue, but most of the threads are several years old. And I'm not tech savvy enough to understand a lot of the current discussions. Anybody out there willing to help me - explain it nice and slow, like I'm a 50 year old lady. Thanks

*forgot to mention this is on Windows 11 desktop... not android. Couldn't find where else to post it. Sorry if I'm in the wrong place.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by scubacat

Newbie(ish) here. I upgraded my pc, downloaded the newest version of calibre (7.2) and the newest version of dedrm (10.0.9). But my amazon purchased books (downloaded to my device and opened with calibre) are still showing a DRM error. I tried deleting the old files and downloading them again today, but they are still locked. I've done some google searching for this issue, but most of the threads are several years old. And I'm not tech savvy enough to understand a lot of the current discussions. Anybody out there willing to help me - explain it nice and slow, like I'm a 50 year old lady. Thanks

*forgot to mention this is on Windows 11 desktop... not android. Couldn't find where else to post it. Sorry if I'm in the wrong place.

Did you enter the serial number in the dedrm settings?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by scubacat

Anybody out there willing to help me - explain it nice and slow, like I'm a 50 year old lady.

Unfortunately providing detailed assistance with DRM removal is not allowed here on MobileRead. The best place to ask for help is in the Issues section of the GitHub site for the DeDRM tools.

[scubacat]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Did you enter the serial number in the dedrm settings?

Brilliant! This solved it. I had no idea. Thanks!

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by scubacat

Brilliant! This solved it. I had no idea. Thanks!

Not absolutely certain is this is permitted here but to quote the ReadMe.txt file:

Spoiler:

For Kindle ebooks from an E-Ink based Kindle (e.g. Voyage), or books downloaded from the Amazon web site 'for transfer via USB' to an E-Ink base Kindle, you must enter the Kindle's serial number in the customisation dialog.

The complete file is about 50 lines of text.

[KatKramins]

Hi, I've recently purchased 4 books on Amazon since they were only available there but I really want to read them on my Kobo.

I've cracked 1 of the books and been reading it fine but the next 2 aren't working the same way, and the last book needs me to update the kindle app to even download it.

I used this reference for the first one and it worked but not for the rest. https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/com...g_with_kindle/

I was hoping to try this posts method but I'm doing this on a mac and was hoping someone had experience with it? or another option to try for cracking books on a mac.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by KatKramins

Hi, I've recently purchased 4 books on Amazon since they were only available there but I really want to read them on my Kobo.

I've cracked 1 of the books and been reading it fine but the next 2 aren't working the same way, and the last book needs me to update the kindle app to even download it.

I used this reference for the first one and it worked but not for the rest. https://www.reddit.com/r/Calibre/com...g_with_kindle/

I was hoping to try this posts method but I'm doing this on a mac and was hoping someone had experience with it? or another option to try for cracking books on a mac.

Read this post:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...61&postcount=1

[Ande85]

Been working on this all day, and while I've made some progress, I'm having trouble at backing things up. I am using Bluestacks 5 of course, but the part that's a headache is that the backup isn't working. Neither adb "backup com.amazon.kindle" or "adb backup -all" yields any usable data. With the first method the file is only 1 KB in size, and with the second, it's around 37 KB...not useful, especially when you're expecting around 50 MB.

[lkmiller]

Using 32-bit Nougat on Bluestacks? Version 4.16.0.75 of the Kindle app? Those are recommended in the first post and were what worked for me.

[Ande85]

What you just said I am currently doing...except for running Nougat 32-bit. Turns out when I try to install it, it instead fores me to download a 64-bit instance of Pie. Worse yet it says I can't install the 32-bit version...I'm assuming because of Windows 11. Please don't tell me I'm going to have to downgrade to Windows 10 especially after just recently upgrading!

Anyway, to make things easier, I got all 64-bit flavors downloaded; Nougat, Pie, and Android 11 installed...I don't suppose you got any ideas or suggestions on what I can do, would you? One of them, Nougat 64-bit, wouldn't even pop up a window after I typed in "adb backup -all" asking me to okay the backup. If it's not one thing it's something else isn't it?

I know I can get this to work...I've done it before. It's just that it was under Windows 10, and I had to uninstall it due to Hyper-V not wanting to work. After several attempts of launching Bluestacks, and having the automatic handler run, I decided to call it quits, uninstalled what worked, and tried to start fresh. /sigh

[riverz]

Originally Posted by Ande85

What you just said I am currently doing...except for running Nougat 32-bit. Turns out when I try to install it, it instead fores me to download a 64-bit instance of Pie. Worse yet it says I can't install the 32-bit version...I'm assuming because of Windows 11. Please don't tell me I'm going to have to downgrade to Windows 10 especially after just recently upgrading!

Anyway, to make things easier, I got all 64-bit flavors downloaded; Nougat, Pie, and Android 11 installed...I don't suppose you got any ideas or suggestions on what I can do, would you? One of them, Nougat 64-bit, wouldn't even pop up a window after I typed in "adb backup -all" asking me to okay the backup. If it's not one thing it's something else isn't it?

I know I can get this to work...I've done it before. It's just that it was under Windows 10, and I had to uninstall it due to Hyper-V not wanting to work. After several attempts of launching Bluestacks, and having the automatic handler run, I decided to call it quits, uninstalled what worked, and tried to start fresh. /sigh

Maybe try another android emulator. Bluestacks emulator has issues with some setups. If you browse back some pages you'll see a couple of us used another emulator to get it working. Something to consider if you feel at a deadend with bluestacks.

[lkmiller]

Bluestacks support has this: https://support.bluestacks.com/hc/en...10383575835917

"Solution for when a Nougat 32-bit instance is not supported on your system"

I don't know about going that far for this. Riverz suggestion of trying a different emulator might be better.

[lkmiller]

There is also a post at GitHub about decrypting books from the current Kindle for Android: https://github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools/discussions/440

So you wouldn't have to try to get the older version of Android running.

[Ande85]

Thanks to my PC needing to be reinstalled from scratch after running Bluestacks .exe to turn off Hyper-V (yes...really) I have successfully downgraded from Windows 11 to Windows 10...whether I wanted to or not. Well I can run a 32-bit of Nougat now, which is nice, but when I connect to the adb bridge I get the following message:

Unable to connect for backup: more than one device/emulator

Turns out the solution to my problem is that when, connecting to Bluestacks, I am simultaneously connecting to an emulator.

emulator-5554 device
localhost:5555 device

So my question now is how do I kick one device, but keep the other, because when I type in "adb disconnect emulator-5554," it says it's disconnected, but when I type in "adb devices" it's still connected. I am clearly way over my head on this one.

[lkmiller]

I found I had to skip the step of "adb connect localhost:{portnumber} or 127.0.0.1:{portnumber}" or I would be in the same situation.

But do you really need to use this method at this point? Or have you gone too far to give up now?