Lost my Documents Folder after Jailbreak

[NiLuJe]

Huh, that's what I was afraid of... Seems like something is wonky with the whole userstore mount thing (Which is kind of complicated, and I'm honestly not sure I perfectly understand why it's done that way [If I remember correctly, there's like the original FAT32 partition, then a loop device, and then another crazy custom amazon fuse module on top... o_O]). There's a chance it could be recovered from with a SSH/Serial access, but your easiest bet might be a simple RMA if it's still under warranty.

Just in case, try another restart/check if the log file managed to pop in the documents folder.

What exactly did you do in the first place/have tried to do since?

[allowingtoo]

Nope, nothing there. I'd already done the reboot thing before you asked.

Ok, I received my Kindle, registered it, read a book. Decided to Jailbreak. It didn't work the first time but worked the second time. Rebooted. Then I installed the screensavers. Rebooted. Installed the fonts. Rebooted. Opened up the Kindle and realized I didn't have my book in there anymore and I said, huh. I hooked it back up to the USB and saw the book was in the documents folder still. I deleted it and redownloaded it Calibre. "Send to Device" Still couldn't open it. Then I deregistered and reregistered my Kindle, started it up and shut it down. Booted. Hard booted. Nothing. Couldn't download my books from Amazon anymore either. I started freaking out at that point. I'd already started up and shut down my Kindle so many times it wasn't funny. I finally hit that Reset to Factory Defaults. I probably shouldn't have but....

Since then I've just Googled on trying to find out how to reverse this thing. Oh, I did try running the uninstall Jailbreak after the fact but of course it said it failed. That was after the Factory Defaults. I've done several Hard Resets. I've typed in "resetmykindle" and that doesn't work.

It's not RMA-able. I bought it used. All I can say is it worked for two days when I got it. Before the Jailbreak. It's still registered and all.

[NiLuJe]

Well, the fact that's it's used probably doesn't help, no idea what might have been done with it, but, a couple questions:

What exactly did you try the first time the jailbreak install failed, and *how/when* did it fail?

Did you try to do anything with the ss/fonts hack (ie. change the default hack ss/change fonts), and how did you install them (ie. the 'forum' way [just put the install .bin, run the update], or the 'wiki' way [put the customized link* folder first, then run the install .bin update])?

You mentionned trying to run the jb uninstall after that... Can you *still* do that? (ie. when you put an install/uninstall .bin in your borked root, does it get picked up, the 'Update Your Kindle' link is available?) And if you can, how does it fail (I'm guessing U007 error code)?

[allowingtoo]

First Jailbreak nothing I got an error code. 6? And then I tried one of the other links (the first was from here) the second was from Yifan Lu page. That one gave me the big check mark and said OK. But then his page said his SS wouldn't work so I came back here and installed the SS and fonts.

I just put them in the root? folder and added the fastboot thing for both. But no update.....(I hate to ask this, was there one?)

I can't ever see the Update My Kindle again. No matter what. It flashes for a brief second and - gone.

Oh, I have gotten an big Error 3 when I try to install ? I'm trying to think. The uninstaller again? Jailbreak?

I've done all this with the wireless off. I've tried renaming the Documents.bak - that didn't help either.

Thank you for being so patient.

[NiLuJe]

When you say 6, do you mean U006? Because that shouldn't happen, ever (on a K3, at least). And you might have ended up mixing two different jailbreaks, with one of them maybe half installed (which, granted, might cause wonky stuff, but hopefully nothing that drastic, but, either way, not a great start ^^).

What do you exactly mean by 'the fastboot thing'? Because the autoreboot feature is enabled by default, so, unless you want to use it to trigger a restart because you *changed* something, there's nothing to do...

If you see a big error 3, you're doing something wrong in the first place (rebooting with a custom .bin, not using the Update Your Kindle link). It's never the right way to install stuff, but, just in case, if you put an install .bin and restart, does it get picked up at boot (and fail with an error 3)? (if it does, someone might be able to come up with something, but I personally have zero experience with the recovery update format, and you'd probably need a hacked kernel to run custom ones anyway).

[geekmaster]

Are the bin files being installed by applying an update from the settings menu? Just restarting is not enough.

I would try to reinstall the jailbreak and usbnet hacks.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by NiLuJe

Huh, that's what I was afraid of... Seems like something is wonky with the whole userstore mount thing (Which is kind of complicated, and I'm honestly not sure I perfectly understand why it's done that way [If I remember correctly, there's like the original FAT32 partition, then a loop device, and then another crazy custom amazon fuse module on top... o_O]). There's a chance it could be recovered from with a SSH/Serial access, but your easiest bet might be a simple RMA if it's still under warranty.

Just in case, try another restart/check if the log file managed to pop in the documents folder.

What exactly did you do in the first place/have tried to do since?

The startup script comments mention an 8192 userstore offset, so I did this:
mount -o loop,noatime,ro,offset=8192 /dev/mmcblk0p4 /mnt/mmc

Hey, what do you know? loop mounting a device with offset works! My k3 USB drive is mounted right there in /mnt/mmc on my k3 right now. Of course you can change to "ro" option to "rw" if you want to write to it.

The actual FAT32 partition has 8192 bytes of OTHER data in front of it in /dev/mmcblk0p4 on the k3. And you can treat a block device as an image file and loop mount it with offset. This could be useful...

And remember to add -d to the umount when you unmount any loop device, or you can use up all your loop devices and need to reboot to loop mount anything again. Some of the kindles to no free loop devices without supplying the -d option to umount (even if they are listed in /etc/mtab). Yet another kindle bug...

umount -d /mnt/mmc

[allowingtoo]

oh ok, reading back I see the update - duh. I've been reading too much.

Installed from here:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88004

To use the autoreboot feature: Just drop a blank file named reboot in the linkss folder (by copying and renaming the already existing "autoreboot" blank file, for example) (or in the linkfonts folder if you also have the fonts hack installed!)

As for the Big Error 3 - yes. When I drop the Bin File in the Root file and I don't see the Update My Kindle, I choose Restart instead, I get the Error 3.

If you see a big error 3, you're doing something wrong in the first place (rebooting with a custom .bin, not using the Update Your Kindle link). It's never the right way to install stuff, but, just in case, if you put an install .bin and restart, does it get picked up at boot (and fail with an error 3)?

I can't be quite sure I got error 06 or U006. Could be 007 for all I know at this point.

You think the Font Folder is what messed this all up? I think I read a warning somewhere about that one.

Still willing to let someone have a go at this that knows what they're doing so that I can have an operational Kindle.

[allowingtoo]

Originally Posted by geekmaster

Are the bin files being installed by applying an update from the settings menu? Just restarting is not enough.

Update is grayed out. Not an option. Would love to get back to that point.

[geekmaster]

Originally Posted by allowingtoo

Update is grayed out. Not an option. Would love to get back to that point.

You update .bin files are not being recognized if update option grayed out. That should only happen if you are using a .bin file for a different kindle model. Are you absolutely certain that you are putting an update .bin file on USB Drive that matches you kindle model?

What is the name of your update file that leaves the update option grayed out?

What are the first 4 characters of you kindle serial number?

Please supply the information for both questions. You can get your serial number with shift-alt-period (all held down) on the keyboard.

[NiLuJe]

@geekmaster: Yeah, if I understood correctly, mmcblk0p4 is a FAT32 part, then there's loop/0 (mounted off mmcblk0p4 with an offset) that's mounted on /mnt/base-us, and then there's the fuse mount from base-us to us. I assume it's related to being able to export it over USB mass storage (AFAIU, because it has to be unmounted from the host OS to be exportable?), but I have no idea why they go to such lengths :?. (Is it still that tortuous on the Touch?).

@allowingtoo: Does that still work? (being able to trigger an update process @ boot?).

The reboot file is used *only* when you want to trigger a reboot (technically, a framework restart), if you didn't change anything, there's no reason to do that. Did you (change anything/try to trigger a reboot/actually triggered a reboot)?

And, no, installing basic stuff should not mess the system up like this. I assume every hack install ended succesfully? When exacty did stuff start to go wrong?

The only thing I can think of is something going wonky because of a full filesystem somewhere during an install process... Problem is we only really tinker with /tmp and the userstore, and /tmp is a tmpfs mount, so, not persistent, and not likely to wreak havoc like that, and the userstore should have plenty of free space, especially on a 'new' device, and (I assume) anything going wrong like that would have triggered an update process failure (most likely U006). There's very, very few changes made to the actual rootfs (an init script, a bunch of symlinks, and a file), and a few directories created on the /var/local partition. (I'm talking about the fonts hack here, because it's the biggest, most invasive/complex install script), so I can't see anything going wrong there (or at least, not *that* wrong ^^).

[allowingtoo]

B006

update_jailbreak_0.5.1_k3g_install.bin

[allowingtoo]

"Full file system somewhere..." Actually - it is really empty looking. I mean when I look at it via my computer there is just empty space. There is no file size there at all. It is all free space. That's the first thing I noticed.

And at first it did have the Sponsored Ads at the bottom of the screen - but I think by the time I rebooted the second time they went away. Or maybe the third. Never to be seen again.

being able to trigger an update process @ boot?

I'm scratching my head over that one. Not sure what you mean. If you mean, can I get to the update screen at boot after dropping a BIN file in the Root file? No.

Anything other than that, you'll have to talk me through it. I running Windows, not Ubuntu.

Will have to save the rest for tomorrow. Getting late. Thank you for your continued patience.

[geekmaster]

Okay, we are rapidly closing in on the problem here.

I believe that you are installing the wrong jailbreak version.

Now I need your firmware version. Please do this:

Press Home button.
Press Menu buttun.
Select Settings menu item.

What version is reported on the bottom status line?

If you are using firmware version 3.3, please read this:

Spoiler:

Note for Kindle >= 3.2.1 Users:

Please use the file corresponding to your kindle model suffixed by -3.2.1, the other one won't work on these newer FW versions, while the -3.2.1 file won't work on older FW versions. Check your Settings page if you're unsure of what FW your Kindle is running.

Download the attached kindle-jailbreak-0.10.N.zip file, and unpack it. In here, you'll find a bunch of .bin files, and a src directory.
Leave the directory alone, and upload the correct update_*_install.bin file for your kindle & FW version to the root directory of your Kindle.
(As always, k2 means K2 US, k2i means K2 GW, dx means KDX US, dxi means KDX GW, dxg means KDX Graphite, k3g means K3 3G (US [B006]), k3w means K3 WiFi [B008] and k3gb means K3 3G (UK [B00A]). The ones suffixed by -3.2.1 are meant for devices running FW >= 3.2.1 *only*!).
For a Kindle 2 International, that would be update_jailbreak_0.10.N_k2i_install.bin for example.

Now, eject your Kindle, and go to [HOME] -> [MENU] > Settings -> [MENU] > Update Your Kindle. It should be quick. (And, on FW 2.x only, it should FAIL (With a U006 error, in the bottom left corner of the screen). It's completely normal, intended, and harmless).

And that's it, your Kindle is now ready to install custom hacks!

The file name that you reported does NOT contain "-3.2.1". It is also a very old version 5 jailbreak. The newest one is version 10:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=88004

[NiLuJe]

@allowingtoo: I was talking about the underlying OS (so, from an user's POV, 'hidden' filesystems ).

But that might still be interesting, do you see an actual total size to the drive? Or 0? You seem to be able to access it, and I assume it's correctly showing up as a FAT32 drive?

As for the ads, my guess would be after the first reset to factory defaults, because nothing should alter that in those hacks. But if it happened earlier, that might have been a clue (or not, I'm not familiar at all with SO devices).

And, yep, that's what I meant about the update process at boot

@geekmaster: Yup, he was, which explains the original error he encountered when first trying to jailbreak it. Although it should have been an U004 error. Also why yifanlu's jailbreak installed okay after that .