Troubleshooting Kindle Devices - Bricked just by registering in some countries?

[Krullos]

Hey folks,
Just curious to see how many others there are in the same boat here.

I'm living in Papua New Guinea at the moment and have discovered a software issue with Kindles that if the device is registered while physically within PNG it bricks itself during the registration process - stuck in the boot (boy sitting under tree) screen permanently. This also appears to happen when "auto-update date and time" is toggled on.

I found this forum in my research, and it seems this user had the exact same issue in Palau as I'm having.

Several of my other PNG colleagues have had the exact same issue with older and brand new Kindles, and have discovered as long as the device is registered in a different country (Australia or New Zealand) first, and then brought into PNG and auto-update date/time isn't toggled on then it will operate fine here.

I've raised the issue with Amazon and they've said they'll pass that info on to their developers, but this has bricked two of my Kindle Paperwhites (Gen 11 or PW5) which are slightly out of the one-year warranty so Amazon says the best I can do is trade them in for a 20% off discount code to buy another one and a $5 credit (because the devices "aren't working").

I found this guide to connecting a serial port to a Kindle, but that doesn't seem possible with a PW5 as there are no UART pads on a PW5.


Has anyone else encountered this?