Tutorial WatchThis - Software Jailbreak for any Kindle <= 5.14.2

[Mr. B]

Looks like great news. I just bought another Kindle Voyage (broke my first one) that came factory reset with 5.13.6.

[shamanNS]

@kdusr No, my comments was a reply to @buyifan43 mentioning removal of OTA binary file(s) as a method to stop firmware updates on a Kindle.
As in to be able to modify system files (such as mentioned ota binary) on a Kindle you need to already have jailbreak (or jailbreak exploit at least).

And he was replying to my comment where I've stated what are two available ways of ensuring owners of PW5 don't get an update before they are able to jailbreak it. The things that worked in the past on older firmwares that didn't require having jailbreak no longer work.

[Abish4i]

Let's jus wait and see will go public on 28-4 or will be in a closed loop.

[shamanNS]

@katadelos Any idea if this exploit works on firmware 5.14.0.1? My PW5 arrived yesterday with that factory firmware version and I was very pleasantly surprised that even though it is nominally 5.14.x build (thus newer than 5.13.7 that introduces new UI cr*p to other Kindle models) it doesn't have new UI and I can hide "Home view"/ recommendations , it looks to be quite similar to 5.13.6 on other Kindle models?

( I'm guessing this since I'm coming from PW3 with firmware 5.9.7 , and apart from reordering some options and not-great-but-not-terrible redesign of fonts/Aa menu this looks basically the same as what I'm used to with 5.9.7 with added bonus of making using Screensaver hack unnecessary since book-cover-as-screensaver is official feature on newer firmware)

So ideally I would want to stay on that firmware (forever or at least until Amazon fixes that mess with Collection view on newer UI) but also have the jailbreak


(I already read your Reddit comments about how Kindles with jailbreak can revert back to old UI on 5.14.1 and 5.14.2)

Also does the fact that my PW5 is "Kids Edition"/bundle has any implication firmware-wise and jailbreak-wise?

[katadelos]

It’s unlikely that I’ll be able to support 5.14.0.1 without having a look at an update .bin first (which might be a problem as that particular version isn’t publicly available, could be wrong though).

Normally I’d suggest just upgrading to 5.14.1 but _that_ version seems to have been yanked, probably because of the reports of it causing devices to crash, so, 5.14.1.1 is your best bet.

It’s worth noting that every version from 5.13.7 to 5.14.1.1 includes both the old UI and the new slightly-less-terrible-than-5.14.2 UI with the latter being enabled by a feature flag. I’m guessing that the reason why you’re seeing the old UI is because your device hasn’t been connected to WiFi and hence hasn’t had the chance to pull that feature flag from Amazon yet.

[shamanNS]

My Kindle was connected to Wi-Fi and is registered to my Amazon account (I've intentionally used WiFi hotspot from my mobile phone what was set to use 2G only network signal instead of connecting the Kindle to my home router) and straight away after registering it I kept it in Airplane mode. But I've rebooted the device after registering it just to see if it will switch to new UI. After registering it and before doing a reboot / restart I've connected it to my PC to check if there is already partially download update bin and there wasn't any

As for update.bin: do you happen to know what method have people here used in the past to recover those factory firmware bin files that were then used to downgrade firmware and jailbreak Kindle devices?

I remember that someone like @knc1 asked people with recently purchased new Kindle models to contact him for instructions about that during PW4 and Oasis era?

Some "undelete" type of program? Would say me trying to connect my new Kindle to my PC and scan the exported Kindle drive with something like "Recuva" be useful?

Since registering this Kindle I've only transferred 2 books via Calibre and 2 dictionaries. Maybe that hypothetical factory bin data still hasn't been overwritten...

[NiLuJe]

Yup, we tried those, no more factory updates for us ;o).

[shamanNS]

I've just finished scanning my Kindle drive with Recuva and interestingly realized that they've deleted bunch of dictionaries and that space was later overwritten with a "GER DEFA.ult" file that had 1.8 GB file size.. and Recuva comment states that file data was overwritten by "/system" directory.
And ungodly amount of log files was removed at some point in time. One of txt files mentiones "/mnt/data/update-J140001-bellatrix_malbec-006.bin".

[izeman]

Never wished for a 28th of April ever before

[Gaudi]

Hi all, beware that a 5.14.3 firmware has been released.

[Almamida]

Does that mean we are on track for an imminent release?

[Burrito Supreme]

This is great, I created an account specifically because of this impending jailbreak. I have an Oasis running 5.13.6 and literally all I want to do is to be able to choose my own lockscreen on a device I paid full price for.

[notbrina]

Is this going to work on KT3 in 5.14.2 firmware?

[tekkasit]

Can't wait.

[darkassassinua]

Originally Posted by notbrina

Is this going to work on KT3 in 5.14.2 firmware?

yes,of course