Unbrick Kindle Voyage?

tomsem · 04-28-2020, 06:55 PM

About a week ago I tried to manually update my Voyage to the latest firmware update, but it no longer boots up or connects to USB host. Shows splash screen and there it sits. The front light stays on until the battery drains. Any way to wake it from its coma?

I used to have a special USB cable that was supposed to help recover a bricked Android device, but it didn’t work and I have no idea where it is now or if there is something like that which works on a Kindle.

Amazon CS seemed disinterested that their update broke the Voyage. The only offer was 20% off a new Kindle, which I’m not really in the market for.

Ironically I had 3 extra kindles (including a Voyage) until a few days before, when I send them to siblings. Now I just have a Kindle Keyboard and Kindle Touch to keep my Paperwhite (10th gen) company. Some Murphy’s Law variant.

j.p.s · 04-28-2020, 09:26 PM

You might try some serial port magic.

(I have no kindle serial port experience, so can't help with that.)

NiLuJe · 04-28-2020, 09:27 PM

What happened, exactly, during the update process (or did you not see it, exactly?).

If it failed or rebooted during the update, it's probably toast, unless it was jailbroken and had the RP + CRP installed and diags still behaves.
Otherwise, serial access in diags may help, assuming you can get a shell, which I'm not too sure about.

(EDIT: what @j.p.s said

).

tomsem · 04-29-2020, 01:38 AM

I started the update, and got an error dialog right away (I think before it restarted) and with the Settings UI showing behind it. The dialog was in Russian (because I had UI in Russian). I don’t know what it said, but the device was locked up at that point, dialog could not be dismissed. So I held power button and chose restart. Then it showed something like ERROR 05 in lower left corner. Since then it just fails to do anything apart from blank screen followed by startup screen (with no progress bar). And I cannot mount as drive on anything.

I’ll look into serial access, was just hoping it would magically come to its senses and start working again.

hhware · 10-25-2021, 11:58 PM

My Voyage is bricked after a software update. The update failed with error code 2. I contacted Amazon and tried to reset it with 40 sec power press on their advice. It got stuck on tree screen. After another reset, it flashes a screen with a message "Your Kindle software is updating", that immediately turns into a black screen. Is there anything I could do to revive it?

04-28-2020, 06:55 PM	#1
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,589 Karma: 26963509 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	Unbrick Kindle Voyage? About a week ago I tried to manually update my Voyage to the latest firmware update, but it no longer boots up or connects to USB host. Shows splash screen and there it sits. The front light stays on until the battery drains. Any way to wake it from its coma? I used to have a special USB cable that was supposed to help recover a bricked Android device, but it didn’t work and I have no idea where it is now or if there is something like that which works on a Kindle. Amazon CS seemed disinterested that their update broke the Voyage. The only offer was 20% off a new Kindle, which I’m not really in the market for. Ironically I had 3 extra kindles (including a Voyage) until a few days before, when I send them to siblings. Now I just have a Kindle Keyboard and Kindle Touch to keep my Paperwhite (10th gen) company. Some Murphy’s Law variant.

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04-28-2020, 09:26 PM	#2
j.p.s Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,376 Karma: 99197566 Join Date: Apr 2011 Device: pb360	You might try some serial port magic. (I have no kindle serial port experience, so can't help with that.)

04-28-2020, 09:27 PM	#3
NiLuJe BLAM! Posts: 13,491 Karma: 26012494 Join Date: Jun 2010 Location: Paris, France Device: Kindle 2i, 3g, 4, 5w, PW, PW2, PW5; Kobo H2O, Forma, Elipsa, Sage, C2E	What happened, exactly, during the update process (or did you not see it, exactly?). If it failed or rebooted during the update, it's probably toast, unless it was jailbroken and had the RP + CRP installed and diags still behaves. Otherwise, serial access in diags may help, assuming you can get a shell, which I'm not too sure about. (EDIT: what @j.p.s said ).

04-29-2020, 01:38 AM	#4
tomsem Grand Sorcerer Posts: 6,589 Karma: 26963509 Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: USA Device: iPhone 15PM, Kindle Scribe, iPad mini 6, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	I started the update, and got an error dialog right away (I think before it restarted) and with the Settings UI showing behind it. The dialog was in Russian (because I had UI in Russian). I don’t know what it said, but the device was locked up at that point, dialog could not be dismissed. So I held power button and chose restart. Then it showed something like ERROR 05 in lower left corner. Since then it just fails to do anything apart from blank screen followed by startup screen (with no progress bar). And I cannot mount as drive on anything. I’ll look into serial access, was just hoping it would magically come to its senses and start working again.

10-25-2021, 11:58 PM	#5
hhware Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2021 Device: Kindle Voyage	My Voyage is bricked after a software update. The update failed with error code 2. I contacted Amazon and tried to reset it with 40 sec power press on their advice. It got stuck on tree screen. After another reset, it flashes a screen with a message "Your Kindle software is updating", that immediately turns into a black screen. Is there anything I could do to revive it?

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