Develop Bugs

[ROOT][WIP] root 6.2.1 / install TWRP / unbrick any ROM

A while back, I posted about forcing the Fire to boot over USB instead of from the internal memory. This trick requires you to open the back of your Fire, but after that the only tool you need is a pair of tweezers, sharp scissors, bent paperclip, or anything else with a fine point that can short two things together. After that, it's all cake to boot FIREFIREFIRE, then TWRP, then adb in and have your way with the Fire's memory.
Now that 6.2.1 is here ruining our party, it's time to package this up for anyone to use.
As useful as they are now, fastboot cables may not work in the future. They rely on the bootloader to work, and it's possible that a future OTA could disable fastboot.
For the adventurous. This is mostly untested by me, and runs a good risk of fuglifying or permanently breaking your Kindle. If you haven't voided your warranty yet, this will.
Install TWRP over USB
0) You will need a PC with Linux and working adb, the .zip attached to this post, and the installer version of TWRP[/URL]. Also a microUSB cable. And something to short the contact like tweezers or a bent paperclip.
1) Unpack the rekindle .zip and copy TWRP into the directory it creates. Change directories into rekindle/
2) Open a terminal and sudo or su to root. It's easier that way.
3) Unplug the USB or AC adapter if it's plugged into the KF. But have the USB cable's A end plugged into the PC. This is very important.
4) Turn the power completely off. Do a shutdown if actually running Android, or hold the power button until there's no LED or backlight.
5) Pry open the back cover. The iFixit teardown (Google it) gives some ideas on how to do it, but be really careful because it's easy to snap the tabs along the long sides.
6) The power must still be off. If you accidentally powered it back on, turn it back off.
7) Run:
Code:
./usbboot aboot.bin u-boot.bin; ./fastboot boot twrp-blaze-2.0.0RC0.img
This will chain load aboot, FIREFIREFIRE, then TWRP.
8) Short the point shown here to the metal frame around the CPU area using your paperclip or whatever. While keeping it shorted, plug in the USB cable. This will power up the Fire with the CPU in USB boot mode.
9) If it works, you'll see some text fly by in the terminal, and you'll see the yellow triangle hopefully followed by TWRP starting up. You can follow the instructions in the TWRP post on completing the install.
Rooting 6.2.1
***This likely won't work***
There are reports of problems booting after applying this bootimage. Try the TWRP install above and one of the root update.zips instead.
0) You must already be running 6.2.1. Otherwise try a safer method.
1) Get the rooted 6.2.1 bootroot .img from here..
2) Follow the procedure to install TWRP above, but stop before step 7 (the usbboot command). You can skip downloading TWRP.
3) Run this command instead:
Code:
./usbboot aboot.bin u-boot.bin; ./fastboot flash boot 6_2_1rootboot.img
4) Then continue at step 8 until the fastboot flash command finishes.
5) Hold down the power button until it powers off (~15 seconds), and press it again to power it back up.
Windows & OSX support
Currently usbboot is built for Linux only. I had experimented with building it against libusb for Windows and OSX. Unfortunately the window to make the connection before the CPU resets again is about 2 seconds, and Windows takes a lot longer than that to enumerate new USB devices. I don't know about OSX, but I guess a libusb version (usbboot's USB code is Linux-centric) would work fine. Github is here if you want to take a crack at porting it.
Successes? Failures? Smoking hole in the ground that used to be your Kindle? Post here.

LOL really bad news for Amazon.
Can't wait for the full guide.
Thank you m8

how about a quick run down on how to do this now? I have some time and really want to mess with this thing

foxdog66 said:
how about a quick run down on how to do this now? I have some time and really want to mess with this thing
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Moved into the main post.

EDIT
1st borked usb ports, then i got it to work
!CONFIRMED WORKING!

Proof?? Show us a pic dude!!!

How did you get the back off without scratching the hell out of it...or is it all scratched up now? Lol

foxdog66 said:
How did you get the back off without scratching the hell out of it...or is it all scratched up now? Lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
some scratches, and i only used 2 id/credit cards
beepFTW said:
Proof?? Show us a pic dude!!!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
proof you say? i was in irc the whole time with Vashypooh
plus im running cm7 now

Cool! Thanks man, the whole community thanks you. Any chance of a youtube tutorial? I think many of us will need it. Haha

good work mate keep it up!

pokey9000 said:
For the adventurous. This is totally untested as of now, and runs a good risk of fuglifying or permanently breaking your Kindle. If you haven't voided your warranty yet, this will.
0) You will need a PC with Linux, adb and fastboot installed and known working, a copy of the omap4boot for Kindle Fire from this post, a copy of FIREFIREFIRE, the older TWRP 2.0 that doesn't have the FIREFIREFIRE installer (or use the other if you want to install TWRP and FIREFIREFIRE automatically). Also a microUSB cable. And something to short the contact like tweezers or a bent paperclip.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, a silly question here, as you did say one will need a linux machine, but...
Can it be done under Windows 7 64bit?
If so - what software will I need apart from adb shell access, FIREFIREFIRE and TWRP 2.0?

dalogrus said:
Hi, a silly question here, as you did say one will need a linux machine, but...
Can it be done under Windows 7 64bit?
If so - what software will I need apart from adb shell access, FIREFIREFIRE and TWRP 2.0?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
this has linux only binaries, use on linux

So just to be clear this works with 6.2.1 so would allow a downgrade to 6.2 or a sidegrade to the hacked 6.2.1 image with root enabled?
Sent from my Kindle Fire using xda premium

Should allow you to flash anything that can be flashed by fastboot.

Very cool. I was wondering if this CPU supports leaving it like that but still being able to boot normally, much like FIREFIREFIRE where it starts in fastboot mode, then after a short time, switches to normal boot. There is a hack for the Galaxy S phones that works like this. You short a point on the board, then leave it that way. Now when you boot, it will try to boot from USB, and if that fails, switches over to internal flash. This would be a very nice mod to have.

ttabbal said:
Very cool. I was wondering if this CPU supports leaving it like that but still being able to boot normally, much like FIREFIREFIRE where it starts in fastboot mode, then after a short time, switches to normal boot. There is a hack for the Galaxy S phones that works like this. You short a point on the board, then leave it that way. Now when you boot, it will try to boot from USB, and if that fails, switches over to internal flash. This would be a very nice mod to have.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes, it does, but it would take some soldering and more than shorting just one pin. Also we haven't identified all the boot mode pins.

dalogrus said:
Hi, a silly question here, as you did say one will need a linux machine, but...
Can it be done under Windows 7 64bit?
If so - what software will I need apart from adb shell access, FIREFIREFIRE and TWRP 2.0?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Not silly, I've tried to get usbboot to work on Windows when I developed a Nook Color version, but the Windows USB stack sucks. If it were to work, it would piggyback on either libusb or the Google USB driver, either of which have 32 and 64 bit versions. Windows gurus are welcome to lend a hand.

Stuck on Kindle...
I have the 6.2.1 update so tried this.
I followed the instructions but when I `fastboot reboot` the screen goes black. When I power it down manually and then turn it back on it hangs on the initial Kindle boot screen, it never gets to the animated Kindle boot screen.
Code:
# ./usbboot aboot.bin u-boot.bin; fastboot flash boot 6_2_1rootboot.img
?
waiting for OMAP44xx device...
sending 2ndstage to target...
waiting for 2ndstage response...
sending image to target...
< waiting for device >
sending 'boot' (3234 KB)...
OKAY [ 0.814s]
writing 'boot'...
OKAY [ 1.155s]
finished. total time: 1.969s
MintBookPro kindle # fastboot reboot
rebooting...
finished. total time: 0.001s
#
I noticed the fastboot command didn't have ./ in front of it so tried that with the same results, it just hung on the Kindle boot screen.
Out of curiosity I tried the TWRP image and that worked so I was able to install the full rooted 6.2.1 (not just the boot image) from TWRP and now I have 6.2.1 rooted.
So I don't think there was anything wrong with your app, that seemed to work fine, but the plain 6.2.1 boot image seems not to work. Which isn't your issue but anyone that tries this needs to be aware of it.

Great work pokey9000! Very interesting what you are doing.
A couple of questions if you can spare the time.
1) What bootmode is it that shorting the pin enables?
2) As I have a factory cable, would this do the same without popping the case?
Also, and this is off topic and possibly already asked and answered, but I'm curious of your thoughts of the possibility to just select boot from usb on power up from the device, maybe through a utility such as TWRP or some other. Seems that if that could be done, one could greatly increase the size of storage, effectively circumventing the current internal storage limitation. And since the usb is removable and rewritable, you could revert to an earlier version archived on a pc if any updates get pushed that break something.

mikbe.tk said:
I have the 6.2.1 update so tried this.
I followed the instructions but when I `fastboot reboot` the screen goes black. When I power it down manually and then turn it back on it hangs on the initial Kindle boot screen, it never gets to the animated Kindle boot screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Corrected my directions to hard power off. Reason is that the boot mode gets detected on cold reset, and the reboot warm resets and so doesn't detect the new bootmode. I suppose we could add something to override the boot mode when you call reboot if it detects that USB is the boot device. Code is already there to do something similar with bootmode 4003.
I noticed the fastboot command didn't have ./ in front of it so tried that with the same results, it just hung on the Kindle boot screen.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My bad, fixed.
Out of curiosity I tried the TWRP image and that worked so I was able to install the full rooted 6.2.1 (not just the boot image) from TWRP and now I have 6.2.1 rooted.
So I don't think there was anything wrong with your app, that seemed to work fine, but the plain 6.2.1 boot image seems not to work. Which isn't your issue but anyone that tries this needs to be aware of it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Don't know about this, these directions were created w/o a Fire in my possession. I'll make a note in the OP to try the TWRP method.

[Q] Kindle Fire 2 looping, original bootloader, no adb - how to recover

First let me say I *did* try to find information before posting here. Truly.
I have a 2nd generation Kindle Fire, which keeps on looping at the stock "kindle fire" screen.
I do not know how it got into that state, this is how I got it.
Here is the setup:
1) Device is certainly kindle fire 2
2) I am running on WIndows Vista, but I can change to other Windows or Linux if necessary
3) I have a factory cable which allows me to boot into FastBoot; it is definitely to built-in FastBoot and not a replacement/dual boot
4) The Kindle is clearly of low battery as it can't charge enough. Once it charges enough it reboots, shows the "Kindle fire" logo for 2 seconds, never runs the wave through it, then shuts off and restarts again.
I could not get it to charge more than that, but I do not think this is a hardware/battery problem; I have long experience with electronics and just trust my guts here.
5) Booting into FastBoot with factory cable is OK however fastboot.exe does NOT see the device as listed. Neither does ADB.
6) Windows reports the device as "Kindle Fire" and even though FastBoot does not see it in "fastboot devices" it can still send commands to it
7) Cleaning the user data and the cache was the only thing I tried; they took a lot of time to complete (1 and 3 minutes respectively whereas articles mention 20-30 seconds), but that didn't change anything
I guess what I am trying at this stage is to re-flash the system/bootloader partitions with stock ones in hope that will allow the device to boot successfuly.
Can I do that?
Or what else can I do?
Thank you for all you do!

Try the kindle 2 forums.
Sent from my MB855 using xda premium

[Q] Kindle Fire 2 brick: WHITE triangle on boot

Right, so, I've done some googling and some searching about here and there but either I'm being dense and the solution is really simple, or nobody's done what I've done with this tablet before and, again, I'm being dense. Here's my issue:
Kindle Fire 2 (2nd gen, also second-hand) tablet: stock, rooted, that worked fine with the tool by bin4ry.
Rebooted after that, verified root was working, adb and fastboot perfectly fine (sidenote: linux user, no shonky Windows drivers at fault here)
My ultimate goal is to get CM on this device, so, started after this to follow the instructions in this thread regarding getting the second bootloader on the tablet.
Realised I need a factory cable, ordered, delivered, works but not all the time, I'm not sure if it's a dodgy cable or not but did get into fastboot.
Got new bootloader installed, saw Kindle Fire logo in blue. Proceeded to boot the stock rom after this and use adb push to put the CM 11 zip and the gapps zip files on /sdcard.
adb shell, su, reboot recovery, intending to boot into TWRP to flash new rom
Tablet reboots, but is now stuck with the stock boot logo (orange) and then a black screen with a white triangle and exclamation mark on it. I haven't seen any references to this particular delight.
Fastboot cable does not, no matter how I fiddle with it, put the tablet in fastboot mode. Holding down the power button for five minutes did nothing.
I've read that if it turns on, it can probably be recovered, but I don't know what to do from here. Can anyone render assistance?

So, after much fiddling, I discovered that my problem was actually that my fastboot cable was loose in the microUSB end, and not contacting properly with the pins - thus not sending the tablet the requisite signal to enter fastboot mode.
I've successfully got TWRP onto the fire and thus CM 10.1 now.
I hope this update helps anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation; fastboot still works, keep wiggling.

xyonofcalhoun said:
So, after much fiddling, I discovered that my problem was actually that my fastboot cable was loose in the microUSB end, and not contacting properly with the pins - thus not sending the tablet the requisite signal to enter fastboot mode.
I've successfully got TWRP onto the fire and thus CM 10.1 now.
I hope this update helps anyone who finds themselves in a similar situation; fastboot still works, keep wiggling.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I had this problem with a 2nd gen Kindle that was also second hand.
Phoned Amazon UK, described the problem (not mentioning I'd done it myself) and they replaced it.
Seems there's not a lot they won't replace.

[Q] another boot loop post..

Hey guys, before I begin, yes i read the '[HOW-TO] Before asking for troubleshooting help...' page as well as the '[GUIDE] Kindle Fire For Beginners' page, and am still in need of a bit of assistance due to my hilariously lacking knowledge of the workings of electronic equipment. :silly:
I just dug my kindle fire out of my dresser drawer where it has been sitting due to being 'bricked' for quite some time (stuck at the boot logo - white kindle text and orange fire text shimmering on a pure black background - holds a charge but is indefinitely at this screen). It is completely stock, having not downloaded or installed any ROMs or any other software, and initially began experiencing this problem the morning after running it out of battery while downloading a few books and games one night. I promptly plugged it in, went to bed, and woke up to it in this state that next morning.
I have tried downloading Kindle Fire Unbrick V1.1 by ZombiePiratez and running that to fix it, but it does not recognize my kindle fire. So, i downloaded Eclipse ADT with Android SDK for windows and followed some instructions i found for getting it to recognize my kindle as "Android Composite ADB Interface" in hopes that then the unbricking tool would recognize it and work its magic for me. But it didnt. I imagine this is because the process that I followed is flawed.
My question is, if i were to buy a "factory cable" would I be able to unbrick my kindle fire without having to do any of this command promp shamanism thats clearly over my head? Kinfauns states in his guide that "With a factory cable, unbricking just comes down to "plug it in and flash new stuff" in almost every bricking situation." But what does 'flash new stuff' mean; should I have picked that up from the guide as well? Or could I just use the factory cable in conjunction with ZombiePiratez unbricking tool to get back to the factory settings?
Thanks in advance for any pointers

See my How to flash twrp and firefirefire with a Fastboot cable
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=53652317&postcount=2
Sent from my XT862 using Tapatalk

Hey @sd_shadow !
Thanks for the link to that, the videos you've created make it possible for even someone with my level of tech knowledge to work through this problem. Immensely better than trying to follow a written guide
Anyway, I finally got my fastboot cable and followed the steps in your videos to the tee, however I'm still encountering one small problem. When I get to the point where I'm installing update-kindle-prerooted.6.3.3.v1.zip in TWRP by swiping across the screen, it runs until it gets to the line thanking paulobrien and two others but then promptly freezes (or so i assume since it doesnt continue on and the loading bar halts in its tracks). I decided after a few tries to just hold the power button to get it to shut off and then booted the kindle in normal boot mode - and it worked! - despite not being able to complete the process as shown in your video. But this concerns me, as I do not have any of the additional apps shown in your video (not that this truly matters to me) and under settings -> device it shows that I am running version 6.3.1_user_#####. So I have two questions:
1) Did the fff and twrp processes work, but the 6.3.3 update fail thus enabling me to use my kindle as a v6.3.1 device again?
2) Will it harm my device in any way (e.g. re-bricking) if I just call it good and use it as it is now?
Thanks for all the help so far :highfive:

noobSaurus said:
Hey @sd_shadow !
Thanks for the link to that, the videos you've created make it possible for even someone with my level of tech knowledge to work through this problem. Immensely better than trying to follow a written guide
Anyway, I finally got my fastboot cable and followed the steps in your videos to the tee, however I'm still encountering one small problem. When I get to the point where I'm installing update-kindle-prerooted.6.3.3.v1.zip in TWRP by swiping across the screen, it runs until it gets to the line thanking paulobrien and two others but then promptly freezes (or so i assume since it doesnt continue on and the loading bar halts in its tracks). I decided after a few tries to just hold the power button to get it to shut off and then booted the kindle in normal boot mode - and it worked! - despite not being able to complete the process as shown in your video. But this concerns me, as I do not have any of the additional apps shown in your video (not that this truly matters to me) and under settings -> device it shows that I am running version 6.3.1_user_#####. So I have two questions:
1) Did the fff and twrp processes work, but the 6.3.3 update fail thus enabling me to use my kindle as a v6.3.1 device again?
2) Will it harm my device in any way (e.g. re-bricking) if I just call it good and use it as it is now?
Thanks for all the help so far :highfive:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
1 yes installing TWRP and FFF reset boot, and allowed 6.3.1 to boot normally
2. the only problem should be that, when connected to wifi, update will redownload and try again once a day or so
Kindle will reboot to TWRP, but update should fail, if that does not bother you it is fine
3. what twrp version did you install? says in twrp if you are not sure

I installed TWRP v2.7.1.0-blaze because that is what you used in the video, even though i had read that 2.2.2.1 may be preferable for stock unrooted kindle fires. I did this so that I could follow your video exactly without having to change any steps except for switching otter to blaze in the cmd promt code I inputted.
Also, as I write this, Ive realized that I still may have made a mistake and installed one of the alternate test files for the 6.3.3 prerooted update and not the complete file itself, so ill get back with that info.

Yeah, i installed the alternate test file the first time :silly:
Went back through and followed your instructions to the 'tee' again and its up and running.
I do have one more question though; when I am using the device I dont get very far before selecting an application or making another command causes the screen to go black, only displaying the time and settings option at the top and the home button, back button, search button, etc at the bottom - none of which respond when selected. This happens with both the go launcher and the kindle launcher, and each time the only way I can stop it is resetting the device... Any suggestions to counteract this?

Kindle Fire (1st Gen) stuck at boot logo after setting fastboot mode.

Hi. Long time lurker, but finally found myself in a pickle. So now I'm asking for help.
I have a first get Kindle Fire that I figured I'd experiment with after getting a new Kindle HD 8. It has OS 6.3.4 and has been stock until just now.
I already rooted it and was then going through the process outlined in this thread:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=54124313&postcount=3
so that I could add TWRP. But, after the step "Step 5: Forcing Fastboot Mode" and entering "adb reboot", the Kindle rebooted without the animated logo as the instructions said it would... except it stayed that way.
And, it's still that way. Any adb command I enter returns "error: device not found". I tried the Kindle Fire Unbrick utility, but it also couldn't find the device, even though it finished the attempt with the message that it's now unbricked - except, it's not. Even my Windows 10 PC throws up an error when I try to reconnect the USB that there's a device error.
It's not in a boot loop - it's flat stuck. I can turn it off by holding the power button for about 15 seconds. And I can turn it back on, and I've tried entering adb commands as soon as I do turn it on to see it if takes, but it doesn't. It just sits there displaying the "kindle fire" logo.
I was going to try to load regular android on it, but now that seems out of the question.
Is there anything else I could try? I will try letting it drain the battery, and then plugging it in again, but any other suggestions would be appreciated. Anything else I need to provide, please let me know.
Thanks,
-Joel

joeldf said:
Hi. Long time lurker, but finally found myself in a pickle. So now I'm asking for help.
I have a first get Kindle Fire that I figured I'd experiment with after getting a new Kindle HD 8. It has OS 6.3.4 and has been stock until just now.
I already rooted it and was then going through the process outlined in this thread:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=54124313&postcount=3
so that I could add TWRP. But, after the step "Step 5: Forcing Fastboot Mode" and entering "adb reboot", the Kindle rebooted without the animated logo as the instructions said it would... except it stayed that way.
And, it's still that way. Any adb command I enter returns "error: device not found". I tried the Kindle Fire Unbrick utility, but it also couldn't find the device, even though it finished the attempt with the message that it's now unbricked - except, it's not. Even my Windows 10 PC throws up an error when I try to reconnect the USB that there's a device error.
It's not in a boot loop - it's flat stuck. I can turn it off by holding the power button for about 15 seconds. And I can turn it back on, and I've tried entering adb commands as soon as I do turn it on to see it if takes, but it doesn't. It just sits there displaying the "kindle fire" logo.
I was going to try to load regular android on it, but now that seems out of the question.
Is there anything else I could try? I will try letting it drain the battery, and then plugging it in again, but any other suggestions would be appreciated. Anything else I need to provide, please let me know.
Thanks,
-Joel
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When it's in fastboot mode, use fastboot commands, not adb
Sent from my sailfish using XDA Labs

Thanks,
The instructions were not clear on what to expect at that point, and I assumed it was stuck. It didn't occur to me to just keep going.
So I did, and it responded as it was supposed to. When I got to "fastboot -i 0x1949 oem idme bootmode 4000", it returned
FAILED (status read failed (Too many links))
finished. total time: 0.031s
But the "reboot" command took and got the white and blue. It flashed a bunch of times but finally got it to boot with the normal white and yellow logo. I think part of it was that the battery had gone down since I last posted. I'm now recharging it before going further.
Still, thanks. I guess it wasn't stuck or bricked after all.

joeldf said:
Thanks,
The instructions were not clear on what to expect at that point, and I assumed it was stuck. It didn't occur to me to just keep going.
So I did, and it responded as it was supposed to. When I got to "fastboot -i 0x1949 oem idme bootmode 4000", it returned
FAILED (status read failed (Too many links))
finished. total time: 0.031s
But the "reboot" command took and got the white and blue. It flashed a bunch of times but finally got it to boot with the normal white and yellow logo. I think part of it was that the battery had gone down since I last posted. I'm now recharging it before going further.
Still, thanks. I guess it wasn't stuck or bricked after all.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Did you watch my video?
Sent from my sailfish using XDA Labs

sd_shadow said:
Did you watch my video?
Sent from my sailfish using XDA Labs
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I watched several videos, and I think I started yours at one point, but between my 8 year old running around saying it's almost midnight (it was new years eve), and then trying to get him to go to bed, by the time I came back to this, I may have lost track of what I was watching.
Moral of the story, do this kind of thing without interruptions...
I did re-watch your video all the way through and I see that what happened was normal.
Still, there was that error trying to reset the bootmode (I didn't get what you got), otherwise, it still works and re-boots fine now. Even went into Recovery.
Next thing is trying out a new rom.
Thanks again.

MY DEVICE IS ALSO STUCK!!! After doing the fastboot reboot it gets stuck with the lifeless bootscreen and doesn't do anything from there, I've also tried to use the set boot mode but it hangs on waiting for device