I had a tough time learning how to UN-brick my wife's AND my friends Kindle Fire devices. I'm going to liberally add links to things around the site because I found them extremely useful and educational, but I could not find all of the things I needed in one place. Both of the Kindle Fire devices I had to fix were Kindle Fire first generation devices, so I can only speak to these fixes. However it may help you at least get your head straight to understand what you are doing, what you have and what you need to do. My intent with both of these devices was never to root them or replace the ROM's, although I have done that to my own phones and love the Android OS, it was simply to get both working again so my wife could read and check email and my friends kids could play their games.
What I had and the issue with each device:
Kindle Fire (1) - no more space on the device, stuck at logo.
Kindle Fire (2) - originally USB connector separated from the circuit board, I had a local electronics guy solder a new one back on and upon start up it was stuck at the logo also (it worked before he fixed the board).
Utilities you need:
Kindle Fire factory cable - quality cable get one from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=20380015&postcount=9
Minimal ADB and Fastboot Utility: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=42407269
Kindle Fire Utility 0.9.9 - get it here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2192818
Fix the Kindle Fire Utility run.bat file - It would not run on my WinXP or Win7 machine and the fix works no matter which version you are running: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1737671
Information about TWRP, it comes with the Kindle Fire Utility: http://www.teamw.in/project/twrp2
Information about FireFireFire: http://www.xda-developers.com/android/firefirefire-custom-bootloader-for-the-kindle-fire/ FireFireFire comes with the Kindle Fire Utility and allows you to get into recovery when not connected to the computer, install FireFireFire after TWRP.
Informative video on using Kindle Fire Utility: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ21pr6_SHI
The Forum recommends reading these first, do yourself a favor and READ THESE FIRST:
Kindle Fire for Beginners (very helpful): http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1552547
Kindle Fire for Beginners - Supplemental How-To Guide: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1638452
The PROCESS of UN-bricking:
1, Install Minimal ADB and Fastboot:
2, Install Kindle Fire Utility - I just put it into the Minimal ADB install directory so its all in one place.
3, In the Kindle Fire Utility directory run "install_drivers.bat" without the device connected (does not matter what version of WinXP or Win7, I have no idea if these will work on Win8 I did not try it). Reboot if you need to.
4, Plug the factory cable into your device, then plug the cable into the USB port on your computer and the Kindle Fire will boot into FASTBOOT all by itself. You can tell by the White/Orange logo and the screen is brighter than normal.
NOTE: This is the part that drove me bat crazy! With a stock Kindle Fire when using the stock bootloader (plain "kindle fire" boot logo), the fastboot command must always specify the custom vendor ID used by the Kindle Fire, ie "fastboot -i 0x1949 devices", where 0x1949 is the stock vendor ID. Also ADB and Fastboot are mutually exclusive, meaning you can only be in and use one at a time, never both. ADB commands will not work in fastboot mode or with the factory cable, you must use a regular USB cable for that and not be in fasboot mode. Even at the logo with a standard USB cable ADB would connect, but it's READ ONLY.
5, Run the Minimal ADB shortcut to the ADB prompt or open a CMD shell, navigate to the directory and run "fastboot -i 0x1949 devices". If it returns something like "0123456789ABCDEF fastboot", the number being your device number then you are in fastboot mode.
6, In the Kindle Fire Utility directory run the "run.bat" file, a CMD window with a menu will open.
NOTE:
You will see something like the below in the CMD window, ignore it, the stock Kindle Fire always shows this. If you want to make sure you are still in fastboot Run the Minimal ADB shortcut to the ADB prompt or open a CMD shell, navigate to the directory and run "fastboot -i 0x1949 devices" again and make sure your device shows up.
ADB Status: Offline
Boot Status: Unknown
7, Once Kindle Fire Utility loads, select option 3 and install TWRP, let it finish and it will reboot the device, hit enter back to the main menu. The logo will not change yet.
8, Once Kindle Fire Utility loads, select option 5 and install FireFireFire, let it finish and it will reboot the device, hit enter back to the main menu. The logo will still be white and blue logo.
9, Once Kindle Fire Utility loads if you want to root select 2 "Install Permanent Root with Superuser", let it finish and it will reboot the device, hit enter back to the main menu. The logo will still be white and blue logo.
10, Hold the power button until the device shuts down, unplug the factory cable from the computer, then the device.
11, Tap the power button and the device should start to boot. At the bottom you will see the boot select prompt, hold power button a couple of seconds and a menu should pop up. Tap the power button to change menu item until recovery is selected "--Recovery--" and leave it until it boots into TWRP.
12, Once you boot into TWRP select WIPE,
13, On the bottom of the next screen swipe "Swipe to factory reset", let it finish and select the back button.
14, Select REBOOT and then SYSTEM (this resets Fastboot mode to 4000 if you changed it to 4002 or screwed with it otherwise).
15, At one point I was asked if I want to root it and install SU. On my wife's I did and on my friends I did not, kids have a habit of pushing the right combination of buttons and bricking them. I don't recall when it actually asked me to do the root, but it probably has to do with me doing step 9 above on one and not the other.
16, After it reboots and it takes a while the first time again, reconfigure your Factory Stock Kindle Fire as you would out of the box. All of your stuff will synch back to it, unless you used a USB cable to transfer data to it, that stuff may be gone, but I did not have any of that to worry about.
17, Since the Kindle was already registered both your Kindle books and Amazon apps should be there but you will have to reinstall the apps and lose saved game data.
Again, this is how I chose to do the repair based on my knowledge level (and frustration level) after a lot of research, reading, testing and rebooting. Like I said, all I wanted was a stock fresh Kindle Fire, so this worked for me. I might at some point wipe it and install a custom ROM and Kernel but for now they are both grateful and happy to have their devices back without buying new ones.
Also, I am grateful to all the people who posted here before me that allowed me to learn more about the Android OS devices and repair them. It was actually a fun and frustrating adventure, but the thrill of beating it into submission was well worth the learning curve on another device!!!
Jocco-
Hi,
My stock fire tv is stuck in boot process. When I turn it on loads the b/w amazon logo and, about 30 seconds after, the colorful amazon fire tv logo comes up. And that's it, nothing else ever happens. No reboot, noloop, nothing else.
I have tried to factory reset it by pressing alt+i+print-screen hundred of times while booting with no success. I have tried with 4 different keyboard (including a logitech k400).
I have tried to connect a USB-A to USB-A cable from the fire tv and the PC and installed adb drivers (all devices are recognized by windows and display and device manager) but I can't detect the device with adb devices at any stage of the boot process at all.
Does anyone have any other possible way to un-brick it? O any other suggestion to revive it?
btw, It "bricked" itself. One day I turned on tv and I saw empty menus and nothing happened if I tried to navigate on it... So decided to reboot it and... there you go, the way it is now.
Thanks in advance.
Anybody can help please? I've got a precious brick os plastic and circuits on top my desk right now....
I have accidentally formatted/wiped my system partition with twrp recovery on my fire tv stick 1st gen and now its stuck on the white boot logo. Is there any way to recover it ? there is no adb or fastboot.
Thanks Nikki
Ive cut my losses and binned it !
Hi @All:
i´ve got a Nvidia Shield TV of 2015, which was with a broken Systemimage.
I took some Updates from the Nvidia Developer´s Page, but nothing helps.
It hang always by the Nvidia Bootlogo, and after any time it takes a reboot.
The Recovery Kernel was also damaged. It was shown by the Dead Androidman.
Yesterday i flashed it, so i think, with a wrong image.
Now it won´t boot. There is no Picture or anything.
Also no Fastboot or ADB.
NOTHING!!!!
Have anyone an Idea, what i can do?
Is it possible to get an Image directly to the eMMC?
Greatings
Sebastian
Use a keyboard or game controller to boot fast boot
Try to recover through recovery image on shield forums
Hello,
I just joined the forum this morning and wanted to say hi to everyone. Hopefully someone can help me here. I have an Amazon Fire TV 2 and it has been rooted and I have Teamwin Recovery Project 3.0.0-5 on it. It has been working for years, but one day a few months ago, I switched the TV input to the Fire TV and just saw the Teamwin splash screen sitting there and blinking. I disconnected the Fire TV and connected it to another TV and it booted up normally, however, without the option to select Boot Normal or Launch Recovery. I then disconnected the Fire TV again and reconnected it to the original TV, it did not boot and got stuck at the splash screen again. Finally after numerous attempts at restarting the device, it booted (without the option to choose Boot Normally or Launch Recovery). I used the Fire TV for a month or so and have restarted it a few times and always was able to get in, but still without the option to Boot Normally or Launch Recovery.
Last night, I was watching a movie and it ended. I tried to use the back button on the remote to go back to my Emby server to watch another show. The Fire TV was not responding and I did not see the white light on the Fire TV at all, but I still had the picture of the finished movie on the screen. I pulled the power plug on the Fire TV and plugged it back it. I'm back to the Teamwin splash screen and it just sits there and blinks every few seconds or so. I never get beyond it and cannot get back into my Fire TV. The white light on the Fire TV also blinks slowly.
I saw a post about the Fire TV 1 and a new 3.0.0-7 recovery that is supposed to resolve that issue, but I did not see anything for the Fire TV 2.
Anyone have any ideas or suggestions?
Thanks,
Chris
AFTV2 as in Model DV83YW? (found on the bottom of device).
If so, I've found that sometimes a faulty power cable can cause this kind of behaviour - try plugging the device into the wall & a computer/laptop (at the same time) with a USB-A to USB-A cable - for some reason allows the box to draw enough power to boot if the power supply is faulty.
If this doesn't work your power supply is probably fine - you could probably re-flash the pre-rooted rom and it would probably boot again, but honestyly I'd recommend unlocking your bootloader via the unlock.zip method (found here: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/unlock-root-twrp-unbrick-firetv-2-sloane.4222331/) if you're running FireOS 5.2.7.2 or below, or the brick method if running 5.2.7.3 or above.
Of course, you will need to backup your /data partition via TWRP (to a external SD), but I think this is the best option for future proofing & would allow you to recover from something like this a little easier if anything were to happen to your AFTV in the future.
Thanks for the reply. Don't think it is the power cable as I have another power cable I had purchased a while back and it does the same thing with that, but I'll still try connecting it top the computer and see what happens.
I'll also try the methods you linked. Unfortunately, since I cannot boot into the Fire TV, I cannot determine what version of FireOS I'm running.
You mention backing up via TWRP, but I can't get into TWRP, that's the issue. It just sits there with there with the TWRP splash screen and it blinks. No options to boot normally or boot into recovery.
I try what you suggested and report back.
Thanks again,
Chris