Jailbreaking Kindle Voyage
Intro
I've had a Kindle Voyage since (checks email) JUNE of 2015. Before that, I had the Kindle Paperwhite (with built-in front-light), which completely changed how I read books, and the Voyage improved on this design with dedicated buttons on either side of the screen for easy book navigation. I've used it consistently since then, adding on a little orange plastic cover to give me that blue-less light for night reading.
I've used various other ereaders since then, but the Voyage has kept on kicking for almost 10 years now, and while my current ereader (the Pocketbook Era) works well enough, it's not the hassle-free experience that the Kindle offered.
So what better way to improve my Kindle Voyage than by jailbreaking it, thereby making it no longer hassle free? Ok, but seriously, Amazon stopped updating the Kindle Voyage at 5.13.6, and since I've switched from Amazon's ebook leasing-not-buying model, my entire library is now in EPUB format, which is not readable on Kindles. Besides, I've taken to the creature-comforts of KOReader, and I miss them on other devices.
As luck would have it, the guide below from the MobileRead forums walks us through the process of jailbreaking our older Kindles.
After jailbreaking my Voyage, I wasn't sure what steps to follow next; turns out, I should have just followed Neon's guide from the beginning. She has a really nice step-by-step walk through, clarifying the steps for different exploits and installs. Really nice!
The Prison Break
ALWAYS: Read through the instructions completely first, and make sure you take any backups of data you don't want to lose.
Exploit "WatchThis" - Software Jailbreak for any Kindle <= 5.14.2 - MobileRead Forums
Kindle, how to skip misconfiguration lock. - YouTube
I'm not going to repost the instructions here, just describe my experiences going through the steps. However, I've created an archive of the post and will make it available if the original goes down.
After you read the instructions and download the required software, the first step is to factory reset the device and set it to "English (United Kingdom)" or "en_GB". Having had this ereader for so long, it feels kind of wild to be factory resetting it.
Anyway, I reset the device, it takes a few minutes to reboot, and I select "English (United Kindom)" for the language. It loads some more.
I'm prompted to connect to WiFi, and log in to my Amazon account. I feel a little uncertain, since the instructions don't mention of this, but I figure if it goes South I can probably factory reset again and be good.
At step 2, I enter the string ;enter_demo in the search bar, but don't get any confirmation that it worked; I reboot the device.
As I'm typing on the Kindle, I think about how the soft keyboard feels. It's decent, and paired with how responsive the screen is it feels pretty good, but the "hitboxes" for the keys feels off somehow, and I make more errors than I'd like.
After rebooting, I'm asked to "Register This Demo", which means everything is going to plan, and we can move forward.
I go through the next steps (when entering the fake values for the store name, I use "Wummy Thic"), and proceed.
After clicking "Done," it loads a while and then dumps me on a neat screensaver (if only those images were included by default in production, instead of ads for books I'm never going to read).
I enter ;demo to configure the device, and select "Sideload Content", plug the Kindle into my computer, and copy the files over. Once done, I safely eject the Kindle, and try to exit Demo mode.
I'm one of the lucky ones to get the Application Error error, so I hard-reboot the device and disconnect it from my computer. After it's backup, I re-enter ;demo in the search, select "Sideload Content,", and then "done/Exit," and move on.
I enter ;dsts to get into the device settings, navigate to "Help & User Guides", and then select "Get Started", and es expected, the device reboots, and begins the jailbreak process.
On one of the loading screens, I see some generated text that indicates I've successfully jailbroken the device! Woo!
Time to wrap this up. I enter ;uzb into the search bar, connect it to my computer, copy the hotfix files, and try to eject the device. It doesn't eject nicely, so I just yank the cable and keep going. I get into settings, then go to Device Settings>Advanced Options>Update Device, and update! First time I've seen that option in a long time.
This step should go through and clean up the device, and now it's jailbroken! Neato.
What's Next
Now that I've cracked the Kindle, what's next?
My Goals
- Install KOReader
- Be able to automatically synchronize books between devices
- Prevent a random update from busting my jailbreak
- Correction: The update hotfix was actually applied as the last step in the exploit above.
- (Optional) change screensaver/etc
What are the options?
This guide from Epubor walks through a range of extensions and tools that you can use to... extend the use of your Kindle beyond. It specifically mentions KUAL, KPVBooklet (whose repo has been archived, and the creator advocates using KUAL_Booklet instead), and KOReader. KUAL and KPVBooklet seem redundant for installing KOReader, so I'll probably try KUAL first, and see what I need to do from there.
Additionally, Neon has a Kindle Modding guide (The Kindle Modding Guide (WIP) - The Kindle Modding Guide), with some discussion of what to do after jailbreak.
I use Resilio Sync for all of my syncing needs, so I might try to get it working on the Kindle ARM environment, but there's also this guide to use Syncthing (which I'm not opposed to, but it's another app I have to run somewhere, so we'll see).
GitHub - gutenye/syncthing-kindle: Setup Syncthing on Kindle Touch
Maybe I'll see if I can get Resilio or Syncthing installed on the PocketBook Era...
KUAL and MRPI install
Installing KUAL/MRPI - The Kindle Modding Guide
More Sources
Jailbreaking a Kindle Voyage and installing KOReader | realjame