Tutorial

A few guys complain the failure at updating their Kindles 2 International firmware from 2.3.3 to 2.5.2, mostly just get 2.3.4 result. Although not many cases reported, but looks like their Kindles all are K2I and produced in a specific term of 2010.

If you are not luck enough, maybe you got the same problem. Here are the solutions.

1. be sure that you got the proper firmware update package, for K2I, here is the link from Amazon. Before download, make sure your Kindle is international version with serial no. prefix B003.DON’T USE FILES FROM OTHER SITES, THAT MAY BRICK YOUR KINDLE.
2. uninstall all hacks installed on your Kindle before process the updating. Except the hacks are claimed no need to be uninstalled before update, like usbNetwork hack, in fact, if you want to keep usbNetwork working on 2.5.2, you MUST NOT uninstall it before update. And make sure you restore all files which you have modfied to its original.
3. Backup anything on your kindle to make sure you would not lose it during the update process.
4. OK, here is the classic update way: plug your kindle to your computer to enter the USB drive mode, copy the 2.5.2 update package to the root of your kindle, and then eject it from your computer.  Click the menu button and enter the settings sub-menu, then select “update your software” by pressing the 5-way joystick, here it goes.

That’s just for non-us K2I users, if you got Whispernet you could wait for remote update automatically, if that failed, call Amazon.

Most reported failure of above update process is raised at first stage, normally with error code U006 at the left-bottom of the screen, that means md5 check-sum failure. Normally because some files are modified and not acceptable.

You can find out which files caused that by following below steps:

1. Enable Kindle debug mode: click any visible alpha-number button on the QWETY keyboard to bring out the search field, then clear it by press DEL button, enter [;debugOn] and click Enter. ([;] could be entered by click SYM button). And then enter [;dumpmessages] and click Enter. You should see a new file appear on the top of the screen after a while, that’s the log file of your Kindle.
2. Copy the log file from your Kindle to your computer, open it with any text editor. Search “checksum failure” in the file, check the line carefully, most guys got this:def:patch:patchinfo=”/opt/amazon/ebook/config/framework.mario.conf”:checksum failure OR this:def:patch:patchinfo=”/opt/amazon/ebook/config/browser_prefs”:checksum failure, whatever, that’s the problem.
3. The md5 check-sum failure is caused by file modification, maybe you did it yourself, maybe some hacks did, you need to restore them to original. If your situation is the second one, you could restore the files by uninstall the hacks (better all than some). The first situation is up to your own, since you modified them yourself, get them back is your task too. If you could not restore the files caused md5 check-sum failure, you can’t update your Kindle, so try your best on it.
4. If you had restored the files successfully, congratulations, you should have no problem now, try the update process again. If not, try restore them again.

That’s the solution for most unlucky guys with K2I, maybe the part of restoring files is most difficult to perform, uninstall hacks is easy, but some guys just can’t remember what they have done to their Kindles, then the easiest way to do this is just getting proper files from other users with untouched system.

OK, maybe you don’t know how to restore Kindle files manually, I will cover that in other post lately.

I just tested unicode font hacks on my K2I from MobileRead wiki, it works like charm.
The process is simple and straigtforward, step 1 is installing the jailbreak, step 2 is installing the font hack. Step 1 will raise a failure as its supposed to, just skip the failure; step 2 does need a manual reboot after the installation to trigger it on.
Detailed instructions could be found on MobileRead.com Wiki.