Hi All,

I just returned to LEDStrain today after quite a while and noticed all of your replies to my original post. Many thanks for your interest, sharing, and reflections so far. Here is an update about where I am as of now.

Firstly, the Kindles I have been referring to do not have a backlight, this has always been a criterion for me in obtaining a Kindle since I don't trust backlighting (specifically, its potential to cause me problems). The Kindles without a backlight that I have been using have all been Kindle Basics (7th, 4th, and 3rd generations), along with a Kindle DX Graphite.

As to why the newer firmwares have rendered the Kindles unusable to me, I frankly have no idea. It does seem inexplicable, but I'll leave the speculation on this to people who are better versed in technical matters than I am.

So as to where I am now:

I did make significant efforts with Amazon, beyond simply contacting their standard customer service via chat, which predictably led nowhere. I namely wrote several of the top executives of the company and complained in vigorous terms. One of these executives put me in contact with Amazon's "executive customer service," and to sum up a very lengthy and protracted back-and-forth: the gentleman confirmed with the Amazon technical people that downgrading the firmware is in fact impossible, and I was eventually given a gift certificate from Amazon for the amount of a new Kindle Oasis (two-hundred-and-something US dollars). Of course such a new Kindle Oasis would be useless to me, but the two-hundred-and-something dollars can be used for purchasing anything else on Amazon. So while Amazon's automatic updates (a.k.a. "hijacking" one's Kindle) are a terrible practice, and making it impossible to downgrade equally so, I do at least have to give them credit for offering me the gift certificate.

But that is all not directly relevant to the matter at hand, namely solving the problem of now being effectively Kindleless. It turns out that some Kindle models, and firmware versions, can in fact be downgraded by "jailbreaking" the Kindle, which I understand is basically synonymous with hacking it. On the Mobileread online forum, instructions are provided for doing so, and my Kindle 7th generation with its current (updated) firmware is one of those models and firmwares that is capable of being jailbroken. I followed the instructions, over the course of which I ran into numerous hiccups and snags and was obliged to ask for help several times from the forum members. With their assistance I managed to overcome these hurdles, up to the point that I not only successfully "jailbroke" the Kindle, but made it through a number of the subsequent steps. I was truly almost there, I could see a light at the end of the tunnel, and I even had the old, original firmware files ready at hand, which were to be used in the next and almost-final step, the actual downgrade. However, here I unfortunately ran into an irremediable snag -- the PC was unable to "SSH" into the Kindle, which was necessary in order to do the downgrade. The people in the Mobileread forum were unable to help me this time. A few days ago I took my Kindle to a local computer repairperson, thinking that he might succeed in getting through this final step where I had not. However, he ran into exactly the same problem as I had. So downgrading on my own, despite considerable efforts, was not possible in the end.

Parallel with all this, I had been trying to find a used Kindle online that would have an older firmware version that did not cause me problems. I think I mentioned in my previous post that I had ordered a Kindle 4th Generation, also a Basic model, which I assumed, because it is so old, would not cause any issues. However, I discovered that it, too, had been automatically updated and was thus unusable to me. I then reasoned that my only solution would be to find an old used Kindle that had never been updated. I came upon a Kindle Keyboard (the 3rd Generation Basic model, I believe) whose previous owner assured me that he had never updated it. However upon receiving the Kindle, I discovered that it had in fact been updated -- without the owner being aware of it (automatic update, naturally!). Fortunately, I was able to return this one.

I next tried my luck with a used Kindle DX Graphite, which I also found online. The DX is quite old, dating from 2011 I believe, and I was told on the Mobilereads forum that its firmware had not essentially been updated in quite a long time and was no longer being supported/updated by Amazon -- the only recent updates, I was told, were of the security certificates. I thought that I had excellent chances with this one, so I forked out the relatively larger sum for the used DX and discovered, upon receiving it, that lo and behold: it was also unusable to me. So either the DX 1) would, for whatever reason, have caused me problems even in 2011 (or whatever year it received its last substantial firmware update) or 2) the recent updates were of more than just the security certificates. So now I have this beautiful Kindle DX (I'm quite fond of its large size, appearance, and design) that I am unable to use and that I will have to offload in one way or another.

What other options did I have? Kobos and Sony Readers, perhaps. I went to the local electronics stores and tried out the new Kobos on display -- however, all were no good for me. Sony Readers have been discontinued, and consequently are all at least a few years old, but they have been acquired in some capacity by the Kobo company, which has loaded onto them some basic sorts of updates in the meantime. I found someone selling a Sony Reader in my town, visited them at their house, and tried it out -- alas, no luck with this one either.

I have not yet tested the ONYX Boox e-reader (nor have I tried the ONYX Boox Mira or Dasung Paperlike external monitors -- they are quite expensive and I would need to order them from a vendor with a return policy).

I'm planning on trying something else now, I'll report back.

For the sake of completeness, I should mention that I have not tried fiddling around with the fonts of my Kindle. I don't expect that this would make a difference, as I have never noticed varying sensitivity with varying fonts before (on my PC, for example), and I don't understand how it could help (different letter shapes?), but I suppose that for the sake of exhaustiveness I ought to give it a try.

I hope my experiences can be helpful to you all in some way, and it would be great to hear your ideas and experiences. What a long ride this all has been -- after so many years of happily using my Kindle with no issues. The moral of the story I suppose: never leave airplane mode!!

    I just wanted to mention that my experience may not be transferable, or 100% transferable, to everyone else. Some people, for example, seem to able to use the newer Kobos with no problem. Some of us might also be OK with the newer Kindle firmwares, or the Sony Readers, for example.

    • jen replied to this.
      5 months later

      daniels Any luck? I haven't used by Kindle for a few months and I turned it on, saw it was updated, and noticed it was not usable 🙁

          This thread doesn't make sense to me.

          Let's break it down..

          On an e-ink e-reader, the screen only refreshes when the page is turned. It is not continuously refreshing. This is not a monitor we are talking about here.

          So, unless the issue is something physical like the resolution of the panel or the coating reflectivity or the contrast ratio between black and white on the panel, what else is there? I can think of two things.

          Backlight, I saw a good Kobo the other day outside in the sun without the backlight on, and it looked very legible and clear. But if you are using backlight, then sure, that might have PWM. I don't think the newest Kindles let you turn off the backlight, but the Kobo does, though it probably does have PWM (who knows?).

          Font rendering.. being able to adjust anti-aliasing and the bytecode interpreter is a good thing to have, and I can't say who does it better or worse but if you are careful with the font you use, no matter the settings, you should be able to find a font that works for you. Beyond the technology of the original design (e.g. the original Microsoft core web fonts were designed without AA being expected to cover up things and they are very well hinted for low resolution displays), the shape and weight of the letters are a very subjective personal preference. For example, I dislike Bookerly, Amazon's new Kindle font. I think it sucks. Here is one font I played with recently that I liked, IM Fell DW Pica, sideload/install it into your device's fonts folder and give it a try: https://fonts.google.com/download?family=IM%20Fell%20DW%20Pica

            Sunspark Backlight

            I think for me, it is the backlight. When you put the Kindle to sleep, you can see the page briefly before the lock screen, and the page looks fine then.

            Unfortunately you can only make the backlight lower or higher, even at the lowest setting, it is still on. Hopefully this can be changed by jailbreaking.

              Sunspark daniels

              I don’t have a kindle, but another possibility for the issue is the method used to update the page during a page turn. I’ve noticed playing the solitaire game on my Kobo that there’s a lot of flickering of the card area for maybe a second when a card is turned, I assume to eliminate ghosting that would otherwise be present on eInk. I found that this flicker can trigger my symptoms after a while. So far I haven’t noticed issues turning pages on the Kobo, but it’s also been a few months since I read a book on it - I can’t definitely say that it’s still OK for me since it’s been updating and/or my sensitivity could have increased. Maybe the Kindle page update mechanism changed at some point in a way that’s more triggering.

                    jen There are only two ways it can update the page generally. The original way which is to draw a black screen, then white, the other way is a # where it will just erase and draw the text but not the background and you can change the # interval before it does a full page refresh. However you mentioning a game, it's possible that the cards might be animated in which case maybe it is refreshing the card.

                    • jen likes this.

                      Sunspark This thread doesn't make sense to me.

                      In my case, it was a change of the font that bothered me, as you had suggested. Restored the old font, I have now been reading from my Kindle as before without any sort of strain and pain. My Kindle is the old type without backlight, though.

                          Sunspark 3) Static dithering to create shades of grey as an "illusion"

                              JTL There is nothing wrong with the usage of static dithering. It is motionless. Nobody here has complained about the use of halftone dots in newspaper printing for pictures. It's a good way to make shades.

                              • JTL replied to this.

                                  Sunspark Might not have been this forum, but I recall some people describing static "optical illusions" causing eyestrain and related symptoms in the past.

                                    4 days later

                                    • [deleted]

                                    • Post #30

                                    Wow… never thought I would see a Kindle thread here

                                    Yep something is not right. An e-ink display should be static. Could you check your environment especially nearby lightings and see if there were any recent change that may cause your problem?

                                    ryans Oh, this happened to you too! I'm sorry to hear that, and at the same time it is interesting to confirm that someone besides me has had the same problem.

                                    I am currently using my sea salt solution (see other thread) while waiting until I can get the Kindle into the hands of someone who can downgrade it for me.

                                    Best of luck and keep me posted!

                                      Sunspark I don't know why the new firmware ruined the Kindle for me either. It's not a backlight, since mine is a Kindle basic without backlight. I've leave it to the tech experts to think about the possible technical cause of the problem.

                                        AGI How interesting! Simply changing the font was enough to restore your ability to use the Kindle! Do you have a Kindle basic, I assume? What was the old font, and how did you change it back? I am very eager to try this. (Others had suggested this to me in the past, but I wrote it off as a highly unlikely solution) Glad to hear about your success!

                                            daniels The original font is Caecilia, and it's still on your device. Simply select the font you wish to use from the settings in your book.

                                            Incidentally, a comment about fonts in general on any device, size them appropriately for the viewing distance. I don't have (and do need) reading glasses, so for handheld devices I need to make the font size quite small not large. This creates the effect of it being further away and thus easier for me to focus on at a close distance. If the letters are bigger, even tho they look nice, at a close distance my eyes cannot focus properly on larger letters anymore like they used to when I was younger. On a monitor it is the opposite, I need larger letters and I am further away from the screen. There are other technical things as well, but I wanted to mention the thing about size, because most people think they need bigger letters, but that's not actually the case every time.

                                                daniels Following @Sunspark 's suggestion I restored the font to Caecilia, and the discomfort disappeared. I cannot remember what the font had changed into. It could be that, had I pushed through, I would have got used to it, but why change something that works?

                                                Yes, my Kindle is not that old (2019 if I recall correctly), but still the basic model without LED lighting.

                                                Good luck!

                                                    Sunspark Thank you so much for the info about the font as well as for the advice about adjusting the font size! This is much appreciated.

                                                      AGI This is very encouraging, thank you for sharing!! I will give it a try.

                                                        7 days later

                                                        Highly recommend the keyboard kindles. they're pretty fragile, but only around $30 on ebay. any touch screen has an IR-LED

                                                          dev