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Amazon Is Now Sending Postcards To Remind Kindle Owners To Update Their Devices (the-digital-reader.com)

Posted by msmash on from the overly-attached-girlfriend dept.

Reader Nate the greatest writes: Amazon's getting serious about a recent required firmware update. Last month Amazon sent out emails, asking everyone to update, and this week they stepped up their game. Several Kindle owners say they've received postcards from Amazon with reminders to update their Kindles. Sure, this is an important update which adds security certificates, but don't you think this is overkill?

5 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Do you think it's overkill? by hardill · · Score: 3, Informative

    If you worked for Amazon Kindle support you'd be doing all you can to head off the hoard of screaming customer wanting to know why their device has stopped working.

    1. Re:Do you think it's overkill? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      They've contacted me on multiple occasions about what will happen if you don't update: You won't be able to buy new books.

      So if you're happy with what you've got then you're fine.

    2. Re:Do you think it's overkill? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      The main thing is a certificate update. If you don't update it now, you won't be able to talk with their servers to get your books or automatically obtain updates once the old cert expires/is invalidated.

  2. Amazon update bricked stock Fire TV by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Maybe they're sending out paper postcards because their update system broke electronic updates altogether on specific Kindles, so a special manual fix is needed?

    While that is just speculation since I don't own a Kindle, I do have a Fire TV, and Amazon's automatic updates broke its wired networking about a month ago. The device reports that "Your Ethernet cable is disconnected", when it is clear that it is connected and working properly since switches confirm the link on their LEDs just fine, and I can even see the Fire TV's bootup packets on the router upstream. In other words, the hardware is entirely OK but Amazon's update screwed up the higher level embedded networking code.

    The above is a stock Fire TV (UK), not a hacked one or anything.

    If Amazon devs are so careless that they let updates brick Fire TVs, it's not impossible that certain ranges of Kindles have suffered a similar fate and need instructions on postcards sent by snail mail to rectify the failure.

  3. Re:Poor Update Process by OhPlz · · Score: 3, Informative

    Their instructions missed a step because I had the same problem. It had to be plugged in with airplane mode off, which they got right. But instead of syncing, I had to actually navigate to the Kindle store from the device. When I did that, it grabbed the update automatically that night while it was charging. Even so, I still got the postcard.