Buying Amazon Fire 7th Gen - Fire Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

Yes, I know everyone has been trying to find a dev working on a root for this device and I am not here to ask again. I just ordered a 7th gen fire tablet and do not plan on attempting to root any time soon. Since I do not plan on rooting in the first place would it just be safe to rollback, debloat and side load google apps like playstore. If I were to rollback a 5.6.0.1 or 5.6.1.0 would it be safe to go down to 5.4.x.x?

I am on 5.6.1.0. I have no problems so far. I installed launcher hijack, Play Store, lockscreen ad blocker. I didnt debload any apps so far because I am too lazy.
But for me the performance is very good without debloating. I will try to debloat some apps today.

MarcoLK said:
I am on 5.6.1.0. I have no problems so far. I installed launcher hijack, Play Store, lockscreen ad blocker. I didnt debload any apps so far because I am too lazy.
But for me the performance is very good without debloating. I will try to debloat some apps today.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I did the same thing and I am fairly impressed with the performance

Related

Bad Amazon! Bad, bad Amazon!

I'm curious if anyone else has noticed this behavior. Maybe it's just due to something I did.
I've always heavily used the Amazon appstore because my first Android device was a Kindle Fire. I have the kindle and amazon mp3 and amazon shopping apps too. Just like Amazon wants, I have some content there so I put the apps on new devices.
I'd been noticing high CPU usage by the Security storage process. It's always the top process by total CPU and sometimes it basically would peg one core. I could tell this was happening because I could feel the phone getting warm in my pocket even though I hadn't been using it. After spending a lot of time trying to tame battery wasters, I was down to this seeming to be the biggest offender. I wrote a script I could use to kill this process when I noticed this, but it was inconvenient because none of the script-execution apps I found could run it with the necessary permissions, though when run from a terminal window it worked. So I was getting pretty annoyed.
I started noticing a couple trends. First, when this was going on, I could see in greenify that some amazon apps were being awakened by others and some were always pending hibernation. My first suspicion was that the Kindle for Samsung app was somehow misusing security storage (whatever that really is!) so I froze it. Seemed to make it a little better but the problem didn't go away.
Then I noticed I seemed to get that trouble shortly after using some of the Amazon free-app-of-the-day offerings I'd recently installed. If I rebooted and stayed away from using any apps from the Amazon appstore, everything seemed to be fine. Hmm. So I froze the appstore and everything else with Amazon in its name. And what do you know... while security storage is still overall the top total cpu user reported by Elixir, I am not seeing the pegging issue or battery drain I used to - in fact it has halved my battery usage on average.
Now, of course I can't use any of the apps I've gotten from the Amazon appstore since they all need to use the appstore app to check in with the mothership. But something in there is causing security storage to go bonkers. Don't know if there's something I can reset to make this happy but I would like to be able to use those apps since I have quite a few useful ones thanks to free apps of the day and free Amazon coins that have come my way over the years!
I noticed the same problems with the amazon apps, horrendous battery drain after the last update plus the amazon app was continuously uploading data in the background [emoji15] about 15mb a day so I uninstalled all of the amazon apps and my phone went back to normal, god knows what amazon was thinking of [emoji35]
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
del1701 said:
I noticed the same problems with the amazon apps, horrendous battery drain after the last update plus the amazon app was continuously uploading data in the background [emoji15] about 15mb a day so I uninstalled all of the amazon apps and my phone went back to normal, god knows what amazon was thinking of [emoji35]
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe I'll try the older version of the appstore if I still have the apk.
I never saw this behavior on my LG Optimus G, but I hadn't updated the appstore in a long time. Meanwhile, I updated it on the GS5 every time I was prompted. And I can't say it started happening right from the beginning on the GS5.
If you search around here on xda and over at android central there's loads of people who have noticed the same problem with the amazon apps, funny thing is on my old nexus 7 the amazon app wasn't updated and it worked fine.
Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk
Appstore from June seems to be fine.
I was searching for info on Security Storage - which is pretty sparse!
I know way back when, the Amazon appstore was really ripped on Android Police for being a battery sucker, but it was fixed since then.
Aptoide is the way to go
It's not the App Store app that drains the battery it's the Amazon app which you need for any apps to work [emoji19]
Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Thanks for the info
That is a very good thing to know and it would most likely prevent me from downloading these apps

Never have I felt like such a google fan boy till I got this 7" tablet from amazon.

Never have I felt like such a google fan boy till I got this 7" tablet from amazon.
My SO purchased one during the black friday deal for her mom. It just showed up and I dont know what this thing is. I own a nexus 6 that I have been learning how to flash custom features too, so I understand that concept. But when I got this Fire 7" running I go to install chrome, and nothing? I am out of the loop here. I was told to do what ever it is I do to these smartthings before it leaves for no mans land Ketchikan AK.
I must admit, I am out of the loop with this device, never thought I'd be using one. Thought it would be more similar to lollipop than it is. What do I need to know? I'd like to be able to trouble shoot the device through a remote connection if there is ever a problem.
Running Fire OS 5.1.1.
Looking down at the lock screen... theres ads?
Please ELI5.
Thanks for reading
I don't know if its possible to install the Google play services to use certain Google apps on 5.1.1 you'd have to try it for yourself. I'm OTA blocked on 5.0.1 so I have full Google play store
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
I just side loaded the play store and it worked fine on 5.1.1
Also you can root 5.1.1 now
Hamm1701 said:
My SO purchased one during the black friday deal for her mom. It just showed up and I dont know what this thing is. I own a nexus 6 that I have been learning how to flash custom features too, so I understand that concept. But when I got this Fire 7" running I go to install chrome, and nothing? I am out of the loop here. I was told to do what ever it is I do to these smartthings before it leaves for no mans land Ketchikan AK.
I must admit, I am out of the loop with this device, never thought I'd be using one. Thought it would be more similar to lollipop than it is. What do I need to know? I'd like to be able to trouble shoot the device through a remote connection if there is ever a problem.
Running Fire OS 5.1.1.
Looking down at the lock screen... theres ads?
Please ELI5.
Thanks for reading
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is completely possible... Just download the Google Apps Zip from this link:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/amazon-fire/general/installing-google-framework-playstore-t3216122
Then, put the APKs on your fire tablet. Easiest way is to extract, then put on onedrive, then install onedrive on phone and download.
Next, make sure to install in THIS ORDER:
1.) Google Account manager
2.) Google Play Services
3.) Google Services Framework
4.) Google Play Store
There should be one duplicate APK in there. It doesn't matter which one you use, worst case, it will update itself. Hope this works for you like it did for me!
jbraney said:
It is completely possible... Just download the Google Apps Zip from this link:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/amazon-fire/general/installing-google-framework-playstore-t3216122
Then, put the APKs on your fire tablet. Easiest way is to extract, then put on onedrive, then install onedrive on phone and download.
Next, make sure to install in THIS ORDER:
1.) Google Account manager
2.) Google Play Services
3.) Google Services Framework
4.) Google Play Store
There should be one duplicate APK in there. It doesn't matter which one you use, worst case, it will update itself. Hope this works for you like it did for me!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the tips! This tablet feels like some odd offspring of iOS and kitkat.
Hamm1701 said:
Thanks for the tips! This tablet feels like some odd offspring of iOS and kitkat.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Love the tablet best £50 I've ever spent £35 was a steal black friday
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
You can use the new, just posted supertool to do everything. Be aware that blocking OTA via the supertool may not currently work on 5.1.1, give them a little time & it will likely be fixed.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/amazon-fire/development/amazon-fire-5th-gen-supertool-root-t3272695/
Do not send off the Fire until OTA is blocked. Failure to block OTA will likely result in amazon undoing anything you've down to the Fire (& potentially locking out future mods) when the next OTA update appears.
tonyt3rry said:
Love the tablet best £50 I've ever spent £35 was a steal black friday
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yea, $35, and a little bit of time, it'll be a good buy.
blueberry.sky said:
You can use the new, just posted supertool to do everything. Be aware that blocking OTA via the supertool may not currently work on 5.1.1, give them a little time & it will likely be fixed.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/amazon-fire/development/amazon-fire-5th-gen-supertool-root-t3272695/
Do not send off the Fire until OTA is blocked. Failure to block OTA will likely result in amazon undoing anything you've down to the Fire (& potentially locking out future mods) when the next OTA update appears.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Finding the com.amazon.device.software.ota file in ES explorer with root access and renaming it should be pretty simple after the tool roots it.
Tool updated already anyway

Cannot install a lot of apps from GP store

I did the nuke-it-and-make-it-usable upgrade. This is my first, so please forgive me if I don't use the correct terminology. I used FlashFire and uploaded SlimRom, SuperSu, and mini-gapps. It seems most of the apps I try to install says its not compatible with my device. Some apps I know are supposed to be there, don't show up in a search. Also, it kinda leans like it's a phone instead of a tablet. This may be normal, not sure there. Someone smarter than me, feel free to chime in. Am I doing something wrong, or did I miss a step? I used the tool from RootJunky. They gave this forum a lot of props and said you guys are the go-to peeps. I believe I got my files from the mirrors here. Amazon Fire 7", 5.1.1, Thanks in advance...
You pretty much would have to install the APK for each app that you cannot download from the Google Play store, part of the reasoning behind this is because Amazon Fire isn't officially supported by the Google Play Store, thus some apps will be unistallable via the app store.
You can download the APKs here: https://apkpure.com/app?hl=en
All the APKs should work. Just one thing to note would be that in the future, you'd have to reinstall the APK whenever a new update arrives for your app.
Best of luck!
darkgiant said:
You pretty much would have to install the APK for each app that you cannot download from the Google Play store, part of the reasoning behind this is because Amazon Fire isn't officially supported by the Google Play Store, thus some apps will be unistallable via the app store.
You can download the APKs here:
All the APKs should work. Just one thing to note would be that in the future, you'd have to reinstall the APK whenever a new update arrives for your app.
Best of luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, in the background its still an Amazon Fire? I guess I just assumed by doing the new ROM, it would get rid of everything Amazon. That's what I get for assuming :laugh:. Thanks!!
Great question and thanks for the answer. This may not be related to the "505 error" but I noticed with apps like "Open Camera" that it says the device is not compatible, and now I know why!
darkgiant said:
You pretty much would have to install the APK for each app that you cannot download from the Google Play store, part of the reasoning behind this is because Amazon Fire isn't officially supported by the Google Play Store, thus some apps will be unistallable via the app store.
You can download the APKs here:
All the APKs should work. Just one thing to note would be that in the future, you'd have to reinstall the APK whenever a new update arrives for your app.
Best of luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have since used apkpure and so far all the apps I have searched for has installed and worked pretty much like their supposed to. Thanks again!
Yeah, I had the same problem, particularly with "Google Play." Sadly, my local news channel app is not available there, but a lot of other apps I was having problems with were.

Root of Fire 7 5th gen with Fire OS 5.6.1.0

Hi Guys,
I'm new here and searching for an Root Option for my Fire 5th Gen. with Fire OS 5.6.1.0.
I startet it today, and this stupid Device means to update it...
I think i saw the Root Option versions below in the Settings. So i'm confused actually.
And I'm New in the Root section. So my normally Devices are from Apple. But the Fire was one time Cheap and i buyed a 128GB mSD so i can install all of my Music on it.
I hope guys you can understand me and help me
xHazeBaze
xHazeBaze said:
Hi Guys,
I'm new here and searching for an Root Option for my Fire 5th Gen. with Fire OS 5.6.1.0.
I startet it today, and this stupid Device means to update it...
I think i saw the Root Option versions below in the Settings. So i'm confused actually.
And I'm New in the Root section. So my normally Devices are from Apple. But the Fire was one time Cheap and i buyed a 128GB mSD so i can install all of my Music on it.
I hope guys you can understand me and help me
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Unfortunately, there is NO (zero, zip, nada) option at present to root a 5th gen Fire running FireOS 5.3.2.1 or above. Nor can you roll back to a rootable build of FireOS. However, you can install the Google Play store:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/amazon-fire/general/how-to-install-google-play-store-fire-t3486603
Please make use of the XDA search function before opening a new thread. Root question has been asked and answered many times.
Davey126 said:
Unfortunately, there is NO (zero, zip, nada) option at present to root a 5th gen Fire running FireOS 5.3.2.1 or above. Nor can you roll back to a rootable build of FireOS. However, you can install the Google Play store:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/amazon-fire/general/how-to-install-google-play-store-fire-t3486603
Please make use of the XDA search function before opening a new thread. Root question has been asked and answered many times.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Im sorry, i try to use the search function. How can i rollback?
xHazeBaze said:
Im sorry, i try to use the search function. How can i rollback?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
There is no rollback option.
Bit of a noob question but has anyone truyed to do it using Magisk through adb or can that not be done on this
bellysgonnagetya said:
Bit of a noob question but has anyone truyed to do it using Magisk through adb or can that not be done on this
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Locked bootloader; Magisk can NOT be used.
Davey126 said:
Locked bootloader; Magisk can be used.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
CAN'T ?
ldeveraux said:
CAN'T ?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL - thank you! Posted a quick response by mobile and got burned by auto-correct. "Magisk can't be used" was the intended response. I have updated the post in question.
Does anyone know if any root is available yet?
This device is slow on Fire OS.. too much going on for such a slow processor etc. Ironic..
I am also interested in rooting this device.
hobhob said:
Does anyone know if any root is available yet?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
tahrang said:
I am also interested in rooting this device.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No root on 7th gen Fire. 5th gen devices running FireOS 5.3.2.0 or lower can be rooted. There is no rollback option for those on 5.3.2.1 and above (device will brick).
Just FYI for those searching, still no root. I'm keeping it on 5.3.3.1, which it came with as of 2 days ago.
Quintuple said:
Just FYI for those searching, still no root. I'm keeping it on 5.3.3.1, which it came with as of 2 days ago.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Just got a Refurbished from woot. it came with 5.6.1 well played amazon!
Rufurbished bought from Amazon.de on 05/10/2018 came with 5.6.1.0...;(
Handsome Jack said:
Just got a Refurbished from woot. it came with 5.6.1 well played amazon!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Same prob here , saw a couple of threads...it seems the safer approach is to not to attempt downgrading and simply install Google Play (I already did it and works fine - you can practically install anything you want). The problem is actually you have to live with all the junk Amazon puts on the Tablet...;(
Ads on the lockscreen can also easily be blocked..
Blocking of OTA updates does require you to be root, so unless a means to stop OTA from happening shows up, our tablets will continue updating themselves ad-eternum
Cheers,
Gizmo
ThyGizmo said:
Same prob here , saw a couple of threads...it seems the safer approach is to not to attempt downgrading and simply install Google Play (I already did it and works fine - you can practically install anything you want). The problem is actually you have to live with all the junk Amazon puts on the Tablet...;(
Ads on the lockscreen can also easily be blocked..
Blocking of OTA updates does require you to be root, so unless a means to stop OTA from happening shows up, our tablets will continue updating themselves ad-eternum
Cheers,
Gizmo
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Downgrade from 5.6.x -> 5.4 is safe and permits disabling (not uninstalling) Amazon 'bloat' if you know what you're doing. OTA updates can be blocked via VPN based firewall but that adds to the cpu/memory load on this already resource constrained device. In the end it's probably best to do as @ThyGizmo suggests for practical vs safety reasons. Take the device for what it is - a slow but serviceable Amazon ecosystem appliance (shopping portal) that can also be used as a generic Android tablet with some limitations.
I just wanted to remove all the amazon apps. I don't use them.
I use web browser for shopping. I don't have amazon books, movies and many of their junk.
Don't get me start with the spy amazon alexa.
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/wo...ation-sent-it-out-to-random-contact/755507974
Handsome Jack said:
I just wanted to remove all the amazon apps. I don't use them.
I use web browser for shopping. I don't have amazon books, movies and many of their junk.
Don't get me start with the spy amazon alexa.
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/wo...ation-sent-it-out-to-random-contact/755507974
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I get an eerie feeling Pandora listens to me sometimes. It has access to the microphone mostly because it intertwines with Google Assistant but I swear sometimes I'll yell at Pandora for not playing the music I like or a song I haven't heard in forever and within a few minutes the song is played. I've been able to do a few times with somebody else in the room and they thought it was quite creepy to. So I guess in a sense you could say that was "spying". But just because an app has a permission to use a certain piece of hardware doesn't mean it always will use it.unfortunately without Root you can't install app Ops which would tell you if a permission was ever used for that specific application.
Handsome Jack said:
I just wanted to remove all the amazon apps. I don't use them.
I use web browser for shopping. I don't have amazon books, movies and many of their junk.
Don't get me start with the spy amazon alexa.
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/wo...ation-sent-it-out-to-random-contact/755507974
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
DragonFire1024 said:
I get an eerie feeling Pandora listens to me sometimes. It has access to the microphone mostly because it intertwines with Google Assistant but I swear sometimes I'll yell at Pandora for not playing the music I like or a song I haven't heard in forever and within a few minutes the song is played. I've been able to do a few times with somebody else in the room and they thought it was quite creepy to. So I guess in a sense you could say that was "spying". But just because an app has a permission to use a certain piece of hardware doesn't mean it always will use it.unfortunately without Root you can't install app Ops which would tell you if a permission was ever used for that specific application.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
FUD fodder. Slap a piece of tape over the mic and call it a day.
ok, after reading advice. I have decided not to root this Fire 7 5th gen.
After I install Google Play. What the best way to make this device to run better? amazon apps eat all the RAM and CPU.
Handsome Jack said:
ok, after reading advice. I have decided not to root this Fire 7 5th gen.
After I install Google Play. What the best way to make this device to run better? amazon apps eat all the RAM and CPU.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You wouldn't be able to Root it. Only the 2017 HD 10 can be rooted at present.
Sent from my Amazon KFSUWI using XDA Labs

As of OS 5.6.1.0 What are my options

I just purchased 2 of these for my kids yesterday and one of the 2 has already updated itself to OS 5.6.1.0 so basically I just wanted to know what the options are.. I don't mind installing CM12 if that's still an option but there's so much information, for different version and different that I'm not entirely sure what can or cannot be done with this device on this OS.
Thx folkz.
timcadieux said:
I just purchased 2 of these for my kids yesterday and one of the 2 has already updated itself to OS 5.6.1.0 so basically I just wanted to know what the options are.. I don't mind installing CM12 if that's still an option but there's so much information, for different version and different that I'm not entirely sure what can or cannot be done with this device on this OS.
Thx folkz.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No root, no custom ROMs; stuck with FireOS. You can install Google Play store for access to a wider app portfolio.
Wow, OK well I suppose that's not the end of the world. Realistically, all I wanted was Netflix, Apple Music and YouTube and then google play so the can install games

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