Barnes and Noble released some new firmware for the Nook Simple Touch today, version 1.1.2.
It is a minor update that fixes bugs and provides “minor system enhancements”, as Barnes and Noble describes it, so don’t expect any new features or major changes to the software.
If you’ve had any issues with your Nook Simple Touch connecting to Wi-Fi, this update should fix that problem. One of the administrators on the B&N Nook forums said that the update includes a fix for the Wi-Fi connection problems with some routers.
The update will automatically download and install in the coming days/weeks on Nook Simple Touches that are connected to Wi-Fi.
If you don’t have Wi-Fi or want to install the update now, you can find the manual installation directions and the download file on B&N’s Nook Touch software updates page.
Basically all you have to do is place the update zip file on the Nook Touch’s root folder, the main drive, and then it will automatically recognize the file after a few minutes when it goes into sleep mode and apply the update.
Since my Nook Touch is rooted, I’m not even going to think about trying to update. Rooted devices and firmware updates rarely work well together, and since it is a minor update it’s not worth the trouble. The poor developers for the Nook Touch rooting packages will probably have to fix what the update breaks…again.
Nathan — So, if “the update will automatically download and install in the coming days/weeks on Nook Simple Touches that are connected to Wi-Fi” … how can one AVOID installing it on a rooted Nook Touch? Does one just have to keep the Wi-Fi switeched off? Thanks…
I don’t think it will auto update if rooted but now that you mention it I can’t remember for certain. I have so many rooted devices I can’t recall if the Nook Touch has auto update disabled or not. I’ll have to check over at XDA.
My Nook Touch was running great with CM7 on the SD card. (I did not install any software on the Nook roms.)
Now the Nook seems dead. It shows a background image (trees) and will not respond when I press the “n” key or when I hold down the Power switch on the back. It was working fine a few days ago. I wonder if it downloaded the update and the result is this brain freeze…
CM7 on a Nook Touch? What?
CM7? I really doubt that unless you’re a 1337 haXXor — but if you were, you’d know what the problem was. I’ve never heard of CM7 on a Nook Touch and most at XDA discourage people from hoping it will happen because it really doesn’t offer anything much for the Touch.
I thought they will finally fix the dictionary feature, allowing users to change the default dictionary.
@TomF Maybe that’s why your Nook Touch is bricked….
@Andrew — no it’s not my Nook Touch that’s bricked (fingers crossed) It’s Ken Skier’s.
This update has a SERIOUS BUG. It spoils the Back-to-book button and the Reading Now link in the home page by taking you back to page one of the last book you had opened. Fortunately you still can return to where you had left reading by opening the book directly from the library.
My Nook was dead the other day would not turn on and so I hooked up to the charger and sure enough the battery was dead or close. You can easily forget to charge a nook since it only needs it once a month and it won’t tell you that is the problem. Have you tried charging it Ken?
the cm7 support link comes up as invalid link??? not sure if its you or xda?
They changed the thread at XDA so I just changed the link.
Hello, all–
Color me stupid. My Nook Touch was not bricked. It was simply (as kmlisle suggested) too low on battery charge.
I did not realized that low battery was the problem, because I had the Nook Touch plugged into its charger for many, many hours…and it was still unresponsive. Then I plugged it into a DIFFERENT charger, and it responded.
So my problem was not the Nook Touch at all. It was my charger. (The one, incidentally, that came with my Nook Color.)
I wish the Nook Touch had a visible light to indicate that it is getting juice from the charger. Right now, I have no way to know if it is getting juice when I plug it in.
But at least it is working fine.
Thanks all, for your concern and suggestions!
Glad to hear that your Nook is working again, but I’m disappointed to hear it wasn’t running CM7 :).
hmm ken
are you really running CM7?
can you share your method?
cool to have a rooted divice without modifying the nook
I’ve read instructions on how to disable automatic firmware updates on the nook classic by removing /system/app/FirmwareUpdateService.apk but this file seems to be absent on the nook touch. Does anyone know what needs to be removed to prevent firmware updates on nook touch? Seems to defeat the purpose of rooting the device if it can be unrooted again at any time by B&N!
The new firmware works fine with the latest touchnooter 2.1.31 so far. I did a factory restore, updated to 1.1.2, then rooted, just fine. Not sure about updating, but it seems to be compatible with the rooting process.
Also, the nook color (and tablet) chargers pump out 10V to charge those beasts quicker. Your touch uses 5v, like most other USB stuff. Probably wouldn’t even try to charge because of the difference in voltage. Either way, don’t use a 10v charger on a 5v device… you could fry either or both.
Thanks Cloudmann. Good to know TouchNooter works with 1.1.2.
No problem. Also, forgot to mention that using the normal TouchNooter 2.1.31 process, everything worked exactly as it did with firmware v1.1.0, INCLUDING having to wait 24 hours for the Market to activate an allow app downloads. Keep that in mind and make sure not to think this is a 1.1.2 issue… it’s just a funky issue that’s a byproduct of getting a system to do something it’s not designed to.
One problem some people are mistakenly associating with 1.1.2 and the Touchnooter process is that Google Market loses its search ability for some people.
It’s not caused by 1.1.2 or an incompatibility with Touchnooter; it’s a result of Google changing over to Google Play. It’s hit or miss whether or not it’ll update the app. If not, you’ll need to sideload or wait until market catches up and self updates.
I’d imagine the next Touchnooter release will have the newest gapps installed, so that shouldn’t be an issue then, but it’s already working now with the newest firmware, so I don’t anticipate a new release any time soon.
Little update to this. The reason for the whole market thing is that Google Play Store (the new name for market) doesn’t support Android 2.1 (what the NST is built on) and requires 2.2 or higher. There’s no fix for this. The newest compatible market with the 2.3 style fix is already installed in Touchnooter. The NST itself can’t realistically be updated to Froyo (2.2) or Gingerbread (2.3) since the sysytem software is built around Eclair (2.1). In theory, it can be done, but it would be really risky (as far as loss of functionality), and VERY difficult to get right. I don’t see it happening. A better alternative (and I’m sure it’s being worked on) is a bootable mod similar to Cyanogenmod. This wouldn’t even require rooting the device. We’ll see if this happens, though… not too much interest in the development community to do this since the NST isn’t bright and flashy.
A quick fix for this is to go to http://play.google.com/store/ in the built in browser and search for “searchmarket”. This installs a new app that searches and ties into your market app. It’s pretty slick, and you can add a shortcut to your desktop. Also, you can install directly from the website from within your browser… you just have to log in.
Agree with Azulmarino, there is a HUGE BUG with this 1.1.2 update that the Reading Now link and Back-to-book button now take you to page 1 of whatever you’re reading. So idiotic, does no one test this software before releasing it? This isn’t a subtle problem, it cuts to the very functionality of the Nook. So stupid.
Sucks that this update installed without even asking me. I was asked once, And clicked cancel because I wanted to try and root it at 1.1. But there aren’t any good tutorials for Linux yet. So I’m mainly waiting. But now I’ll probably have to wait longer cause it updated to 1.1.2 all by itself. 🙁
So has there been any news about Rooting the Nook Simple Touch on Linux yet? I know everyone recommends backing up first, But all the tutorials I’ve found that include backing up are for Windows only. 🙁
Any Info would be very much appreciated. God Bless you guys.
The backup and restore guide at XDA has directions for Linux: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1142983
Hi, everybody, My Nook Simple Touch only update to firmare 1.1.2,not rooted, now, I want to downgrade to 1.0.0(When it just buyed),how to do?
If you search around over at XDA you can probably find the original firmware to download, but the Nook is always just going to re-apply the 1.1.2 update automatically whenever you connect to WiFi.
So, what is the best way to root NST with 1.1.2? Same as for Nook Color? I’ll look back here in a couple of days for comments, Thanks in advance.
The best option is Touchnooter.
Any word on doing back-ups and rooting on Linux machines?
I don’t mind if its all terminal commands. As long as the commands are easy to copy and paste 😛
oh shoot, Sorry Nathan, I didn’t see your reply above about the XDA forum post. Let me take a look at that first lol
Mkay I’ve made my first back up 😀 YAY!!! One small worry though. The Backup size wasn’t what he said it sould be.
He said that it should be exactly 1958739968 bytes (approx 1.958 GB).
But mine turned out to be 251641856 bytes (approx 251.641 MB)
Is this ok? Or is something wrong? I did have quite a few PDF’s and Epubs on there. But you would think that would make it larger, not smaller right?
That definitely doesn’t sound right . . .
yea I thought so too haha. But that post is marked as developer only, so I don’t have the permissions to make a reply.
I’m gonna try and read the whole thread hoping I find a related post to what I’m experiencing. Perhaps this may have something to do with being the updated 1.1.2 version?
That would suck. I really really wanna be able to view PDF’s in landscape. As small of a thing as that is. Its one of the biggest reasons I wanna root. That and web browsing 😀
Ah I think I may have decerned the problem. I did not Boot from the SD card. So it was not able to read the internal storage (as it was currently in use by the NST)
I have been trying to boot from the Noogie.img that I wrote to the SDcard. But can’t seem to get it to boot properly. Because it never has the “Rooted Forever” splash screen.
Am I perhaps turning it on wrong? I have it turned completely of. Then plug it into the computer and quickly press and hold the power button until I see a reaction from the screen. But again, the splash screen is never the “Rooted Forever” image 🙁
Should I be using the Touchnooter since I am on the 1.1.2 firmware?
Discovered what my problem was!!! The noogie.img file needs to be written to the root of the SD card. I was formatting the SD card to make sure it was totally empty. But most formatting programs will make a new partition so that you can put pictures, music and other stuff on them. But in this case we don’t want that.
To explain. I’ll use an anology. A partition is basically like a big folder on a table. And when you have more than one partition, its like a pile of folders. But the root directory is like the table that the folders are on top of. And its that root directory that you need to write the image to.
The only way to format a SD or other storage device and not make a new partition is to use a program such as Gparted for Linux, “Disk Utility” for Mac, or one of the many partition managers for Windows (if you are not using WinImage writer that is) To erase any and all of the current partisions on the SD card. Then just leave it at that.
Then make sure you know what folder your noogie.img file is in, the Home folder of your users is the best place cause it makes things simple.
Now open a terminal. First we need to find out what the address of your SD is.
Type: sudo df -h
You will get a list of things. Look for the one that says the same size as your SD should be. And note its name on the left side. for Linux it would be something like /dev/sdc
and /dev/disk3 (Names will be differnt, but you will know the right one based on the size)
Take that name and type: umount /dev/sdc
this un mounts the SD card. Next use the same name as before and type the below command.
sudo dd if=noogie.img of=/dev/sdc bs=1M
The size should come out to exactly 1958739968 bytes.
Linux or Mac users feel free to comment back if you have issues. Sorry @Nathan for making such a long comment. Just could find this exact information about making the noogie boot SDcard on any forum. So I wanted to put it here for your other Linux or Mac readers. 🙂
2 Ken Skier: thanks a lot, man! I had _exactly_ the same problem and was very scared that my Nook is dead until I saw your post. It turned out that the USB charger was really dead. It’s charging from computer’s USB port normally now. Once again, thanks a lot!
I understand that there is a new version of touchnooter 2.1.31 since I first rooted my nook back in last September. Is it worth the upgrade? Should I root again?
What I really want is to get the turn page button to work in browser and other ereader application apart from that provided by Barnes and Noble. Please help. Thanks.