Amazon Fire Tablet Gets Stuck in Fastboot Mode

We’ve been extremely obscure about the Amazon Fire tablet lately, which prompted a TechJunkie reader to ask about an old Kindle Fire HD model stuck in fastboot mode. So what do you do when your Amazon Fire tablet gets stuck in fastboot mode?

A fastboot mode is an Android tool that lets you bypass a device’s normal boot order to load your own or mess with the operating system. Instead of automatically booting a device into Android or Fire OS, you can hack your directory or root your device or replace system files.

Amazon Fire tablet stuck in fastboot mode

There are two main reasons for the Amazon Fire tablet to stay in fastboot mode, a software issue on the vanilla device or a failed root. Rooting is where you install the third-party OS on a device instead of using the default. Our reader hadn’t mentioned anything about rooting their device, so these instructions are more tailored towards a bugging device.

Usually, you need to invoke fastboot mode by connecting the device to a computer and using the Android SDK to interrupt the normal boot sequence. Sometimes a software bug or glitch will cause the device to enter fast mode on its own. This is the second I’ll be here.

Before you do anything, if your Amazon tablet is still under warranty, I suggest you let Amazon take care of it. You can also benefit from having the warranty, although none other than the final solution will void your warranty.

Reset Fire tablet to exit fastboot mode

Chances are, you’ve currently tried turning your Fire tablet off and back on to try and get rid of this boot loop, but let us try again. Follow these steps exactly to make sure you do it in the most effective way possible.

1. Press and hold the power button on your Fire tablet for 20 seconds until the screen turns black.
2. Wait a few seconds.
3. Fire again with the power button.

If you’re lucky, Fire OS will install normally. This is the first troubleshooting recommended by Amazon and it works in many cases so hopefully, it works for you too. Many users on the Amazon forums say that this method works for them once their Fire tablet boots. I hope it will work for you.

Force system update to exit fastboot mode

Another thing that can help your Fire tablet get out of fastboot mode is to force an OS update. You can do this outside of the OS so you can potentially help in this situation. Following steps will put the Fire tablet into a different mode that will download any update from Amazon, install it, and then boot it.

1. Press and hold the volume up button and power button on the fire tablet for 40 seconds.
2. Keep increasing the volume and release the power button until you see the message ‘Installing the latest software’ on the screen.
3. Allow the update to download and install and your Fire tablet will reboot.

Because the update is called by a button array, it is initialized before the quick connect. With any luck, it will install a new code version over the bugs and allow you to load your Fire tablet normally.

Optional – Factory reset your Fire tablet

Most instances of Amazon Fire tablets getting stuck in fastboot mode were persistent, but I did mention a few users with intermittent issues. Sometimes Fire would boot normally and sometimes it would get stuck in fastboot mode. I don’t know exactly how this works, but apparently.

If you’re one of those lucky few, try doing a factory reset if your Fire tablet is good enough to boot normally. This should overwrite the misbehaving part of the operating system. You will lose all your data, so save everything before trying.

Then:

1. Swipe down from the Fire home screen to access the menu.
2. Choose Settings and Device Options.
3. Select Reset to Factory Defaults.
4. Select Reset to confirm the reset.

This will completely wipe your Fire tablet and return it to stock. It might work if the fastboot issue is caused by a misconfiguration, bad app, or something the game needs to overwrite.

Use Android SDK to exit fastboot mode

Usually right now would be a good time to suggest a factory reset of your Fire tablet. However, you can only do this from within Fire OS or if your tablet loads intermittently. We can reset and update the fire with button arrays, we cannot factory reset the same. So our last option is to use the Android SDK to make our Fire tablet talk to the computer.

This allows me to install some drivers from Android Studio where I only work on Windows computers, connect my Fire tablet to your computer via USB, and use the command line to get my Fire tablet back in line.

Android studio will be found here. Download and install Android Studio and then follow the instructions in the XDA Developers forum in these two blog posts. Window driver set here. Managing fastboot mode here.

As you can see from the pages above, there’s a lot to do with installing Android Studio and running on a Windows computer, but it seems like the only way to get out of fastboot mode without doing further damage or returning the Fire tablet to Amazon.

I suggest you read both pages first and proceed just by making sure you know what you are doing and are confident of success.

If your Amazon Fire tablets are stucks in fastboot mode. The first two seem to have fixed the issue for many users, but not everyone. I’ve never done the last solution, I can’t say for sure if it works but the feedback on posts seems to do it.

If you try the Android Studio solution, let us know how it goes. I would like to know. In fact, let us know as other users will really benefit from your experience if you try any of these methods and fix your Fever!