Good point. I hadn’t thought about OTA updates. I wonder if those can be turned off…
I bought the fire HD tablet for about $70. It was my first attempt at a wall panel so I wanted to stay cheap. I think if I add others I’ll splurge and get a Samsung galaxy tab or similar that is stock android.
If you can manage to disable services you should be able to stop OTA updates. Usually it’s just a simple service that runs. If not you’ll need to block the actually update address by some means or another.
Didn’t know this was possible! Did you follow the steps in both posts or just #28? Hope It rids me of the lock screen! I guess blocking internet access will stop OTA updates.
Sorry, I should have been more specific. Here is what I did:
Download and install Settings Database Editor on the Fire tablet.
Plug your tablet into your PC and open an ADB window.
If you need help with ADB, follow this guide. Complete steps 1-6 under Phone Setup and all the steps under the operating system you are using on your computer
In the ADB window, once connected to your tablet, enter the following:
adb shell pm grant by4a.setedit22 android.permission.WRITE_SECURE_SETTINGS
That should be it!
Just done this on one of my tablets, popped back through to say thanks this works GREAT!
just an FYI to anyone who attempts this. Make sure to disable auto-update of apps in the Google Play store. The tablet cannot update apps once the 'device_provisioned" setting is changed to 0. You have to use Settings Database Editor again and change the value back to 1, update the apps, and then change the value to 0.
I’m currently running into an issue where I can no longer access Settings Database Editor on my Fire tablet, so I can’t revert my changes. The app seems to have disappeared from the main screen. Maybe it was removed after a system update? I can see the app when I open Google Play and go to ‘My Apps’ section, but there is no option to open the app, only Update or Uninstall. I think my options are to do a factory reset or try to sideload the app, but who knows what side effects will happen because of these settings changes. Beware!
If it helps I never had Play Store installed I just installed the app from an APK.
https://m.apkpure.com/settings-database-editor/by4a.setedit22
Not had an update yet though so not sure how it will act.
@bphillips921 I don’t suppose you have a solution to auto/schedule reboot the Fire Tab? This is last issue i have with the FireTab everything is working excellently apart from them grinding a near stop.
I haven’t tried anything to schedule an auto reboot, but I’d assume tasker could handle that.
I wasn’t able to download apps from google play anymore. Had to reset the value to 1 to download an app.
@bphillips921 - Thank you for this! I’m so stoked to get rid of that lock screen!
I have what I hope might be a relevant question for people: I’m on a Kindle Fire 7 and I’d like to disable any and all updates - specifically OS updates or anything that might stop this lock screen solution from working. In my case, I’m using the Fire with the Fully Kiosk app to do one simple thing (just display a website). Now that it’s working, I want to make sure it keeps working indefinitely.
Does anyone know a no root way of stopping:
a) OS updates
b) all app updates
I do need the tablet to remain connected to the internet so it can display the website. (The site auto-refreshes every hour with new content.)
Thank you again!
The Fully Kiosk app commonly recommended here has a Fire tablet version. It has an option to use a screen saver that’s 0% brightness black screen - instead of locking - and then can wake it up based on motion. So effectively it is the same behavior - the screen goes black when it’s inactive and returns to normal on motion.
You can embed whatever web page or app you want in Fully Kiosk.
I researched this briefly but didn’t find a solution that can be applied on a non-rooted Fire tablet directly. If your router has advanced settings that can disable internet access to a specific device, then that should work.
I once followed some tutorial, probably on www.aftvnews.com, to use openDNS and block Amazon’s updates. I think it worked, because it definitely blocked updates to my Amazon Echo. I ended up calling Amazon support trying to figure out why my Echo wasn’t updating, when I eventually realized I caused the issue in the first place.
@ironlion37, glad the lock screen hack worked for you!
Regarding stopping the updates, I’m not sure about the OS, but in google play you can turn off auto-update in the settings.
For the OS, maybe see what URL it fetches the update from and block that URL in the parental settings in your router.
Thanks for the ideas. I’ll keep researching. I’m used to apple devices where they ask permission for everything so getting a kindle has been an eye opener on what the Amazon OS is like. I won’t bore you with the details, but I need to find a solution to prevent the OS update within the device itself if I can. (I may be giving these as gifts and want them to just be plug and play for people.) If I find a way to do it, I’ll post it here. @dwinn, thanks for the tip. And thanks again @bphillips921
When I first turned it on, it did ask me if I wanted to install an OS update. Does it always ask or do they update automatically? I should have asked that first!
Actually, I was playing around with a new Fire HD 8 and found in the Developer Options a toggle called ‘Automatic System Updates’. I never noticed that option before, so I switched it off. Haven’t confirmed if it will disable OS updates as I’m on Fire OS 6.3.0.1 right now
Here are the steps to reach that toggle.
Settings>>Device Options>>About Fire Tablet>> Tap on the ‘Serial Number’ eight times to enable Developer Options
Settings>>Device Options>>Developer Options>>Automatic System Updates
I was afraid that “loosing notifications” and not being able to “update apps” would mean “Services are not running anymore”, but they are! Automagic is running at startup and opening the shortcut to the HADashboard. Just beautiful 
Confirmed working on a Fire Tablet 7 (7 Gen) with “Fire OS” 5.3.6.4.
I know that Amazon didn’t want that. They wan’t that device only to show us ads and that thing was crammed full of ads. Every single spot of it. But hey, I would’ve returned that tablet if it didn’t worked and simply bought another tablet from another store (mwahaha).
After one sleepless night I managed to install Nova Launcher and hack it to my default launcher somehow. Lockscreen is now also gone and Automagic runs everything just fine.
EDIT: Ads came back. Tossed that tablet in a corner and bought a cheap noname and it works far better without ads.
@dwinnn Hmm, I just bought another Fire 7 and it came with OS 5.6.0.0. Unfortunately, there’s no option under Developer Options called “Automatic System Updates.” I’m curious though, has the disabling in 6.3 prevented updates from happening?
Hi all,
Like you guys, I was also looking for how to unlock the fire tablet and just found a unexpected way to do that. I was evaluating fully kiosk browser but also found the wallpanel app. Fully kiosk has more features, but wallpanel has a couple of other features and the main one is that while running it you dont need to swipe to unlock anymore! The funny thing is if you run wallpanel AND fully kiosk you dont need to swipe even if wallpanel is running in the background!
Thanks for the WallPanel tip for Fire tablet! The lock screen has been driving me crazy ever since I bought the Fire HD 8 with the charging dock. I use it as a mostly dedicated Roon controller and for Show Mode (flipping back and forth with my voice), and most times it would always go to the lock screen when I would exit Show Mode on the tablet. I installed WallPanel with a URL for actiontiles as an added side benefit in using this tablet, and it works! No more lock screens! Thanks very much…very glad I didn’t have to root the tablet or install the Google Play store to try and get around this.
