Nook Simple Touch won't work unless its plugged in.

[tljohn6]

I have had this Nook since a little before Christmas. I am having an issue with it always freezing and locking up while in the middle of any book. It doesn't matter what book it is...IF the nook is not plugged in - then it freezes up - I can hit the reset button on the back and it will STAY FROZEN until it is plugged in.It works just fine if you keep it plugged into the wall.

I have deregistered the device thinking that maybe that would reset it so it would work.

I have turned it off and left it off for over 12 hours thinking that would reset it so it would work.

Do you have any ideas?

[roustabout · Accepted solution]

Dumb question, I know, and you've probably tried this already, but I'll ask - have you tried shutting the little guy down by pressing and holding the power button for long enough to have the "do you want to shut down" dialog appear, choosing power off there, and seeing the "your nook is off" screen appear, then restarting it? 

It's possible that a real reboot might be able to clear some headache the NST has in terms of polling its battery, if it's not quite shutting itself down when the screen becomes unresponsive, just getting into a weird "I don't think I can run now" state.

I apologize if you'd already tried this, but I'm curious whether it helps anyone avoid the hassle of arranging a return.  (And if it doesn't work, it definitely sounds like a return is in order.) 

[#3]

This comment is not the best solution, because as the guy said in the original post, they already tried shutting it off. The point is that it does not respond AT ALL, including it will NOT ask if you want to shut it off, so that you can restart it. The device WON'T LET YOU DO THAT. As you may guess, I have the same problem.

Why is this considered the best answer, when it offers a suggestion the OP already said was tried, and clearly didn't work?

[#4]

I think the reason this was voted up is because I took the time to detail exactly what i meant by "shutting it down" -- many times, people are confused because the device responds to a single, short press of the power button in a way that is not shutting itself down.

The suggestion, obviously, will only work if the device is plugged in and responsive when you start.

The last graf makes it clear that if this doesn't work, I'd probably return the unit (though I might try reinstalling the OS first, the key sequence for doing that on the NST is easy to get wrong and I didn't and don't have the time to go dig it up.)

[#5]

Note that the symptoms of "locking up" and "battery exhausted" are virtually identical.

[#6]

Found an interesting post on XDA that might be relevant here:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1813384

Someone noticed that their NST would not come on, but was showing a green LED, implying that the battery was topped up. They took it apart and unhooked the battery, then hit the power button for ~30 seconds.

Put the battery back online, buttoned it up - and hey presto, the device worked again. Apparently the nook was stuck thinking it had zero charge, and so wouldn't turn on even with a full charge.

[#7]

Yes. YES.

YEEESSSSS!!!

It works!

roustabout's suggestion was the real solution for me.

Thank a LOT for sharing... I focused on software and installed / uninstalled android, rooted, different recoveries: no luck.

Then it was everything back to IT law n.1: Turn it on and off again.

My nook works great once again

I'll add a link to the page that helped me disassembling it (easy):

http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nook-Simple-Touch-with-GlowLight-Teardown/9301/1

Thanks once again