[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshoot] oberon567:
Update.... still not working, but development

So an update for any folk who may have advice... I yet again uninstalled and reinstalled the Samsung USB drivers.

Now when I plug the phone it, it is constantly cycling... What I mean is I plug the phone in and set it down (which is to say I am no jiggling the connection or the cable), and right away the PC detects it as a media device (MTP) and it shows up in "My PC" to browse. Then ten seconds later it switches to being "Connected to a dock" and disappears from My PC. Then it switches back.... back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes the PC pops up a warning "USB Device not recognized," sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it seems to stay on one setting for a minute, sometimes literally every second it is changing and I am assaulted with a litany of beeps and neither the phone nor the PC seem to know what is going on.

Right now it has been plugged in for about 10 minutes. There was a good 2 minute stretch where it looked like it had settled down and was going to work.... But right now the PC is literally popping up a USB Device not recognized warning every 7 seconds. In a minute maybe it will be recognized again... I have no idea.

Obviously it is not stable enough to try and use Odin or anything else that requires the PC and phone to be connected for any period of time. I can probably copy and paste some files onto the phone, I only need a few moments of connection to do that, but I wouldnt want to run any sort of flashing program only for it to be disconnected partway through.

Come to think of it, I am not 100% sure if I ever connected the phone to the PC again after rooting it. I rooted it and copied the files needed to unlock the SIM at the same time, so maybe I never re-connected after that, and maybe this is a result of the root? If that is the case then maybe there is just a file somewhere I need to replace?

If I was able to root it and unlock the sim once I imagine I can do it again, so if there is a way to restore to factory default without relying on the wired connection I suppose I can try that, if, of course, folk are sure that the problem is a result of the root.... and then I will attempt a different rooting method...

The phone is way outside of warranty territory so Knox is not any sort of concern for me, all that matters is that the darned thing works...

PS -

Something I just noticed... as I have been typing I noticed a calm from the beeping... it *seemed* to hold stable with its MTP connection... My screen had turned off, so I turned it back on to check if the phone indicated a connection or not, and as soon as the screen turned on it disconnected from the PC, then reconnected, and started the cycle all over again... it seems there is definitely a hardware connector issue, as every time I press the home button it disconnects and reconnects, but if I press the power or volume buttons, or touch the screen itself, it doesnt seem to give me the same issue... Could this whole thing be a hardware issue? And, if yes, is there any way to easily fix that? I don't imagine the USB port can be easily or cheaply replaced...