[Verizon Galaxy Note 3 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] HATI2ED:
Hello All,

I've lurked for a fairly long time, however I have come forward from the darkness to share some problems brought to light from the KK OTA update.

It Sucks.

There is no way around this. It's laggy in every menu. When im typing anything out, whether its a text, or an email or even into a search bar Its always chopping and lagging behind a couple seconds. Its a pain to hit the home button to back out of apps or just go get out of something that stopped responding for no apparent reason.

Also, as a small business owner, It is imperative that i stay in communication with my employees and family at all time should anything arise.

The KK OTA has failed miserably in this function. I have had it happen almost everyday for the last month since i downloaded it and installed it on my device that there are periods of time in between me receiving messages and sync data(email, push notifications, etc) that can be quite long. I have noticed that sometimes i just plain don't get my text messages for hours at a time. I'm a hard-working, geeky, IT guy 100% of the time, but Im a father first. Its not okay for me to not hear back from people regardless of what the situation is, and then I step out for air at night and go for a cruise, and then all of my texts and push data suddenly hit my phone all at once, sometimes anywhere from 3-6 Hours later!!!!

Its not my reception. I have a full 5 bars at my residence and at least 4 everywhere else in town, and average speeds of 45 Down and 30Up. My brother and girlfriend also have Note 3s and experience the same and even some different issues. My girlfriend's note 3 cant stay charged longer than 6 hours. even with the phone having all the apps closed and RAM cleared and the phone in complete Airplane mode. Its gotten to the point where she always has her charger with her! We feel like iPhone users! We've gone as far as to buy 3 extended batteries and everybody gets to keep one as a spare. Often times i have 2 spares in my backpack and I swap batteries once a day. My brother has had issues with his keyboard failing to work at all and requiring an actual reboot of the device and yesterday he called me to tell me that his speaker stopped working and after 3 reboots the speaker was functioning normally again. What causes this?

To sum it up, I knew there was only one way to remedy this situation and I was dreading it. I had to call Verizon. I had to tell them that the OTA update had made my phone worthless and unusable. It was an even further long shot, but i had to request and demand a replacement Note 3 with Jellybean on it and NOT KIT KAT.

The phone was overnighted yesterday and it arrived this morning. It came with Jellybean. Flicking through the menus and settings I had forgotten what the speed had felt like. Crisp, concise and without the slightest hesitation. The main purpose of this replacement on JB was so that it could be rooted and the stock apps could be frozen through TiBu and a nice aftermarket ROM could be installed. And that's just what I'll do. I've kept my Sim in my old phone and made sure WiFi stays off on the new one until the old one is backed up and Im ready to root the new one. I cant take anymore chances with these stupid OTAs

Briefly after i had taken the OTA, I had attempted to use Kingo and vRoot(I had been out of the phone mod/root scene for a while) To my surprise it didnt work. Then i realized the boot loaders had changed and were blacklisted and there was no going back.

I've been stalking all of the similar "4.4.2 root method? threads for the last few weeks and all of the responses led me to this obvious conclusion.

Lesson Learned. READ XDA BEFORE TAKING OTAs.