[Verizon Galaxy Note 4 Android Development] TTA1326:
Verizon Note 4 Soft Brick Help

Sorry, this is long...

I'm no pro at flashing these phones, but I have a Note 4 Dev that I bought new running and older, but "stable", CM 13 build from [MENTION=5868929]hsbadr[/MENTION] with no problems. I rooted the original OS when I got the phone, installed CM 13 myself much later, and I have done 5++ Nexus devices, including my wife's N6P (yes, I know they're easy). I have also rooted 2 Note 4 Retail phones for family with NO problems (using [MENTION=766721]ryanbg[/MENTION] instructions on here). The Note 4 Retail phones checked out fine with the eMMC tool. I'm no pro, but after 19+ years in software, I can follow instructions. However, I just got bit.

The first 2 Note 4 Retail phones I rooted for my dad (Verizon) were Android 5.1.1 out of the box, and both came in opened boxes with no manuals. That was a month ago or so, and they both still work fine. So, my brother buys one from the same seller on Amazon (Verizon). So called, NOS Note 4's. My brother's phone is black (the other 2 were white), but I'm sure that doesn't matter. The main differences are this 3rd phone was still in a sealed box with the manual and had Android 5.0.1 installed. Also, the phone booted up the very first time (from a sealed box) with a white dialog box in Chinese or Japanese characters. I could tell it was one of the 2 by the style, but I don't know enough to tell them apart. A factory reset before I went any further brought the phone back to the setup screen. Once I got in, it checked out fine with the eMMC tool.

So, again I followed instructions. I upgraded Android 5.0.1 (N910VVRU2BOG5) on the phone using the OTA update from this thread to Android 5.1.1 (N910VVRU2BOK3). No problems and eMMC tool said good. I think my first mistake was that I rooted the first 2 phones with KingRoot, but after a lot of reading, was convinced to use KingORoot on this phone. I'm not saying either one is a problem, just that I should have followed my own experience with what worked. The procedure was exactly the same, just a different tool. It got temp root the first time and it shut down. I pulled the battery and SD card. I booted it back up and tried to finish the job, but it NEVER got temp root again. It locks up and boots at 52%. I would boot about 3 times before saying that it failed. I did a factory reset and tried again, failed. Later, I tried the desktop version, it failed too.

Not knowing what to do from here, I did a factory reset, rebooted the phone and un-installed KingORoot and the SU apk it installed. The SU apk showed "root" failed". I did another factory reset afterwards. Then I installed the full Android 5.0.1 (N910VVRU2BOG5) file via Odin (3.10.7 is what I had from the last phones I think) as per this thread and eMMC tool said good. Once again the phone booted up the first time with a white dialog box in Chinese or Japanese characters. Another factory reset, and I re-installed the OTA update from this thread to Android 5.1.1 (N910VVRU2BOK3) and eMMC tool said good. It booted and appeared fine. So, I started to root with KingRoot, but KingRoot NEVER succeeded. It also locks up at 52%, then reboots, and fails after 3 tries. This all took place over a week and I was at a loss at this point.

Last night, I decided to Odin the full Android 5.0.1 (N910VVRU2BOG5) file again, so it would hopefully come back to the Chinese or Japanese characters. My brother was just going to return it. Odin crashed trying to connect the first time, crashed on the boot image the second time, and crashed on the system image the next 2 times (no differences in how I did these vs the first one that worked). I stopped at that point. It is soft bricked and will only go to download mode now.

Any advise, pointers, anything, that might help me salvage this? I just want a clean Odin back to stock 5.0.1 and have the phone boot again. I will at least try again with the latest 3.12.3 Odin and a fresh image download.