[Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] JamesT123:
Hi everyone.

What happened to my phone is the weirdest thing and so far it seems nothing can work to fix it.

It's a GT-i9500 international model. Rooted and with KitKat 4.4.2.

How I messed things up:

- Was in Titanium Backup, tried to convert one game app I previously made "system app" back to "user app". The process was taking over 20 minutes... I figured must be some kind of a freeze. Then I held the power button to shut it off.

- I then powered on again, and realized that the device is not booting! There was no "Samsung" logo.

How I tried to fix it:

- I went to the CWM recovery and tried installing my latest backup (with a custom ROM). Did that after wiping all cache (with dalvik included) and data wipe system restore in CWM. After restoring the device that way -> It boots to "samsung" animation where it stays and gets warm when left for over an hour.

- I went back to CWM this time tried to flash the custom ROM again - so I picked the custom ROM zip file after wiping cache/system restore in CWM again and waited till it finishes. Rebooted the device -> It boots to "samsung" animation where it stays and gets warm when left for over an hour.

- Again in CWM tried to this time restore the stock rom which I have backed up with CWM after I have rooted the phone. -> The weirdest thing happened after restore. The phone booted into the carrier "boot animation", then it showed "Samsung gt-9500" (first time ever I've seen this screen on this device, it was never shown before), then it went once more to "samsung" letters being lit (but without the "samsung" boot animation with that purple thing and sound).

- I tried formatting the partitions within CWM except for the EFS and external SD partition and repeating each of the above all to no avail.

When I returned the stock firmware in third example (it was stock, but that backup made by CWM recovery ofc) CWM asked on reboot if I want to get back to stock recovery, I said no since I don't want to lose CWM esp now that the phone doesn't work as it should.

Currently I'm trying to:

- Flash stock firmware with ODIN through the download mode. Sadly so far I've seemed to have downloaded the Jelly Bean ROM instead of KitKat for it because ODIN gave me (nand write) error on flashing PDA and device showed:

check fail device:3 binary:2

So yeah, downloading firmware and will try ODIN with the KitKat one (the other I tried with ODIN didn't have version written in so that's why I assumed it must be KitKat too, took it from XDA guide, but seems it was JB after all).

I also want to stress that all previous steps in CWM were all done using KitKat builds so that couldn't be the problem.

So any of you have any idea what's going on with my phone?

I find it really weird that CWM which is supposed to restore phone in case of emergencies like this failed to do so. Perhaps nandroid backup would be a better choice next time? What do you think?

EDIT:

OMG this seem bad. Tried to flash through ODIN with another ROM and this is what I got:

<ID:0/007> Added!!

<OSM> Enter CS for MD5...

<OSM> Check MD5.. Do not unplug the cable..

<OSM> Please wait..

<OSM> I9500XXUFNC1_I9500YDDFNC2_I9500DDUFNA4

<OSM> Checking MD5 finished sucessfully..

<OSM> Leave CS..

<ID:0/007> Odin v.3 engine (ID:7)..

<ID:0/007> File analysis..

<ID:0/007> SetupConnection..

<ID:0/007> Initialization..

<ID:0/007> Get PIT for mapping..

<ID:0/007> Firmware update start..

<ID:0/007> sboot.bin

<ID:0/007> NAND Write Start!!

<ID:0/007> param.bin

<ID:0/007> boot.img

<ID:0/007> recovery.img

<ID:0/007> system.img

<ID:0/007>

<ID:0/007> Complete(Write) operation failed.

<ID:0/007> Added!!

<OSM> All threads completed. (Succeed 0 / failed 1)

---

Interestingly after this - now I don't have Chinese "download" mode anymore (the phone was bought through a friend and worked for over a year fine rooted btw) now it's in English... and, if I just try to boot it it says nicely:

"Firmware upgrade encountered an issue. Please select recovery mode in Kies & try again."

It would also seem recovery is gone too now... :/

hmm...

EDIT2:

Tried a different USB cable - same result.

Tried Odin 3.10 - same.

EDIT3:

WOW... the strangest thing!

So... after reading tons of threads I have found a suggestion to change the USB port. So I did (from USB 2.0 on my laptop to a USB 3.0 one if that matters). That's on org Samsung USB cable + reinstalled USB drivers to latest + ODIN 3.10. And then... it worked. Instead of "fail" on "system.img" this time it showed progress on the "system" stage. After a while it DID finish with a "PASS".

Next boot I was told that "Device memory damaged" and asked to factory reset it. Which I did. Next boot - Booted the first run settings and the system... next boot - booted the "Black Edition" (with different boot animation sound and then theme) and it's working now fine O_O will proceed to root it and then take care of everything again discarding the old backups and backing up stuff again.