[Sprint Samsung Galaxy S 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshoot] Team Scream:
This started as a beg for help thread, but since the GS4 is coming up on 3 generations old, help is quite slow, yet does still exist as of this edit (3-20-15).

None the less, I will try to explain what happened so that people searching for similar problems might find this thread and resolve their issues.

I soft bricked the phone flashing PacMan. ... The instructions CLEARLY stated that you need to flash the rom, then flash GApps. Well, I forgot to Flash Gapps because I was so excited that I had a successful root and new rom to test that I finger ganged the phone.... The phone booted just fine and worked just fine, but I did not have ANY google apps, and went into a panic... LESSON #1 DO NOT PANIC......

What I failed to realize is that Android Lolipop (at least PacMan's version) requires the user to select options in the developer section of the settings menu to enable you to boot into your custom recovery after you have flashed your custom rom.... I DID NOT KNOW THIS and the information was NOT readily available. So what happened was I panicked and tried to flash another recovery which was apparently NOT the correct recovery for my phone.. (the cascade of errors began here). My phone was soft bricked and NOTHING I did would get me out of it.

So, after at least 50 attempts using Odin to try and flash a good recovery, re-root the phone, whatever I could think of, I finally got out of soft brick, and back to a working phone, yet still no google apps, and no recovery (or so I thought).

By this time, I had asked ....no. begged for help on 2 or 3 different threads to no avail when what I thought was a brain storm came to me.... I googled and located the google play store apk, and google play services apk and thought that if I could just get these 2 things installed, I would be able to log onto the google play store and download the apps I need and all would be right with the world....... Yeah.... Remember the cascade of errors thing I mentioned a few lines up ^^^ ?

Once I installed those 2 apk's and rebooted the phone, I was in nag screen hell with no way out, no custom recovery (remember...or so I thought) and no way to access ANYTHING on the phone because literally the second I hit "ok" on the nag screen, it would immediately pop back up...This "nag screen" was the one that pops up and tells you that "google play services has stopped working".. I came inches away from launching the phone against the wall and buying another one... something... anything but a Samsung GS4.

So here we are, 14 hours (of actual face in the phone, Odin, XDA, Google, YouTube) frantically searching for ANY solution.....and NOTHING presented itself, when I decided to take a step back and walk away from it for a couple of hours.......

The next thing I tried was pounding my way through the nag screen... Literally hitting the "ok" toggle to clear the screen, while instantly trying to hit any other button on the screen to get me into the settings menu, because during my little self imposed time out, I had an epiphany.... of sorts..... What really happened is that I remembered seeing a "factory reset" toggle in the settings menus somewhere.....and I was determined to find it........ SO....... 13,386,329 clicks of the "ok" button later, I managed to engage the factory reset switch at the exact right moment, followed by another 4,388 presses of the "ok" button to get to the "confirm" button.......... and like a beacon from heaven...... My phone rebooted, and factory reset, and the #%g^7**&^|@# nag screen was GONE !!!!! Oh my GOD it was GONE !!!!!!! After recovering from my full blown conniption, catching my breath and feeling like a raver must feel after a good night of Molly and glow stick euphoria, I had a working phone again..... almost.

What I did next was go immediately to Odin, re-root the phone, install a DIFFERENT rom, and the latest version of TWRP and like another beacon from the gods I had a wonderfully functional phone with all of the google apps I needed.... and all was good with the world........Pretty much....

I am nearly certain that I cost myself 5 years of healthy living with the stress I imposed upon myself throughout this ordeal ---- The following are lessons learned. Hopefully they save you from madness...

(1) Do NOT use a USB hub to connect your phone to the computer. The phone MUST be connected directly to a USB port on your machine.

(2) Understand the workings of the rom you are going to flash BEFORE you flash it.

(3) DO NOT PANIC

(4) DO NOT randomly install apk's just because you think you are smarter than a 5th grader, and you are so mad your phone doesn't work, you are going to try anything regardless of how retarded it might be.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST and actually probably the MOST IMPORTANT thing to do is locate, download and CONFIRM GOOD a stock firmware for YOUR phone BEFORE YOU ROOT or flash a new rom..... If you get to brick he11 like I did, you will spend more time searching for the tools to get back to zero than you can imagine. You will be revved up, angry with the world, and your google fu will fail you......miserably I might add......

Get all of your ducks in a row BEFORE you root, and before you flash a new rom. That means finding the stock firmware and opening it up in Odin with your phone connected to CONFIRM you have a good firmware to go back to should you fail miserably.... Your very sanity could depend on it...