[T-Mobile Galaxy Note 4 General] timg11:
Post Install Report.

To recap, I had a hardware problem in my Note 4 and received a warranty replacement. I want a rooted but otherwise stock configuration, and to configure the new phone as easily as possible. The new phone came with the same Android: 5.1.1 LMY47X. N910TUVU2DOK2 as the old one.

First I installed TWRP 3.0.2 for trltetmo (Samsung Galaxy Note 4 Qualcomm (trlte)) using Odin 3.10.7.

I read a warning about "many devices will replace your custom recovery automatically". Fortunately, that doesn't seem to be a problem with trltetmo, since it does not appear to be possible to reboot into recovery after being in download mode. The recovery keys (VolUp, Home, Power) don't have the affect of going into recovery on a reboot, only from power off. So after installing TWRP, it rebooted back into the system.

Next, I powered down, booted back into TWRP, and used TWRP to make a Nandroid backup of the stock ROM to extSdcard . Boot back to system, Wait for system to enumerate USB as MTP device (Takes a while - USB enumerates as several different modes first before MTP) , and back up TWRP folder contents to computer. While connected by USB I copied SuperSU over to the phone for the next step.

Then I used TWRP to install SuperSU. I first installed 2.74 which was a mistake. First time around with 2.74, I booted back to the system, and installed Titanium Backup, and it reported it had root. But it could not write to ExtSDcard. So I know the drill to fix that - edit platform.xml and add the	<group gid="media_rw" /> line to the <permission name="android.permission.WRITE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE" > section. Only problem was ES File Explorer Pro was unable to get root to access platform.xml. I checked around and found that SuperSU 2.65 doesn't have that problem, so I booted back to recovery and used TWRP to install SuperSU 2.65. That fixed the ES problem, and I was able to edit platform.xml and got extSDcard access. (Note: I did that because I paid for ES File Explorer Pro. If I was starting from scratch, I would find another root-capable file manager other than ES, since they have recently "gone bad") I didn't get a chance to test whether there is still an "IMEI bug" with 2.74, since I had not put the SIM into the phone at that point in the process.

I started to restore with Titanium, but was flooded with popups - "Allow Google to regularly check device activity... "

The fix for that is: In your app drawer,go to the GOOGLE SETTINGS app > SECURITY > VERIFY APPS & uncheck Scan For Security Threats

With that done, I was able to use titanium backup to “Restore all missing apps + system data”. It caused a few apps to FC while restoring, but after rebooting, everything seems OK. All apps are running normally so far.

Things I still had to take care of:

Had to rename the PowerOn.ogg again to get rid of the boot sound.

This didn't happen during the initial restore, but after rebooting Titanium Backup prompted me about the Android ID being changed. I let it restore to my original ID so software wouldn't have problems.

Widgets were missing and had to be manually created

My additional ringtones needed to be copied from old phone backup

Pattern lock and Smart Lock have to be configured

Pebble pairing had to be removed and re-created (haven't checked Bluetooth headsets and other devices yet)

It seems like even more bloatware was present - had to freeze a bunch of apps

After all that, the phone now seems to be back to where I was before. Then I made another Nandroid backup from TWRP.

Everything is the same, except at boot I get only the yellow warning (Set Warranty Bit: kernel) instead of the red and yellow warnings.

Because of Systemless root, the kernel is now reporting 3.10.406209177 instead of 3.10.40-BeastMode

Thanks to those who provided assistance and information.