[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S7 Guides, News, & Discussi] WcR3650:
Hey, guys. I ran into an issue with this and I was wondering if you might be able to help me?

I'm going to preemptively apologize for the excessively long post. I just wanted to detail what I did and saw so hopefully someone can tell me what I did wrong.

PREFACE:

I followed this guide for rooting on my new AT&T S7 (SM-G930A) that was using the MM PK1 firmware, loaded flashfire, busybox, xposed and the recommended optimization packages and xtouchwiz to disable Hotspot carrier checks (which really all that I need root for) and, aside from my dialer and contacts apps getting deleted (what's up with that?) the process worked like a charm... Painless root, got my "custom" boot screen... And my phone status was still listed as "official" and not "custom", so awesome!

Ran a bit hot until I used kernel aduitor (couldn't get trickster MOD to work with busybox for some reason) to set the governor to powersave. Xposed warned about problems with TouchWiz, but it seemed to work well enough, some lag and heat, but no worse than my old S6 (stock, no root).

I kept getting OTA notifications for an update, presumably to the recent nougat build and I kept ignoring them while trying to find a reliable source for the firmware that I could download myself and sideload using flashfire, so I wouldn't lose data in the update and wouldn't lose root to the OTA. No joy, so I figured I'd let it go for now, unroot eventually, update to nougat via OTA and use the other process linked in this thread to root after getting the latest update.

Here's where it gets weird:

After getting home, I rebooted my phone. I had done this several times after the rooting process already as part of sideloading through flashfire and at least once just because, so I didn't think anything of it. When, suddenly... Boot loop. Now it's back to the default boot screen (no "custom" unlocked one)

Going into recovery mode, I was getting a DM-Verity verification check failed error (not sure if the "API:3" note above it is relevant). It said that KNOX warranty void was 0x0 at the top of the screen, so I think whatever went wrong at least didn't trip KNOX (that'd be 0x1, right?). Flashing from SD Card or ADB in recovery mode is disabled.

I looked online for some help and tried to do a factory reset. Now I'm back on the "custom" boot screen, but the phone status is "custom", still on the PK1 firmware and Smart manager is warning about security issues. No more root (and can't use Hotspot again). But upon restart, it again bootloops until I factory reset in recovery mode.

I know that the way out is to flash stock firmware from ADB using download mode (data is already gone, so no loss there, I guess), which is fine. I was thinking about doing that anyway to get the OTA and rooting again using the nougat method, anyway.

Near as I can tell, after following the guide, I didn't do anything that should have tripped anything. I don't think that the OTA downloaded, but I suppose it is possible that it could have popped up when I wasn't looking and I accidentally started it without knowing.

My real question here is:

What went wrong and how do I prevent it from happening again?

---------- Post added at 09:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:25 PM ----------

I believe that you should be able to flash your stock firmware to clear the issue, so your phone isn't "destroyed".

Also, nobody "destroyed" your phone but you. Everything here is provided with a warning that any modifications you make are done at your own risk.

The OP worked pretty damn hard to come up with this solution, write this guide and provide links to files for us. He (or she) doesn't owe us anything. Quite the opposite, really.

---------- Post added at 09:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:31 PM ----------

I'm a noob, so I'm not sure what went wrong, but I can tell you that you can find your firmware version in the "About Phone" tab, by where you tapped to enable developer options (there's also an easter egg if you similarly spam the android version).

Both the "Baseband Version" and "Build Number" reference your firmware version. The first part of it refers to the phone model that the firmware is for (should be your model "G903<something>", "G930A" in my case, for the AT&T model), while the last 3 digits, "PK1" in my case, refer to the firmware version itself.

Sorry I can't be of more help.