[Verizon Samsung Galaxy S7 Guides, News, & Discussi] psouza4:
The multiple reboots and odd freezing after you flash is normal (for the first few reboots). After a few minutes, it should stabilize -- that's the startup scripts doing their work, and it has bootloop protection built in so it won't do more than 2 consecutive reboots while it's updating files. If you are sure it's rebooting 3+ times in a row, connect to your phone using ADB and rename /data/s7startup/master.sh to something else and see if that helps (if not, it means this isn't your problem).

I'm out of room in my OP for changelog text and I didn't reserve posts #2 and #3. Nothing significant changed, but here's the specifics (you can diff to verify) between v12 and v14:

[IMG="v12 and v14 diff"]http://i.imgur.com/ltedDHC.png[/IMG]

/data/s7startup/master.sh - version 2 to version 3, besides some changes in comments, this version will sync on each other startup script that requests a reboot instead of only syncing right before the reboot

/data/s7startup/s7cpusettings.sh - (no version change) one comment was removed

/data/s7startup/s7updateothersxml.reset - file added, it triggers the s7updateothersreset.xml to bypass tests to see if it needs to apply a patch and just applies the patch from the start (hence 'reset')

/data/s7startup/s7updateothers.xml - version 5 to version 6, checks for a reset file and also known bad settings (the 'CscFeature_Setting_EnableMenuBlockCallMsg' and 'CscFeature_Common_EnableAirMessage' settings that cause blank menus to appear in the phone settings), if either conditions exist, a version reset trigger causes the entire script to re-run, skipping version checks. Additional logic was added to always modify those settings to FALSE if they ever get turned on, both in /system/csc/others.xml as well as /system/csc/feature.xml (persistent/aggressive disabling of those two settings). If a reset file was found (from re-flashing), it will delete it before running the patch to prevent always patching on startup.

/META-INF/com/google/android/updater-script - version 12 to version 14, besides cosmetic stuff like 'Bloatware' being called 'Bloat, the script now deletes the following /system/app or /system/priv-app apps AmazonKindle_vpl_ATT, Directv_ATT, Directtv_Shade_ATT, Facebook_stub, FBInstagram_stub, Gmail2, Hangouts, Lookout_TMO, Maps, MyATT_ATT, Plenti_vpl_ATT, Safetyinformation, SecHelp, WhatsAppDownloader, AmazonInstaller_ATT, Amazon_Shopping_vpl, AmazonShopping_vpl_ATT, DigitalLocker_ATT, DriveMode_ATT, FamilyUtility_ATT, Lookout_ATT, MobileLocate_ATT, RemoteSupport_ATT, SimLock_TMO, WhitePagesNameId-release_TMO. Additionally, canid, Kies, and LocationAgent are no longer being deleted (via commented lines) in v14 but were in v12.

Note that while v14 deletes more bloat, (a) none of it would affect the issue you're seeing [MENTION=2777061]Ridl3y[/MENTION] and [MENTION=5311665]Silkmeister1[/MENTION] and (b) going back to v12 doesn't restore anything deleted in v14. So being able to receive texts is likely a side effect of a simple reboot or that one version ran faster than another. It simply doesn't make any sense. Lot of moving parts here, so I'd look to blame something else first. :)

The new imsservice.apk pushed in the update package should have turned those off. If not, try checking your device settings under networks and choose an LTE network.

Possibly one of the build.props. Check into that and let me know if you find anything?

Check your internal sdcard for a Flashfire folder. It'll contain a log of the last Flashfire flash -- and don't panic if you see any mount errors (they're not really errors) or any lines that start with [ERR] (which are just messages sent to STDERR instead of STDOUT), that's normal.