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Resolved Question

GS4 & Update Problems?

Jul 9, 2014 4:10AM PDT

My Galaxy S4 Active used to be fantastic until recently...

Went on vacation over 4th July for a week.

AT&T had the KitKat 4.4.2 update and forced it on my phone after ignoring it multiple times.

It used to run 4.3 rooted perfectly fine until the update. Battery lasted three days with average use and ram never went over 500MB. Root is now gone, and more unwanted bloatware has been forced upon me and my phone. This update has broken my phone, almost literally.

-screen gets VERY hot
-battery discharges from full to 20% in 2hr even when idle
-RAM magically fills up to 1.5GB, but the only running apps only add up to around 500-700MB
-CPU-Z shows the CPU randomly spikes to 100% for no reason
-battery is physically good, did the spin test, no bulging
-charger is A-okay, plugged it into P3 meter when charging

Searched online for hours. Others appear to have similar issues after the forced update. Obtaining root and 4.3 seems far and wide.

Is there anything to do to fix this temporarily?
Am I stuck with this garbage 4.4.2 forever?
How can I get back 4.3 with root again?

Open and willing to try all suggestions.

Discussion is locked

ilikerhinos has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer

Best Answer

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For me
Jul 9, 2014 4:15AM PDT

I like XDA Developers for better ROMS. There's also the option to use this to get out of your contract (hey, you broke it ATT!) and get another phone.
Bob

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was thinking
Jul 9, 2014 4:30AM PDT

about returning the phone and just buying an unlocked off amazon, but thought I'd try to save the hastle for now..

Do you know if there's a place on the net to buy GS4 without the bloatware?

XDA says to use Odin and for some reason it now keeps being flagged by MBAM. False positive I presume?

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Not really.
Jul 9, 2014 4:32AM PDT
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About Odin. Which site?
Jul 9, 2014 5:06AM PDT
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Answer
never go with Galaxy
Jul 27, 2014 11:57PM PDT

Samsung is famous for lag and cheap quality plastic and the bad thing thing is all top model of samsung launch at 50,000 rs and after few week it's down the 1/3 what the hall is this and make the customer fool,for superior android go with the Sony z2 xperia and HTC m8. Today no alternate or can able to compete these two smartphone except apple, but due to small screen i don't like apple.
I am use Sony Xperia z1 and it's update automatically with out any problem now my device run on 4.4.4 kitkat android