Kies is useless?

[Dhruv Bohra]

Long story short, my phone has been consistently crashing multiple times a day, and I'm 100% sure it's TouchWiz's fault. Unfortunately because the problem is with the OS, factory data reset and a wipe of the android cache partition are ineffective. I need to re-image my device so I looked into twrp and CM

Of course, the AT&T version has a locked bootloader and the XDA unlock is still in progress, so I tried to use Kies3 to "initialize" my firmware. All I need is for this dumb program to reinstall Android.

Basically my problem is that, Kies wont reinstall my OS because it's not "old." It doesn't "need" updating. Anyone know a tip or trick to get Kies to flash my phone?

Help please! SM-N901A

 

[Dhruv Bohra]

Maybe I could spoof downgrade or trick Kies into clearing my phone or something...
I could use nvflash or heimdall to kill everything, but I'm afraid Kies wouldn't even recognize the device at that point...

 

[philayl]

Hi, have you tried looking on Sammobile for your Android version and re-flashing it using Odin? Phil
p.s. Apologies if this can't be done on US phones.

 

[Dhruv Bohra]

Yeah... Sammobile does not have the SM-N901A listed at all