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Root What ROM is Available for S4 Google Play Edition?

T

tgold

Lurker
In June 2013 I bought the SGS4 Google Play Edition and rooted it. Worked great! But because of rooting I lost offers of and ability to receive OTAs and incremental updates and so I am still on Android 4.3.

Is there any access to full flashable official Google ROMs in recovery .zip format?

Does anyone have any recommendations on recovery flashable ROMs for Lollipop or Marshmallow that are compatible with my GT-i9505G?
 
If your phone is rooted, you should be able to Flash CM13. I've done this when OTA from KitKat to Lollipop lost my Home, Menu and Return buttons. I now have Marshmallow running 100% OK with all buttons working.
 
Thanks @nu2andy but which one? On https://download.cyanogenmod.org/ I see a variety of Galaxy S4 phone types but none says GPE. The one called plain S4 goes no higher than CM-11 (KitKat 4.4). There is one called S4 (AT&T) with a Snapshot at CM-12 and then a number of nightlies for CM-13. Do you have an S4 GPE and, if so, from where did you download the working CM-13 Marshmallow Android 6.0.1?
 
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I Googled for info and selected CM13 for Samsung S4 Galaxy i9505 GT. Mine has LTE ability and I just followed the installation instructions very carefully. I used TWRP Recovery and selected Google Apps d/l as recommended. As I understand it, if your phone is rooted you select the CM13 Marshmallow for your Model ie. i9505. NOT for i9500 or any other models. I printed out the full instructions and got everything ready before flashing the ROM. You are advised to get Google apps.zip and there are several you can choose from. Your choice. Do your homework and don't try and jump ahead of the instructions. I spent quite a lot of time researching and reading as this was my first 'Flash' with a new ROM and I didn't want to end up with a 'brick'.
 
That was PERFECT. In my previous fumblings I kinda reached something however I had no Google Play and could find no way to install it. The directions to the Google Gapps in the TeamAndroid Guide was the solution. Many thanks and I am now at Android 6.0 with root, exactly where I wanted to be. Again, many thanks.
 
You're welcome. Nice to have another happy camper with the S6 looks about their S4. I've been very pleased with the flash to CM13.
 
The ROM you pointed out to me was dated 29 November 2015, is Android 6.0 and had about 3,000 downloads. I see that the ROM of Christmas day -Kushan-CM-13.0-20151225-OPTIMIZED-jfltexx.zip - from here: https://www.androidfilehost.com/?fid=24343351889232435 is Android 6.0.1 and has had over 8,000 downloads. I have now flashed that one and again all is well.

Do you have any thoughts on the nightly updates that are offered in About Phone / Updates?
 
I think I settled for the latter from others who were satisfied with it as I am. You either accept nightlies or not or select as you want.
 
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