But what about this, the next time we get an official update & that one would essentially overwrite the problem, would it not.
Going forward seems will work fine since it upgrades the partition data automatically. Just seems that they didn't think anyone would need/want to go backwards for any reason. Not the first time we've seen Samsung not worry about being able to go back.... but first time it's broken something of this magnitude AFAIK.
So, to recap:
LJC (4.1.1) to LK8 (4.1.2) includes a change to Chameleon.apk - this change updates the data in the /carrier partition to a version supported by the new Chameleon.apk. If you stay on LK8 or update after, you're fine and probably haven't experienced any errors.
If you went back to stock LJC or any ROM based on LJC (meaning it contains the LJC version of Chameleon.apk) - you probably experienced both issues.
How to fix it? I've got several options available:
1) On Monday I posted a L900ErrFix.zip that is designed for people planning to move back to LK8 or LK8 based ROMs. It includes the LK8 Chameleon.apk and the LK8 carrier partition.
2) For those wishing to stay on LJC and LJC based ROMs - Gyrene2083 got his phone replaced and dumped the LJC carrier partition. I have attached a ZIP that you can flash by CWM/TWRP - Odin version coming soon. Big thanks for the assist on this!
What does this mean? Unless you jump to LK8, flashing other LJC ROMs should no longer have HFA/Chameleon errors reappear. But if you go to LK8 and back you'll need to flash a solution as LK8 will update the partition.
At some point this week I'll be rebuilding the LJC and LK8 one clicks to include a carrier partition as well as fix the recovery issue in LJC nodata versions. This should allow someone to flash one of these and avoid issues.
Developers - to avoid compatibility issues it may be wise to replace Chameleon.apk in your LJC based ROMs with the LK8 version. It will automatically update the partition and work without errors.