You should retry the upgrade, it's faster and more stable. You just had a corrupted file or something, if you really want the best is worth a try. It's 40% faster. There was just something wrong with your install.
Trust me I really wanted it and tried all the usual steps. I think something is wrong with my phones hardware that works mostly ok on this version. I actually stayed on an old version for a very long time, I rooted "root de la vega" and took one ota using the supersu option to keep root when using an ota. The next update after that would not work for me, I would have had to wipe and odin to update, so I held off thinking I wasn't missing anything. Till about a week or less after 4.4.4 came out then my phone started crashing the moment I received or made a call. I hadn't gotten any new apps or anything like that but just in case I factory reset to see if it fixed with no luck. So I finally upgraded via odin, no root now, but miraculously my phone could make calls again. I am giving you this essay because I have a feeling this issue is related. It seems it's my phones hardware that is messed up and i'm just lucky that 4.4.4 works at all. I still have issues every couple days where I make or receive a call and hear nothing, with a reboot needed to fix, that is confirmed still after a fresh install of 4.4.4 after all the 5.0 stuff I tried. Anyways thats why I think it's my phone. I wish I had an extended warranty so I could just update and make a claim.
As for everything I tried in the update, I took the ota, which was literally unusable by anybodys standard, I could use the phone for about 5-20ish seconds before it would crash, turning the sound to mute would help, but still crash at a couple minutes of use. I downloaded the firmware and flashed via Odin, same exact issues, changed nothing. Did several factory resets between all these steps. I kind of walked through the process on that thread I posted in the OP.
After making this thread I did try it one last time and flashed via odin, knowing that I had a workable fix, but same exact thing again. If they release another update I'll try then, but looks like I'm stuck till then at least.
