After seeing a few people arguing over whether or not it is possible to downgrade from Lollipop to KitKat while maintaining root, I decided to give it a try....and it worked!!
Below are the exact steps that I took in order to downgrade. Please attempt at your own risk!
1. Backup contacts and all user apps onto an external location (SD Card, computer, etc).
2. Download the NK1 firmware and place it somewhere on your phone's internal storage. I got my firmware from SamMobile.
3. Download and install FlashFire.
4. Backup your device using FlashFire in case anything goes wrong. Make sure to save the backup on your external SD Card!
5. After completing the backup, your device should reboot. Proceed to open FlashFire again, this time selecting the "Firmware" option from the pop-up menu.
6. Select the NK1 firmware and allow it to verify. Then press "Flash" at the bottom of the screen.
**** 7. After the firmware flashed successfully, my phone got stuck on the red Verizon boot screen. After letting it sit for 5-10 minutes, I pulled the battery. I then reinserted the battery and booted into recovery mode (hold power, volume up, and the home button during boot) and did a factory reset. ****
8. After the factory reset, I rebooted once more and the phone started successfully.
9. The SuperSU application is located within the app drawer, however, it never fully loads upon opening....BUT, I do have root access and all root applications I have downloaded have been successfully granted superuser permission.
So there you have it! Not the safest procedure, but it certainly worked for me! If you end up downgrading and losing root, you should be able to upgrade back to 5.0, root, and try again.
**EDIT** - The reason this works is because when you flash a firmware package using FlashFire, regardless of which firmware it is, SuperSU is always injected during the flash. Not sure if it's just luck that it happens to work when downgrading to 4.4.4 or not... But that's what I have been able to gather.
Below are the exact steps that I took in order to downgrade. Please attempt at your own risk!
1. Backup contacts and all user apps onto an external location (SD Card, computer, etc).
2. Download the NK1 firmware and place it somewhere on your phone's internal storage. I got my firmware from SamMobile.
3. Download and install FlashFire.
4. Backup your device using FlashFire in case anything goes wrong. Make sure to save the backup on your external SD Card!
5. After completing the backup, your device should reboot. Proceed to open FlashFire again, this time selecting the "Firmware" option from the pop-up menu.
6. Select the NK1 firmware and allow it to verify. Then press "Flash" at the bottom of the screen.
**** 7. After the firmware flashed successfully, my phone got stuck on the red Verizon boot screen. After letting it sit for 5-10 minutes, I pulled the battery. I then reinserted the battery and booted into recovery mode (hold power, volume up, and the home button during boot) and did a factory reset. ****
8. After the factory reset, I rebooted once more and the phone started successfully.
9. The SuperSU application is located within the app drawer, however, it never fully loads upon opening....BUT, I do have root access and all root applications I have downloaded have been successfully granted superuser permission.
So there you have it! Not the safest procedure, but it certainly worked for me! If you end up downgrading and losing root, you should be able to upgrade back to 5.0, root, and try again.
**EDIT** - The reason this works is because when you flash a firmware package using FlashFire, regardless of which firmware it is, SuperSU is always injected during the flash. Not sure if it's just luck that it happens to work when downgrading to 4.4.4 or not... But that's what I have been able to gather.
Last edited:
