Missing emojis

[th3_d4rk_kn1ght]

I have a problem with my SGH-i537, AT&T branded, unlocked, unrooted Galaxy S4 Active, 4.2.2, MF3. Wanting to rid my device of all the bloatware, I installed KingRoot. It appeared to offer an option to remove many, if not all of the apps I wanted to remove. Root Checker confirmed the root. Before making any changes I decided to do some reading here. After finding all the negative remarks, most of which seemed to be speculation rather than fact, I removed KingRoot. Root Checker comfirmed "not rooted"
After a couple of weeks or more of reading, I installed FlashFire. Again Root Checker confirmed the root. After poking around a bit I saw no benefit to FlashFire. No option to remove apps etc. So apparently I didn't get it. Maybe FlashFire sort of opens the door for other apps?
Anyway this is where the problem began. After I removed FlashFire all of my emojis were gone from Swiftkey and had been replaced with squares, like empty picture frames. Emojis on all 5 tabs were gone. The furthest tab to the right, the one with keyboard special characters was left intact. I've removed Swiftkey and re-installed it with no change. I've done a hard reset, twice with no change. I tried to wipe the cache, which failed with an error. So now I turn to the community for help. Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[th3_d4rk_kn1ght]

OK so I just installed Swiftmoji and still no emojis, nothing but number keys and squares where the emojis should be. I know the experts are here, I'm surprised no one has replied. Maybe my problem is unique?