Nokia 6 TA-1000 Android Pie to international ROM flashing issue

[keaixiaomeinv]

First of all, forgive me for being cognitively impaired when it comes to things like this. I work in marketing and can't code or follow instructions very well.

Here's the deal:
I made the mistake of buying a Chinese Nokia 6 way back, and now I want to flash it with an international ROM before giving it to my niece. Which international ROM it gets doesn't really matter so long as it has Gapps. Since my niece is three years old, she won't care if the phone has Nougat, Oreo, or Pie as she's likely to be more interested in eating those pastries rather than having one as the firmware on her freebie phone.

First of all, I just updated to Android 9 before I began working on this little project. That might have been my first mistake.

Anyway.

I started by following this guide. I wasn't able to get OST LA to work so I gave up.

Then I started following this guide, as it seemed to involve less work.

• I downloaded all the relevant files;
• renamed them;
• put them on my SD card;
• went into recovery mode;
• installed the update
• rebooted the phone and;
• installed the firmware.zip

However, after the installation, the phone never goes further than the Nokia-logo. I can reboot all I want, but it's stuck. I can't even get into recovery anymore. I believe this is a bootloop? The main issue here is that I am completely locked out of my phone, and that is really annoying.

Any tips or ideas on how to get away from this unpleasant conundrum would be greatly appreciated.

 

[keaixiaomeinv]

Ok, an update.

I was able to find a way to access the damn recovery menu after following the steps proposed by viennazar in this thread.

Similarly, I did a wipe as per his instructions, and rebooted the phone after that. Lo and behold, my phone was able to move past the Nokia-logo, and booted up as a TA-1003!

Now, my main issue is that I am unable to move past the initial setup as the phone is checking for updates from Google's servers. That means I am fresh out of luck since I have the great misfortune of residing in the PRC.

That's an entirely different issue though...