Sure thing. So the weird letters/numbers when opening TWRP...the initial screen was asking for a password of some sort. I had been just hitting 'ok' and moving on. Once I typed in my 4 digit phone unlock code (for when fingerprint verification fails), it decrypted the files and everything was perfect.Can I ask you how you fixed this? I'm having the same issue and this post popped up on Google.
For the other part...I am struggling to give the perfect answer as I tried so many things. Either go to settings and tell it to not verify OR...download the skipsoft toolkit, pay the $5 or whatever it is for the premium version, and it'll do everything for you. Let me know if you need more info!