TLDR: Samsung N920F seems to be a N920T, and you can flush ROM from N920T.
Recently my friends asked to help them with their Galaxy Note 5 which was bought somewhere in China. It was stuck at Android 6, with last updates from 2016, and seemed to have some malware (factory reset did not help).
It was really strange to see model N920F - I checked many threads here, and everyone says that there should be no such version as N920F:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/note5/help/note-5-n920f-n920t-t3310411
https://forum.xda-developers.com/note5/help/settings-sm-n920f-boot-loader-sm-n920p-t3776224
https://forum.xda-developers.com/note5/help/note-5-sm-n920f-eu-variant-please-help-t3527449
https://forum.xda-developers.com/note5/help/sm-n920f-stock-roms-t3482405
https://forum.xda-developers.com/note5/help/note-5-european-version-sale-sm-n920f-t3190929
Unfortunately, not even one of those topics found any reason for this or solution for updating. So I tried to find out the true and update phone myself.
At first, I booted to recovery. And there I saw that it model name was nobleltetmo - same as for N920T.
So I tried to install TWRP from N920T via Odin. TWRP successfully installed but phone stopped booting and TWRP only booted but did not work - it told me about bootloader version mismatch. So I found out that phone's bootloader version was N920TUVU4DPK6. So I tried to find a working firmware for this bootloader version and found it on xda: https://forum.xda-developers.com/tm...eral/stock-n920t-stock-n920tuvu4dpk6-t3518252
Fortunately, I could enter download mode and flush it with Odin. After it, phone worked fine, and now it was officially N920T. But even better things awaited - after updating it managed to fetch fresh updates! So I downloaded and installed them. Phone updated... And found new updates... And about 10 times again like this. Finally, I got the latest official Samsung Firmware with Android 7.0 - and it works flawlessly. Even Googe Play, NFC and banking services. I suppose that after this I could flush TWRP again because bootloader version also updated - but official firmware was quite okay so I didn't want to set up Lineage OS.
By the way, I think that I could find latest firmware and flush it with Odin in one go - but I didn't succeed in finding it.
Please beware that this N920F turned to be N920T - but your one can be another (N920V or N920P, for example)!
Now I am pretty sure that F in model version stands for "F***ed up".
So check bootloader version and be accurate.
Recently my friends asked to help them with their Galaxy Note 5 which was bought somewhere in China. It was stuck at Android 6, with last updates from 2016, and seemed to have some malware (factory reset did not help).
It was really strange to see model N920F - I checked many threads here, and everyone says that there should be no such version as N920F:
https://forum.xda-developers.com/note5/help/note-5-n920f-n920t-t3310411
https://forum.xda-developers.com/note5/help/settings-sm-n920f-boot-loader-sm-n920p-t3776224
https://forum.xda-developers.com/note5/help/note-5-sm-n920f-eu-variant-please-help-t3527449
https://forum.xda-developers.com/note5/help/sm-n920f-stock-roms-t3482405
https://forum.xda-developers.com/note5/help/note-5-european-version-sale-sm-n920f-t3190929
Unfortunately, not even one of those topics found any reason for this or solution for updating. So I tried to find out the true and update phone myself.
At first, I booted to recovery. And there I saw that it model name was nobleltetmo - same as for N920T.
So I tried to install TWRP from N920T via Odin. TWRP successfully installed but phone stopped booting and TWRP only booted but did not work - it told me about bootloader version mismatch. So I found out that phone's bootloader version was N920TUVU4DPK6. So I tried to find a working firmware for this bootloader version and found it on xda: https://forum.xda-developers.com/tm...eral/stock-n920t-stock-n920tuvu4dpk6-t3518252
Fortunately, I could enter download mode and flush it with Odin. After it, phone worked fine, and now it was officially N920T. But even better things awaited - after updating it managed to fetch fresh updates! So I downloaded and installed them. Phone updated... And found new updates... And about 10 times again like this. Finally, I got the latest official Samsung Firmware with Android 7.0 - and it works flawlessly. Even Googe Play, NFC and banking services. I suppose that after this I could flush TWRP again because bootloader version also updated - but official firmware was quite okay so I didn't want to set up Lineage OS.
By the way, I think that I could find latest firmware and flush it with Odin in one go - but I didn't succeed in finding it.
Please beware that this N920F turned to be N920T - but your one can be another (N920V or N920P, for example)!
Now I am pretty sure that F in model version stands for "F***ed up".
So check bootloader version and be accurate.
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