I have a Verizon Galaxy S3 that I rooted with towelroot and not it won't update, did I do something wrong?

[TTR Awesomeness]

verizon galaxy s3 rooted with towelroot and wont update

Hi I have a samsung galaxy s3 i got last august (August of 2013) and had it on jelly bean 4.3. I rooted it when towel root came about was super easy so I did it. Kit Kat 4.4.2 came out a while back and has been pestering me with notifications about it ever since. Anytime I try to update I get about a 1/4 of the way through and get the error message. I reset the flash counter and it still wouldn't work so I tried using the unroot feature of Super SU and that wouldn't let it update so I did a factory reset and still the piece of junk won't update. I'm pretty sure I haven't disabled KNOX because anytime it came up in Super SU I would always tell it not to. Now I have run out of ideas to get it to update. I'm new to rooting (I'm more familiar with jailbreaks) and really don't want to flash softwares so is there anyway to fix it and update it or is has it been trashed?

 

[GSDer]

Re: verizon galaxy s3 rooted with towelroot and wont update

Hello and welcome to the forums!

I would have expected the SuperSU unroot to work correctly, but since it's not your best bet is to just flash the latest firmware. You can try using the Kies software on your computer or you can use a tool called Odin to manually load it - your choice.
If you use Kies it'll automatically find the correct firmware and load it; if you use Odin you'll have to download the firmware from here (Note: you'll have to register to use that site. The other site that I normally recommend seems to be down.)

 

[Rukbat]

Re: verizon galaxy s3 rooted with towelroot and wont update

If the update check reveals that the ROM has ever been rooted (and SuperSU can't undo things that other apps did while it was rooted), it's supposed to fail. Updating a phone with a stock update, when certain files have been modified, can brick the phone. (The check comes at 22%-25% of the process, depending on the update - which is exactly what's happening to you.) Back everything up (Backing up an Android Phone) and flash the 4.4.2 ROM for that model S3 ([Samsung] How to flash Stock ROM via ODIN), then restore everything.

The first time you flash a phone is terrifying. The 100th time, it's boring. (I bricked my Note 3 about 10 times this week, trying different ROMs. Aside from the problem I have sitting [I kicked myself for making stupid mistakes more than once], and the time I wasted, I was here answering questions while the phone was being flashed, so I wouldn't get bored.)

BTW, as I understand jailbreaking, it and rooting are the same thing - getting administrative rights to the phone. The exploits used are different (it's easier on iPhones - there are only 8 versions of iOS - there are dozens of versions of Android), but the end result is the same. (Except, I assume, that a jailbroken iPhone updates.)