GS4 i337 issues and Factory Reset questions

[Fuego]

Having lots of "service" problems since the 4.4.3 update. When WiFi goes dark (phone in my pocket) and I happen to be in an area where 4G and voice service are spotty at best the phone hangs. In other words I can't seem to get it to get back onto the AT&T network, and sometimes WiFi when I get into areas where I would normally have good 4G and voice coverage. Sometimes I can flip the phone into Airplane Mode and back off and the problem goes away. More often than not I have to restart the phone to get it talking again - usually to a flood of missed texts and voicemail messages - not good. On what seems to be an increasing basis the WiFi acts like it is locked up. I can turn it off, but when turning it back on it stalls at "Starting WiFi" but never finishes unless I restart the phone.

A new SIM from AT&T did not solve the 4G & voice issue - I knew it wouldn't but that's what AT&T did for me. All of these problems started after 4.4.3 was forced on my phone in spite of my postponing it for over a month. I'm guessing that KitKat is the source of these issues but I've never done a factory reset and hate to lose any of my configuration. I have a 64GB SD card (no problems with it ever) and have moved a number of apps to it, and have turned off/hidden a bunch more stock AT&T/Samsung BS apps I don't use. The phone is backed up with the latest version of Kies (3.2.14055_3) and Helium (for the apps).

My question is - how much work am I going to have to do to get the phone back to its current state? I'm assuming that after reset I'll need to restore the phone from the Kies backup, install Helium and then restore from the Helium backup. What happens to the apps that were moved to the SD card, and the ones that are tuned off/hidden? Am I going to have to re-hide and move all of them again after the factory reset. Any chance of data loss on the SD card during, or as a result of the reset?

Sorry for the n00bish questions. I postponed KitKat for over a month while studying how to root the phone then AT&T forced the crap-a$$ KitKat update on me. I've had the phone since 4.2.2 and had ZERO issues with it until the 4.4.3 update.

 

[Fuego]

Ended up trying Kies 3 for one backup, and Helium for another as it was supposed to back up my apps and settings before the factory reset. The restore process after reset left a lot more out than I was expecting but eventually got the phone back to nearly where it had been.

Many of my issues were resolved after the reset (actually at 4.4.2). My only real issue with the phone now is that with Wi-Fi connected in a weak to non existent AT&T area the cell voice, sms and 4G data service, if the AT&T services drop out, they don't reconnect once I get outside and back into coverage. A restart is the ONLY way for me to get back in service. Flipping airplane mode on/off no longer works to recover it. I can't figure out if it's a rom problem with 4.4.2, or the phone. SIM was replaced by AT&T and it made no difference.

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[Fuego]

Another issue I had after the factory reset was apparently resolved this morning. My 4G indicator stayed on the status bar when connected to Wi-Fi. Before the 4.4.2 update it was hidden when using Wi-Fi. This morning I received notification of an update to AT&T Visual Voicemail and within the notes it mentioned an issue with the 4G indicator being resolved. After the update it did in fact take care of that nagging issue.
Now if the service drops that require a restart to resolve gets fixed I'd be happy. Hoping someone finds a way to root 4.4.2 in the near future ago I can tweak the phone a bit more to my liking.

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