After some messing around I was able to get my soft-bricked Samsung Galaxy A5 Duos (SM-A5000) running again:
Can I recover a soft-bricked Galaxy A5 without voiding the warranty?
However, the version of the firmware I flashed (Kit-kat) didn't have Google Play on it. I tried installing the latest APK that I could find, but when I try to open the installed app is just force-closes with this message:
Unfortunately, Google Play Store has stopped.
I thought perhaps I was missing Google Play Services so I tried installing that too (from this link), but it died with the same error as above. I also tried installing version 5.5.8 of Google Play Store (after removing all previously installed APKs) with the same outcome.
Eventually I concluded that I must need to install a GApps package.
Is there a specific version I need to be installing to run with my version of Android? What are the prerequisites for this to run? And why doesn't my version already have it? I thought I was installing the stock OS?? (To clarify, the version of the OS that the phone shipped with had the Google Play store)
Answer
Installing the Hong Kong firmware fixed the problem. Apparently it's just the mainland firmware that has Google apps blocked...
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