MicroG: What to do about apps that say "You don't have Google Play services" inspite of MicroG being installed?

I tried that, than re-installed and re-registered the app, no luck. It still says it doesn’T have Google Play.
Did I read that correctly that at least at some point, you’ve had Android apps wokring fine with Push Notifications, enabled by the use of MicroG?

the MicroG apps that I installed never asked me for any permissions iirc. What kind of permissions did you give them, and how? Were you asked for them, or do you just know we need to do it?

They need many permissions to work correctly. Most important one is Signature Spoofing, which essentially makes apps thinking MicroG == Google Mobile Services (despite MicroG having different signature).

The rest is handled by MicroG Settings app in which you can request the remaining permissions.

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thank you. I did not understand that I could actually request the remaining permissions in the MicroG app. I thought it was just to diagnose the status - meaning where checkmarks are missing, I couldn’t change that in the app directly, because: tapping the checkboxes actually doesn’t do anything, they don’t respond!
I found out now you have to tap the text next to the checkbox :man_facepalming: Very unintuitive IMHO.
Hwoever, checking all the boxes makes my banking app believe it has Google Play services now…

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I don’t quite understand how apparently you have to enable signature spoofing both in the MicroG app AND in Sailfish settings for AppSupport - where it’s actually called “Disable Android AppSupport system package verification”. Someone here said that that’s actually the same. Can anyone confirm this?

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Enable this first in AppSupport (AlienDalvik) Sailfish OS settings, reboot. This allows signature spoofing for compatible apps.

Then install latest MicroG (0.3.2 currently) and in MicroG settings, click on Signature Spoofing and confirm the popup, which will appear.

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Following the update to 4.6 my banking app is the only app that doesn’t work. I have tried reinstalling it, reinstalled micro-g along with the companion app and framework from F-droid. tried all manner of permission combos in the android settings, micro g settings, cleared data and storage cache via android app settings and sailfish settings for the banking app and micro-g.

After all that it still doesn’t work and displays an error message that now GMS services are available on the device. I really want to avoid hard reseting the phone and end up in situation where I’d need to re-flash the o/s which would not be possible as my usb port only charges and cannot send/receive data now due to wear and tear.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Phone: Xperia 10

I think the banking app recognizes that the system has changed due to the update. For the app it’s like installing it on a new device.
So maybe it needs complete re-registering like on a new device, because the system fingerprint now has changed.

Banking app was also reinstalled after comment nothing… and since sailfish removes app files completely when removed and gsuite is broken. Presuming every major update breaks g-suite, this leaves people in a very messy predicament when it comes to restoring apps. Especially since many no longer offer any ability to back up to a microsd card slot. Jolla needs to implement a full device back up onto msd card and USB OTG along with a desktop manager to get around this issue. Especially since Sailfish X is mostly used on legacy Sony devices which will have slow degrading USB ports.

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Therefore I do not update now.

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Off-topic wishful nonsense.

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What is an OTG? (20 chars)

Still off-topic but:

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:man_facepalming: Quality of life improvements is wishful off topic nonsense? What planet did you fall out from? Pluto?

A desktop manager would allow users to easily flash updates and back up their devices without having to worry about it not able to restore their applications and data. Because if micro-g install is borked you cannot restore any damn data after a hard reset as the android apps are no long resident in the mainphones storage. Sure, you can plug your phone in via usb onto a PC and then go and manually back up the android files but to expect non-tech savy folks to do that?

Is absolutely retarded.

Without the average consumer buying their devices and subscriptions how do you expect to Jolla to grow as a business?

USB OTG is a standard feature on all modern smartphones now so that is needed for feature parity.
Back up to MSD card exists in the o/s but not for android applications.

It’s morons like you that push users away and end up hurting Jolla’s ability to generate future revenue.

Micro-G has constantly broken for me every major update and unlike previous updates no fix is working. So yeah, it’s absolutely on topic because if Jolla expect users to go through hoops every major update to get micro-g working. They won’t have a much of a userbase any more.

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Yes, backups is off topic for Google Play Services and microG - i.e. this topic (thread).
It is not like “A desktop manager” is particularly mainstream. Android only appears to have dubious 3rd-party ones, and i can’t remember when i last heard someone use iTunes for similar things. Feel free to make one; but asking Jolla for it is delusional. There are a 100 features that are more needed.

Yes, that is what a reinstall does - why so surprised?

But for completeness, I have persisted my microG install since my 10 III was just supported. Come to think of it, i have never had microG, break - nor AppSupport. You must be doing something odd - or judging it by your banking app being upset only.

I.e. you are XY:ing this problem so hard it is kind of funny. “Some Android app breaks for me, therefore Jolla must make a silly desktop manager”. If you demand to be allowed to be a nontechnical user - refrain from making technical recommendations. I’ll not contribute to derailing this topic any more,

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I feel compelled to reply to give you and others with a similar mindset some advice choose to take it or not, it’s not my concern. My concern is that Jolla remains a viable company.

What I have experienced is typical response from someone who has not worked in front line tech support before and this has happened before on other occassions relating to the weather app along time back - So, it’s a pattern.

If you want Jolla to remain viable company then the business must grow and that involves attracting non-tech savy users.

If a tech savy user as myself cannot get a coherrent straight answer without getting belittled by shortsighted people who cannot see beyond 5 minutes than Jolla is doomed to fail and will not last long as a company which would be a crying shame.

A subscription model is endemic of a company struggling financially so they have been forced to tap further into a dwindling pool of users to sustain themselves through ongoing revenue.

Bringing this topic back to track, I hard reset the phone which reverted the O/S back to the previous version and Micro-G is working again and so is the banking app.

But this is not an acceptable remedy as it involves losing all your chat data, app settings and what not especially if you have a faulty usb port in an ageing device rendering you unable to use mass storage mode to back up the relevant folders used by android subsystem.

Which will be beyond the scope of non-techie users. Trying to copy data off the in-use internal storage using applications onto a msd card also is a poor experience as some apps crash, some don’t copy properly or fail to copy anything at all. Tried sending files and folders to my PC via bluetooth no luck at all. The link between apps and share functions to bluetooth refused to initiate properly.

So, back up regularly, just copy all folders from your internal storage on to a PC or Laptop via a usb cable.

Ultimately I guess people should wait to update until this issue is resolved as good luck getting a simple answer from “more experienced sailfish o/s users”, or you could try asking for help maybe you’ll have a better luck than me, or maybe you won’t who knows. Good luck and goodluck to Jolla, you’re going to need it. Rocky waters ahead, that’s for certain.

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I did not detect a straight question. Rather you showed up and started making demands, and not in the abstract - but that things be done a very specific way.

If your app is this fragile; nothing says a restored backup will go smoothly either. And while we are still derailed; where i come from, backups too are well beyond the capabilities of “normal users”. (Beyond what is forced on people by default).

Please don’t. “Restoring” such “backups” is quite the foot-gun.

Meanwhile i have had zero issues with the upgrade, despite two fairly silly bankikng-adjacent apps wanting microG.

Oh, you seem to understand the situation way better than people watching Jolla closely for 11 years (since the beginning of 2013), both technically and economically! :wink:

BTW, Jolla has been trying to grow with SailfishOS and their own devices until the end of 2015, only to be saved in the very last moment by new investor money from bankruptcy. In H2/2014 they also started to diversify by trying to find big entities as SailfishOS licensees, and succeeded to contract Intex creating the Aquafish model (a Jolla C variant supporting the frequency bands used in India) and later with Inoi creating the R7 model (basically also a Jolla C variant). Commercially both models were a failure for the companies (far more for Intex than for Inoi).

After their crash in H2/2015 Jolla stopped selling hardware and tried more intensively to find big licensees, succeeding a few years later with Rostelecom, a subsidiary of the Russian Rostec technology conglomerate, ultimately resulting in establishing a sub-subsidiary called OMP (Open Mobile Russia) which contributed enhancements to SailfishOS; also Rostelecom and Russian investors became major shareholders (little less than 50%) of Jolla and gained seats on Jolla’s board. Rather a side note is that in this time period (2016- 2018) also a licensing deal with Jalla in South America was made but dissolved a little later.

At the end of the 2010s Jolla realised that all their efforts to acquire big licensees (companies and governments) failed, except for their very successful relationship with Rostelecom and hence started to diversify in a different direction by renaming AlienDalvik into “Android App Support (AAS)” and offering it as a stand-alone product, ultimately with moderate success.

Please note that we, the individual licensees of SailfishOS never contributed significantly to Jolla revenue, our role was primarily to beta-test SailfishOS and AlienDalvik / AAS.

At the end of 2021 Jolla initiated a hard split with Rostelecom, which put them(self) into a dire financial situation again. At that time their focus shifted almost completely to acquiring AlienDalvik / AAS licensing entities, thus SailfishOS primarily became a testing environment for their primary product.

In Q4/2023 Jolla was spit into Jollyboys Oy which maintains SailfishOS and Seafarix Oy which maintains AAS (Android App Support), partly to cut the last remaining ties to Russia by dissolving Jolla Oy, partly (from what I gathered) because Jolla was basically bankrupt again. Jollyboys received the brand name Jolla, its website etc., but also the lack of a (at least moderately) working business model, in contrast to Seafarix.

You seem to assume a few things, which were proven wrong in the past 10 years:

  • A couple of 10.000 individual licensees are far too less to finance a sustainable development of SailfishOS. IMO a subscription model will not fundamentally change that.
  • There is no growth potential beyond roughly this number of individual licensees. Most people are obviously happy with their Android or iOS devices and a good fraction of those strongly avoiding these also avoid Jolla, because Jolla’s software stack contains some proprietary components (a line of thinking which I understand well, when one values controllability, inspectability and the ability to alter any software component very high).
  • Ultimately all efforts to acquire big licensees (companies and governments) failed (economically for company licensees), except for Rostelecom due to political will (by the Russian government) which lastly was ceased due to political will (by Jolla’s executives; understandably so, because strong ties to Russia heavily limit business opportunities due to sanctions and political will of third parties).

So what is the business perspective of Jollyboys?
Apparently betting that selling devices with SailfishOS (the Jolla C2) works better than 10 years ago and that their AI appliance will take off.
Consequently there is a single statement in your post I concur with, when ripped out of context:

[…] Jolla is doomed to fail […]

… and with it SailfishOS, because no one can continue maintaining it when Jollyboys go bankrupt without reimplementing the proprietary components, which is not a feasible task for a community of volunteers.

P.S.: You may consider more thoroughly to abstain from accusing people with many years of in-depth experience with SailfishOS and Jolla of “[not being able to provide] a coherrent (sic!) straight answer without […] belittle[ing you]” and “cannot see beyond 5 minutes”, when you are a newbie, who subscribed to this forum two months ago, and just because you “worked in front line tech support before”, while failing to pose a coherent question. @attah is absolutely correct that all the yadda-yadda about a “desktop manager” and other things which “must be implemented” is nonsensical, when there are not sufficient resources to maintain SailfishOS properly; your “ideas” are just wishful thinking while ignoring reality, except if you start to implement these things yourself.

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Just a friendly reminder that Jolla has no part in supporting Google Play Services. Some of us have installed MicroG, which is a best-effort re-implementation of the propietary APIs.

With that in mind, blaming Jolla for a broken app downloaded from Play Store on Sailfish OS is quite likely barking up the wrong tree.

Please remember who deliver what, and what is promised and what is not.

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