In-App Purchases with the Play Store Patch for MicroG

[tangboshi]

Hi peeps,

on my 8T I have Lineage OS 18.1 with MicroG installed. MicroG's fake store does not allow for in-app purchases so I thought about replacing it with a patched version of the Play Store that would allow exactly that.

My question would be if anyone has achieved this or has another means of making in-app purchases with Lineage OS and MicroG.

Here's a description of what I have tried so far:

So I have found this patch from the MicroG dev. However, I noticed that the patch newest patch is for version 20.9 of the Play Store which is pretty old. Trying to patch the recent version 25.6.14 (and 25.5.33) failed with the following error message:

Detected Play Store:

    APK:    Phonesky-25.6.14.apk
    VER:    82561410 [25.6.14-21]
    
[1] Unpacking APK
[2] Patching APK
[3] Repacking APK
brut.androlib.AndrolibException: brut.common.BrutException: could not exec (exit code = 1): [/tmp/brut_util_Jar_60043284154080583154029902298278840174.tmp, p, --forced-package-id, 127, --min-sdk-version, 21, --target-sdk-version, 30, --version-code, 82561410, --version-name, 25.6.14-21 [0] [PR] 376382668, --no-version-vectors, -F, /tmp/APKTOOL9191445409255452037.tmp, -e, /tmp/APKTOOL384809595961443949.tmp, -0, arsc, -I, /home/alex/.local/share/apktool/framework/1.apk, -S, /home/alex/patched_playstore/microg-phonesky-iap-support/play_25.6.14-21/res, -M, /home/alex/patched_playstore/microg-phonesky-iap-support/play_25.6.14-21/AndroidManifest.xml]

ERROR: apktool failed to repack Phonesky-25.6.14.apk

So at first, I thought this failed because of the age of the patch but then the process failed in the repacking step, not the patching step. Secondly, I saw this issue implying that somebody successfully patched a version 25 Play Store. Am I missing something?

FWIW, my apktool version is 2.5.0-1 from the Arch User Repositories built with Oracle JDK 16.

Thanks in advance for any help!
Cheers,
Alex

 

[tangboshi]

@Oswald Boelcke

You said you were using µG for years. May I ask whether you have ever made any in-app purchases with µG or found a way to circumvent them somehow for instance maybe by making the purchase on another device with the Play Store and downloading the app on the µG device?

 

[Oswald Boelcke]

@Oswald Boelcke

You said you were using µG for years. May I ask whether you have ever made any in-app purchases with µG or found a way to circumvent them somehow for instance maybe by making the purchase on another device with the Play Store and downloading the app on the µG device?

Affirmative, I've made multiple purchases while running µG (the last two ones last month) but also in-app purchases. I'm convinced you're aware that this doesn't work with the "regular" Google Playstore (GPS) but only with the one modified by Setalphia, the developer of Nanodroid and owner of the nanolx f-droid repo. Setalphia's GPS is the one and only Google application in my app portfolio.
Usually, I use the Aurora Store but only with the anonymous account as I won't to avoid that Google deletes my account, what would be possible by their TOR's although I've personally never heard that it happened to someone. This means I can't access my purchases via Aurora and I'm also unable to make in-app purchases; as a side effect by use of the (mod) GPS I'm able to join beta programmes on Google.
Attached are screenshots what I'm using. In case of questions, please come back to me. Thanks to your question I realised that there was a newer version of the (mod) GPS available but I'd to remove the installed one first due to different signatures; I believe the one that was installed came with the Nanodroid microG module many months ago. By the way, I've downloaded and installed the new and latest (mod) GPS version via Aurora Droid.
Last but not least, I've never explored any alternate means to retrieves purchases or make in-app ones, and didn't find such ways by accident either. Use of warez is at no time any solution for me.

Spoiler: Screenshots

 

[tangboshi]

@Oswald Boelcke

Thanks! Could you explain how you removed the "old version"? I just want to be safe that I don't misunderstand anything. Do I simply connect via adb shell and remove the FakeStore app from /system/priv-app/ and then use Aurora Droid with the Nanodroid repo enabled to install version 20.9? Does installing GPS via Aurora Droid install it as a system app? I assume that would be necessary for it to work correctly.

Thx a bunch!

 

[Oswald Boelcke]

@Oswald Boelcke

Thanks! Could you explain how you removed the "old version"? I just want to be safe that I don't misunderstand anything. Do I simply connect via adb shell and remove the FakeStore app from /system/priv-app/ and then use Aurora Droid with the Nanodroid repo enabled to install version 20.9? Does installing GPS via Aurora Droid install it as a system app? I assume that would be necessary for it to work correctly.

Thx a bunch!

How you uninstall might be subject to the device. I use a Samsung Galaxy S8+ (SM-G955F) with LOS 16.0 and Magisk v23.0. I very, vary rarely have the requirement to use adb, and in this case I uninstalled via Titanium Backup (very important to immediately reboot into system).
For many years, I believe since my Milestone 2 times, I haven't used the FakeStore. Maybe you find a date in my very old and for a long time not updated or maintained thread here. And you're correct, after my installation of the new version of (mod) GPS from the Aurora Store, it was just a "regular" app but it's a must to have it as system app in priv-app. I just the Magisk module "Systemizer" for that; an excellent and via terminal (in my case Termux) easy to use tool.

 

[tangboshi]

@Oswald Boelcke

Hmm, I was not able to uninstall FakeStore via Titanium Backup. After uninstalling and rebooting it was still there. You said it was important to reboot into system. I'm not sure what you meant there, surely not boot into the bootloader or recovery, right? I simply rebooted Lineage but after that, the FakeStore was still present.

I then tried to uninstall the FakeStore by removing its directory from /system/priv-apps. That was a pretty bad mistake! The boots took very long after this. After the first reboot I lost Magisk root as well as any wireless connectivity including mobile data. Also after a few minutes, I would get a message about a kernel panic related to the Qualcomm chip. I would have to restart every minute or two. So I had to reinstall Lineage OS from recovery, get root back and restore my backups via Titanium.

So now I'm basically back to square one. Do you know where I can find a tutorial help or help for uninstalling the FakeStore without breaking stuff? (My device is a Oneplus 8T and I installed µG via the dedicated images provided by µG for Lineage)

 

[Oswald Boelcke]

@tangboshi

Sorry to hear about your issues. Affirmative, by reboot into system I meant reboot into your OS i.e. LOS. As said, last I used FakeStore years ago but I think the procedure should be the same as I uninstalled my (mod) Google Playstore with TB.

Spoiler: Screenshots

In TB, I first clicked the "Uninstall" button but immediately after this has finished I swipped to left for the right tab. Now I used "Force remove app (by recovery exploit)", and after that process finished I immediate reboot into my OS without doing anything before.

And just a guess that might work, too. Download the Nanodroid mircoG module and flash the module via TWRP. I assume you're familiar with the Nanodroid setup and setup file creation.

 

[tangboshi]

@Oswald Boelcke

Before trying to uninstall FakeStore again I wanted to make sure that I can even systemize the Play Store app. So I tried to systemize another app "Greenify" that was already installed. So I did as you suggested and downloaded the Magisk Systemizer as well as Busybox modules. However, when trying to systemize Greenify with "systemize -a com.oasisfeng.greenify" it would say that /data/app/com.oasisfeng.greenify-*/base.apk doesn't exist which is true (pm list packages -f greenify told me that the path is actually "/data/app/~~8t9mrQoJML_GlZyNU2at0g==/com.oasisfeng.greenify-K8BSBcAN9N83QhKC3sYnow==/base.apk=com.oasisfeng.greenify". Using the fully qualified path did not work either...

By the way, I can't use TWRP as no image exists for my device, unfortunately (one exists for the OnePlus 8 and the 8 Pro but not the 8T). Instead I use the Lineage OS custom recovery image.

 

[Oswald Boelcke]

@tangboshi

Sorry, I've to resign. I quite using Greenify when I went to Oreo as I didn't recognise any reason anymore to use it as doze worked great for me on Oreo like now on Pie.
And no experiences with Oneplus, A/B devices or lack of TWRP at all.

I really hope somebody else is able to support you.

 

[Sc4r3Crow]

Affirmative, I've made multiple purchases while running µG (the last two ones last month) but also in-app purchases. I'm convinced you're aware that this doesn't work with the "regular" Google Playstore (GPS) but only with the one modified by Setalphia, the developer of Nanodroid and owner of the nanolx f-droid repo. Setalphia's GPS is the one and only Google application in my app portfolio.
Usually, I use the Aurora Store but only with the anonymous account as I won't to avoid that Google deletes my account, what would be possible by their TOR's although I've personally never heard that it happened to someone. This means I can't access my purchases via Aurora and I'm also unable to make in-app purchases; as a side effect by use of the (mod) GPS I'm able to join beta programmes on Google.
Attached are screenshots what I'm using. In case of questions, please come back to me. Thanks to your question I realised that there was a newer version of the (mod) GPS available but I'd to remove the installed one first due to different signatures; I believe the one that was installed came with the Nanodroid microG module many months ago. By the way, I've downloaded and installed the new and latest (mod) GPS version via Aurora Droid.
Last but not least, I've never explored any alternate means to retrieves purchases or make in-app ones, and didn't find such ways by accident either. Use of warez is at no time any solution for me.

Hey Oswald, can you tell me how to get the patched play store? I' running LOS 19 atm with integrated MicroG but no working play store. I would like to install my purchased apps, but didn't find any solution for my problem yet.


Thanks in advance.

 

[Oswald Boelcke]

Hey Oswald, can you tell me how to get the patched play store? I' running LOS 19 atm with integrated MicroG but no working play store. I would like to install my purchased apps, but didn't find any solution for my problem yet.


Thanks in advance.

Hello and good morning, @Sc4r3Crow

Sorry, I've most likely to apologise. On my Samsung S8+, I'm still running LOS 16.0 and will never go above that. I've got my patched Play Store from Nanodroid but it seems to be abandonned i.e. I even don't know how old my Play Store is but it's working still fine:

Spoiler

If you like I can extract the apk with SD Maid and post it here unless @Setialpha disagrees.

 

[Sc4r3Crow]

Hello and good morning, @Sc4r3Crow

Sorry, I've most likely to apologise. On my Samsung S8+, I'm still running LOS 16.0 and will never go above that. I've got my patched Play Store from Nanodroid but it seems to be abandonned i.e. I even don't know how old my Play Store is but it's working still fine: If you like I can extract the apk with SD Maid and post it here unless @Setialpha disagrees.

Hey @Oswald Boelcke, thanks for your reply.

I would appreciate that if you provide me the referring apk of the latest patched play store.

The last time I've used a working play store in combination with MicroG was some months ago while using MinMicroG, maybe an apk of the store could also be extracted from there, idk.

It would help me a lot if you help me with my issue, so thanks in advance


Greetings, Sc4r3Crow