Downgrading LineageOS to Android 10

LineageOS has now gone to Android 11, and like most users, I went ahead and upgraded to it. But then I started hitting lots of problems. Predominantly on location.

Android 11 changed the way location is requested and this breaks functionality in multiple apps. Ones I have noticed this issue with:

  • Just Eat
  • CityMapper
  • Google Maps (yes, surprisingly Google’s own app had trouble with locking on)

Other location apps may have also had the same issue, but I didn’t check those.

Waze did not have any issues locking on to location or tracking movement

Some non-location apps also broke. Fenix 2 (a Twitter client) and WeChat both stopped working and would not install off the Play Store, presumeably because of API differences.

I installed Plume instead (which I had previously purchased) and that installed and functioned happily.

WeChat I sideloaded by getting the apk from a mirror. That functioned okay, but could not log into Web WeChat

I decided to clean wipe and downgrade back to Android 10 (Lineage OS 17) to at least get things working again.

I formatted my SD card for Portable Storage, then took it to my laptop and saved the LOS flash zip, Open Gapps zip, and the latest Magisk.

I booted into TWRP Recovery and wiped, data, cache, system, ART and internal storage.

Switching to external storage, I then flashed LOS, OpenGapps, then Magisk.

I rebooted and let the OS do its thing until I got the welcome screen — that’s a good sign. I went through the setup but opted not to setup my Google Account yet.

Once through to the home page, I went and unlocked Developer options and enabled ADB, Local Terminal, Force Allow External Storage, and Force Close on Hold Back.

Then I plugged my phone into my pixelbook, allowed the debug connection and started up scrcpy which allows me to copy-paste text to and from the device.

I installed TitaniumBackup and the pro key so I can batch move apps to/from the storage.

The SD Card is still setup as Portable. So I formatted it as Internal. This took a few attempts as it kept erroring.

I went into Play Store and installed a few apps. A couple installed file, but the other errorred with a message:

"App requires external storage"

This was weird, I never saw that before, but checking around, I found this: https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-requires-external-storage.4098673/ which describes fixing the storage permissions. I ran this:

adb shell
su
restorecon -FR /data/media/0

I reinstalled the apps again, and there were no errors. Fenix 2 installed happily this time, enhancing my suspicion of some API change breaking it on Android 11.

Also found out that Strava required Google Maps so I also had to install Google Maps.

WeChat finally did install, but was then told by the app that my account cannot use Web WeChat, and I should use WeChat for Windows or Mac….. and I’m running Linux, so both of those options are not feasible.

However, I did find this: https://github.com/qo6xup6/ubuntu-deepin-wechat which is a Wine wrapper around the Windows WeChat app. This seems to work well, although I did have to update the client using the instructions on the README.md

FitBit refused to pair with my Ionic (again — it always seems to have this trouble whenever I have to reinstall the app). I eventually resorted to factory resetting my Ionic, and re-setting it up again. It worked this time, although the pairing took a few attempts.

Surprisingly, I was then able to add my Curve card to FitBit Pay, and the SMS verification worked.

All in all, it took me from around 7am to 12:30 pm to reflash, reinstall, and setup all the apps again, and reboot to make sure the apps still worked. So around 5 hours.

Training in Quarantine – Day 203

Forgot to log this walks yesterday, but yesterday morning the entire area was covered in fog and at 7am you couldn’t see more than 50m in front of you. Within 30 minutes, however, it had started to clear.

As for the walk, it was freezing cold at only 3degC at 4pm so my feet were beginning to go numb, even after only a 30 minute walk.

Training in Quarantine – Day 198

A very short walk due to heavy rain.

In other news, I found my replacement to Revolut — Curve.

Curve seems to be different. It’s not a bank of its own, but lets you put debit/credit cards onto your account and when you use the Curve card, the transaction goes onto the default card you have set on your account. And you can move the transaction from one card to the other (only once per transaction though).

Plus Curve supports FitBit Pay, meaning I can use that instead of Google Pay which has now broken again due to my device being rooted.

Training in Quarantine – Day 139

Another grey and rainy day. Found out that even though I didn’t renew my FitBit Premium subscription, some videos on the FitBit app are free to view, so I checked out one of their abs and core videos. At only 15 minutes it wasn’t long, so I thought “oh, it can’t be effective then”

My abs and core begged to differ with me afterwards…

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