Rebuilt `super` partition won't boot

Question

I'm trying to customize an Android 11 super partition, removing certain apps. I used https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/guide-ota-tools-lpunpack.4041843/ to unpack the super partition, mounted them as read-write using the instructions here and then repacked them as follows:

~/otatools/bin/lpmake \
--metadata-size 65536 \
--metadata-slots 2 \
--device super:2684354560 \
--group qti_dynamic_partitions:2680160256 \
--partition system:readonly:700383232:qti_dynamic_partitions \
--image system=./system.img \
--partition system_ext:readonly:300167168:qti_dynamic_partitions \
--image system_ext=./system_ext.img \
--partition product:readonly:68022272:qti_dynamic_partitions \
--image product=./product.img \
--partition vendor:readonly:304410624:qti_dynamic_partitions \
--image vendor=./vendor.img \
--output ./super.img

The command executes fine with the usual messages about invalid sparse images. But when I flash it using EDL mode, the phone won't boot. Furthermore, 7zip won't open this file like it opens the original super image, it detects it as a different format. It doesn't seem to be a boot verity issue. Obviously, I'm doing something wrong, but what?

Answer 1

Try replacing readonly with none, and add the flag "--virtual-ab". That did it for me.