I understand the title sounds very basic. But I could not think of a way to describe my question in a short title. My question sort of comes in two parts. 1. Do I actually need to install microg and 2. Now that I have upgraded from LineageOS 17 with microg to LineageOS 18 without microg (by mistake), are there any gotchya's and clarify some instructions from microg's official instructions.
Device is OnePlus 7 Pro, in case it matters. My particular case is, I recently upgraded from LOS 17 with microg to LOS 18 without microg by mistake. What I mean by that is, I'm still very green when it comes to flashing ROM's and other android development. I was more nervous about bricking my phone, I was following Lineage's upgrade instructions to the tee. Here is my mistake. I used Lineage's upgrade instructions link to the img to download and flash, and not microg's img download like I should have.
At first, I honestly didn't notice the difference at all. Microg's settings app was still installed, most apps seemed to work. They popped up a warning or notification about not being able to work without google play services, but allowed me to hit "Ok" and continue to use the app.
Just the other day, Lineage pushed out an OTA update, and I updated, then that changed. Now I can't use those apps at all anymore at all. They instantly close. So I went to searching for my issue, and basically it lead me to realize, I installed the LOS without microg. So I read their instructions to get an idea of what I should have done. Now I have questions.
Question 1: The symptoms I'm describing, I do actually need to re-flash the microg img even though I have the microg settings app installed. Correct? I think the answer is "Yes". I just want to see if anyone can confirm this or tell me maybe another or better way, since I'm dealing with a non-typical issue.
Question 2: If question 1 is "Yes" and I do need to re-flash with the microg lineage img. Then it's really a series of questions clarifying microg's installation instructions. Because I'm a newbie and don't understand everything as a more experienced android dev would.
- Do I or should I uninstall the microg settings app first?
- Since I just OTA updated, I think according to microg's install instructions, I need to wait for another release before trying to flash the microg lineage img, correct? Or would rolling back a version be a better option?
- In their "Migration from LineageOS" section, I noticed that they mentioned "...you can't directely flash our ROM on top of the official LineageOS while keeping your data...". So I can't keep my personal data, or installed apps, pictures, music, etc? Is this correct? If so, is there any way to back it up, and re-install after I re-flash the microg img?
- In their install docs, they also say "If you have installed unofficial builds of", and in that list, I think I have almost all of them. But I don't think they are "unofficial". F-Droid should be from their github, and all the rest I think were installed from my last microg installation prior to the upgrade I just made. I honestly don't know if they technically still installed or not given my apps crashing which need google play services. As I mentioned the microg settings app is still there. I don't even know how to verify this. I will say, after having these troubles and poking around, I have noticed that they mention in the "Post-install" section that by default MozillaNlpBackend and NominatimNlpBackend are both plugins which are installed by default. And "If you want to use these plugins, go to microG Settings -> UnifiedNlp Settings, configure and enable both". Even though I have the mocroG settings app installed. That "UnifiedNlp Settings" is just not there in mine.
So what do you guys think? Does it sound like this is my issue? That I don't have microg installed even though the settings app is there? And are there any special things I need to do before trying to re-flash the microg lineage img?
