2020-12-12

Sumaho from China

Becauズ my life doesn't suck enough, I buy Sumaho from 中国...

Following again a note to myself:

I had low expectations - and even lower demand. The only reason for this device to come into my existence is to run some unverified applications that I am forced to install.

Anyway - I get this thing - I start it up and notice that Google services are in a constant crash cycle. Completely unusable. I read that this happens if google services are too old or something. Not sure - Android 6.0 too old? Who knows - I like the clear error. Next step, download newer apk from somewhere on the internet and push it via adb.

So I hook it up to USB and start adb. Good thing - it already comes rooted - fantastic. So poking around, I see nothing at first glance. But then, when I try to get some settings, I see this:

"/system/bin/settings[5]: app_process: not found"

root@4G:/system/bin # ls -l app_process
lrwxr-xr-x root     shell             2019-06-18 17:54 app_process -> /root/ext4/system/bin/app_process64  

Yeah, this doesn't look right - since it's rooted (and I don't give a s... about this thing) I just bend the link to where I think it should be. DONE!

root@4G:/system/bin # mount -o remount,rw /system
root@4G:/system/bin # ln -fs app_process64 app_process 
root@4G:/system/bin # mount -o remount,ro /system
root@4G:/system/bin # ls -l app_process
lrwxrwxrwx root     root              2018-01-01 01:34 app_process -> app_process64

Finally:

 ./adb install ~/Downloads/com.google.android.instantapps.supervisor_6.09-release-345429215-65418_minAPI23_maxAPI25\(armeabi-v7a\)\(nodpi\)_apkmirror.com.apk
Performing Push Install
/Users/bon/Downloads/com.google.android.instantapps.supervisor_6.09-release-345429215-65418_minAPI23_maxAPI25(armeabi-v7a)(nodpi)_apkmirror.com.apk: 1 file pushed, 0 skipped. 5.4 MB/s (6667656 bytes in 1.183s)
        pkg: /data/local/tmp/com.google.android.instantapps.supervisor_6.09-release-345429215-65418_minAPI23_maxAPI25(armeabi-v7a)(nodpi)_apkmirror.com.apk

Success

Yeah - success - well, not really. Still as soon as I connect this China-brick to any network, the error loop continues. Time to look at some logs - ah - f... about 1 core-dump per second. You know what? I actually don't care about google services on this thing. So let's do a bit of the good old rm -rf game. But maybe - better take a backup of sorts, since I have no idea what ROM this POS runs.
> ./adb exec-out 'cd /; tar -czf - system/' > Chinese_system.tgz

Uninstalling every app that has google in it's name:

package:/system/app/YouTube/YouTube.apk=com.google.android.youtube
package:/system/priv-app/Velvet/Velvet.apk=com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
package:/system/priv-app/GoogleOneTimeInitializer/GoogleOneTimeInitializer.apk=com.google.android.onetimeinitializer
package:/system/priv-app/ConfigUpdater/ConfigUpdater.apk=com.google.android.configupdater
package:/system/app/PrebuiltGmail/PrebuiltGmail.apk=com.google.android.gm
package:/system/app/Music2/Music2.apk=com.google.android.music
package:/system/priv-app/PrebuiltGmsCore/PrebuiltGmsCore.apk=com.google.android.gms
package:/data/app/com.google.android.gsf-1/base.apk=com.google.android.gsf
package:/system/priv-app/TagGoogle/TagGoogle.apk=com.google.android.tag
package:/system/app/GoogleTTS/GoogleTTS.apk=com.google.android.tts
package:/system/priv-app/GooglePartnerSetup/GooglePartnerSetup.apk=com.google.android.partnersetup
package:/system/priv-app/GoogleFeedback/GoogleFeedback.apk=com.google.android.feedback
package:/system/priv-app/GoogleLoginService/GoogleLoginService.apk=com.google.android.gsf.login
package:/system/priv-app/GoogleBackupTransport/GoogleBackupTransport.apk=com.google.android.backuptransport

Some fail to uninstall:

root@4G:/ # pm uninstall com.google.android.gm
Failure [DELETE_FAILED_INTERNAL_ERROR]

So let's disable them.

root@4G:/ # pm disable com.google.android.gms
Package com.google.android.gms new state: disabled

root@4G:/ # pm disable com.google.android.gm

Package com.google.android.gm new state: disabled

root@4G:/ # pm disable com.google.android.tag

Package com.google.android.tag new state: disabled

root@4G:/ # pm disable com.google.android.tts

Package com.google.android.tts new state: disabled

Somehow after rebooting the door-stopper, uninstall succeeds. I love Robots.

> ./adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 com.google.android.gms
Success

And yes - so the Error-loop is gone.

Next - install that app - doesn't work of course, but NOW I can complain and wine to somebody about it - GREAT!


Dudesettes yours app don't work on mi Android 6.0 China-sponsored spyphone. What you say? I should get a new phone? Great - I take one of them I-phones 12, send it to my home address, thank you very much. Oh - I see, you DON'T want to buy me a phone. You want ME to buy myself - from me own hard cash - a new private phone, so that I can run your app for you? Good idea - sadly, I don't have any money (for this).