Custom roms alive!
Whelp… reports of custom roms death are greatly exaggerated…
Remember how I installed /e/OS,based on LineageOS 22 based on Android 15, that comes with microG preinstalled? Turn out that when you add your Google account to it (under Settings > System > microG) MEETS_BASIC_INTEGRITY now passes! In the same place, you’ll find an item “Google device registration”, which should be ticked and I suspect is what makes the difference. After this, one of the apps in questions now correctly works, I’ll test the other later. Strangely, this reports the phone as a Pixel 2? Is this one of those hardcoded fingerprints?
I recall going over these items when I ran the phone with LineageOS+microG (which should function identically) but I left most of the options unticked (they were not ticked). I retried using try on the LOS 23 image, amd that worked too! Make sure to install both microG Services and microG Companion.
Adding your Google account to the /e/OS “App Lounge” (which is a presupplied Aurora Store) does NOT do the trick.
Although I am not sure, perhaps signature spoofing is what makes this work? MindTheGapps is missing from that list, and LinageOS specifically includes code to make microG work. Then again, why would Lineage recommend MindTheGapps? No idea… And is this a way to register manually?
In summary, do NOT use MindTheGapps, but microG, as they instruct. Alternatively, /e/OS.