Like most of you, I have been having a terrible time getting RCS to work. But I finally got it to work. I am not the most sophisticated user, so bear with me and my non-technical terms. Additionally, I am not 100% certain what factors enabled this to work, as it could be a multitude of things. Also, the exact nomenclature of the steps may not be entirely accurate. As it stands, adb may not even be necessary; you might be able to just get an old version of Google Messages and get RCS working. Try all of the steps below at your own risk. Aurora on its own has its own security issues as well as other methods to get older APK's.
In this method, we will be setting the Google identifier to allow via wireless debugging through Kizuku and ashell. Then we will be downloading an older version of messages, getting RCS to work, and then updating it. Before you start, you should enable developer mode and debugging.
- Download Kizuku and Ashell
- Follow the steps in Kizuku to get wireless debugging working.
- Once wireless debugging is working, enable ashell to be an application that Kizuku can use.
- Open ashell and get to the point where you can type commands.
- First type:
adb shell appops get com.google.android.gms | grep READ_DEVICE_IDENTIFIER This will test what you identifier is. it should be set to deny
- Next type:
adb shell appops set com.google.android.gms READ_DEVICE_IDENTIFIERS allow This change it to allow
- Next type
adb shell appops get com.google.android.gms | grep READ_DEVICE_IDENTIFIER This should now be set to allow
- Next you should restart the device
- Afterwards, give damn near every permission to Google Play Services.
- I used carrier service. I am unsure if it is required
Optional Here you can try to use Google Messages and see if RCS verifies. If it doesn't continue below.
- Next, we are going to find an old version of Google Messages. Apparently, the newer iteration has been causing issues with the verification of RCS. There are several methods, but we are looking for the version from August 2024 version code 242499063. There may be an issue where it says invalid or corrupted APK, A user solved it by trying again and again. and it eventually worked.
- Afterward, you grant the above permissions to the old version of Google Messages
- Next, you should be able to go in and verify RCS, and it should automatically work.
- Make sure to turn off debugging and developer options
I was able to get it working on the first try and was able to log in to Google and everything.
For me, I used Aurora, but there are other methods to get it working. I was able to update it using Aurora as well to the newest version. From what I understand, you can do the same via APK Mirror and the Google Play Store sandboxed. (Use at your own risk).
There may be some errors above but I tried my best to get everything as accurate as possible.
Much credit to Dirty Dan and the large thread about this issue and the grapheneOS chat Large Graphene RCS thread. Y'all are the best