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  • Hint in installation guide: Play Store needs update Play Services

Hi, I'm using a Pixel 6a and I installed:

Everything works fine, but there are daily annoying notifications:
"Play Store needs update Play Services - it's recommended to allow this ..."
As I understood your manual, GOS will deliver updates at times; I don't need to register a Google-account.

IMHO it would help for newbies to add a hint in: https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play-installation
after:
Play services and the Play Store depend on each other, one will not work properly without the other. Both of them depend on the Google Services Framework app. Our app repository handles this automatically.
(To prevent regular push-notifications to update the Play Store, you can deactivate in Apps >Google Plas Service > notifications.)
Regards

    himbim Hi, it seems you're misunderstanding the update system for sandboxed Google Play on GrapheneOS. The reason these notifications don't go away are that you're not allowing Play Store to update itself and/or Play Services. If the official recommendation is to allow these updates, you should trust it, there are good reasons for it.

    • There is no need for a Google account for this
    • It is only about granting Play Store the ability to install apps and allowing it to install an update the first time, neither of which give it the capabilities to install/update anything else without your approval first
    • Play Store keeps itself/Play Services more up to date than the GrapheneOS app store does
    • The notification doesn't appear again after you've allowed the update, future updates happen silently
    • If you don't allow it, Play Store will keep trying to update in the background, possibly wasting power

    If you want to allow Play Store to update itself/Play Services, you have to re-enable the notification channel that you have disabled (presumably something in Apps > All apps > 3-dots menu > Show system > GmsCompat > Notifications), wait for a notification then allow the update. I don't think there really is a good reason to rely on the GrapheneOS app store for these updates instead of the Play Store.

      Hi, I had to enable notifications for Google Play Store first, then I could enable it for GmsCompat.
      I'll proceed writing here, when the notification appears again.

      These notifications you're referring to are from the sandboxed Google Play compatibility layer, and our intention is that you accept the updates from the Play Store for Play services. It can update itself without this. We control the maximum version of the Play Store and Play services via our compatibility layer so you won't get a notification of an update beyond what we've already tested and added support for running. We test the betas to stay ahead. You can opt in to their beta if you want to help with testing the compatibility layer.

      Is there a way to post screenshot actually?
      Today I got again: "Play Store needs update Play Services - it's recommended to allow this ..."
      I tap on the notification, then the app "Google Play" opens: Login to ...
      Then I should login with my Google-account, but I thought, this should be avoided ??

        himbim That's not normal. Once you tap that notification it should show a 'install' dialog to allow the update. There is absolutely no need to log into the Play Store for this. That login screen is probably the Play Store homepage that is shown by default instead of the intended update confirmation dialog, presumably because of a bug or configuration error.

        Have you granted Play Store the permission to install unknown apps in system settings? If you haven't, it might be that the update confirmation screen cannot be shown because of this. You can enable it and wait for another notification. Please try it and tell us if it solves the problem (or not)!

        himbim Is there a way to post screenshot actually?

        I don't think it's currently possible to attach images directly on this forum. The easiest way is probably to upload an image somewhere else (imgur or imgbb for example) and link to it here.

            "Have you granted Play Store the permission to install unknown apps in system settings? If you haven't, it might be that the update confirmation screen cannot be shown because of this. "

            This was the solution, I granted the permission. As far as I remember, I didn't change this rights and think it was the default value of the fresh installed Pixel 6a.
            Thank you for your patience.

            14 days later