May 15, 2020

CrDroid for Xiaomi Redmi Note 7

This will be an install guide for crDroid on Xiaomi Redmi Note 7. I will install crDroid, microg on an Lavender device without root.

Update: I would use the official microg LineageOS build once it is there if I ever need to reinstall my device. Those are more secure (you are less likely to fuck things up) and better integrated with MicroG.

Required Files

Why crDroid? - It is based on LineageOS 17, has Android 10 and has Signature Spoofing, which is needed for microg to work.

Planning

  1. Backup important Files
  2. Unlock Device with MiUnlock
  3. Flash Orangefox custom recovery
  4. Flash custom Firmware
  5. Flash crDroid 6.5 & F-Droid
  6. Reboot and be free

after carefully reading through all the steps you can start with Step 0

Install Steps

0. Backup

As I have most of my data on my home cloud, all I need to backup is my TOTP keys from AndOTP, my Mail-Configs from K-9, my WhatsApp files and my Fuelio history from my car. What I have seen too late was my 2FA of my google account, but I found my recovery keys quite quickly, so it wasn’t that much of a problem.

1. Unlock Device with MiUnlock

I tried to install crDroid on my Xiaomi Redmi Note 7 to get rid of the MIUI ROM, as it didn’t work well with KeepassDX and I had a few other issues with it. Mainly I want to install and update F-Droid apps without getting prompted on every install/update. I would like to install LineageOS for MicroG but as the LineageOS is not official there are no builds for it. I don’t want root, magisk or closed google stuff.

So I unlocked the Phone with Mi Unlock. Tried installing Orangefox by extracting the recovery.img from it, but it didn’t work (I think I booted to system after flashing which overwrote the recovery directly). I then flashed TWRP which worked out (probably because I booted to recovery directly afterwards).

  • Download MiUnlock here: https://en.miui.com/unlock/download_en.html
  • Follow the install steps which are
    1. Download the Mi Unlock app to PC, and sign in with your Mi Account;
    2. Shut down your phone manually, and hold Volume down key and Power button to enter Fastboot mode;
    3. Connect your phone to PC using USB cable and click “Unlock”.

This will wipe all your user data (basically apps) due to security, so be careful to have all the data you need.

2. Flash Orangefox

Download Orangefox from here: https://sourceforge.net/projects/orangefox/files/lavender/OrangeFox-R10.1_01-Stable-lavender.zip/download

You can use the R10.1_02 version too which is only for Android 10 releases (as stated in the README on Sourceforge). So I will think with the R10.1_01 version.

Unzip the file and run

fastboot devices
adb reboot bootloader
fastboot flash recovery recovery.img

In my case this did not work and I could not flash OrangeFox so I tried TWRP from here

Guidance can be found here: https://wiki.orangefox.tech/en/guides#detailed-instructions-on-how-flash-orangefox-recovery-via-fastboot

3. Flash Firmware

I then wanted to install crDroid, thought I had sufficient firmware, but it just showed moving bootscreen for 7 Minutes. I then remembered that I have to flash the firmware said in the first XDA post.

The link there gives a few options. I went with V11.0.7.0.PFGEUXM for Android 9, Europe from 2020-03-24. I don’t know if a chinese firmware for Android 10 would fit better, but I honestly don’t want to break things again.

Flashing went quite easily with OrangeFox.

4. Flashing crDroid

I then cleared cache, system and data and flashed crDroid and the f-droid.privileged.ota file (without rebooting as there was no OS installed in the mean time after 3.).

This worked quite well but sometimes F-Droid still asked if I want to install an App. Don’t know what went wrong. Besides that I had not installed microg as system app.
Flashing microg from various sources didn’t work out somehow. I tried shadow53, FairPhone MicroG zip and another one but it didn’t work somehow (I think it was my fault for dirty flashing or not having system mounted)..

I wiped everything, mounted system and vendor, flashed the latest crDroid ROM and latest NanoDroid MicroG.

This worked and gave me AuroraStore and Aurora Services. I could then install AuroraDroid from Browser and install GooglePlay Apps as well as F-Droid Apps without prompting through the stores.

5. Booting

Most stuff is working.

FM Radio is not working.

GPS didn’t find any satellites today (but I am sure I saw some when I looked into GPSTest yesterday).

UnifiedNLP is installed as system app with NanoDroid. MicroG self-check shows everything checked (i only had to add the signature) I had MozillaNLP and Deja Vu set up but didn’t get those to work.
But GSM Location Service works fine and shows my location based on network (but GPS does not work, very sad). Everything else works great and I really like the ROM a lot more than MIUI.

My pushTAN banking app does not work as it needs google services. MicroG should fake them but this does not work. Everything else (Basically just WhatsApp, Signal, Firefox, Telegram, Banking, Discord) works fine including notifications.

Update 30.04.2020: installing “MozillaNlpBackend” fixed my GPS issue. So GPS and Network based Location is working well.

Update 29.05.2020: LineageOS 17.1 seems to be coming officially which would also trigger a build on lineage.microg.org so I wonder what I will do and see if the online banking works there (might be and Android 10 issue too). But currently I am happy with my device running crDroid.

Sources: https://raphsonbd.com/redmi-note-7-bootloader-unlocking-method/
https://github.com/Saki-EU/XiaomiADBFastbootTools
https://shadow53.com/android/no-gapps/setup-guide/microg/#prerequisites
https://forum.xda-developers.com/redmi-note-7/development/rom-crdroid-android-6-t3987531