Trying to flash Gapps on Sony Xperia 10 III AOSP android 12

[anerudh e]

Hello everyone,

I have a Sony Xperia 10 III open device and I have build an AOSP android 12 and flashed the build to the phone which has booted successfully.
Since the AOSP is not having any google apps prebuilt, I tried flashing the Gapps through ADB sideload by downloading the .zip file of the Gappa from NikGapps, BiTGapps etc.
While trying to flash the .zip file from the ADB in recovery mode, the flashing was not successful and the following error occured:

E : Failed to find META-INF/com/android/metadata 
E : Failed to parse metadata in the zip file. 

It was found that the directory tree of the downloaded .zip file was
META-INF/com/google/android/metadata, but the search was done in the tree mentioned in the first error.
I pulled the 'android' directory outside the 'google' directory. After this change, there is a signature verification error that arose

E: footer is wrong
E: Signature verification failed
E: error: 21

Since the recovery is stock, there is no option to disable signature verification. I am also unable to flash third party recoveries like TWRP and ClockWorkMod on Sony Xperia 10 III.

Is there any other method where we can flash Gapps to Sony Xperia 10 III?
Kindly reply.

[anerudh e]

@anerudh-e Further details for the same query above is mentioned below for reference:

Work Objectives:

1. Run a customized Android image on Sony Xperia 10 III
2. Use customized Google services and other apps on Xperia 10 III Android 12
   version
3. Implement peripheral dependent control over services.
4. Test the implementation on the apps.

Work update on on Xperia 10 III & flashing Gapps

1. The AOSP android 12L was built from Sony developer’s website for Xperia 10
   III.
2. The build was done for the environment ‘xqbt52’ and the compiled system images
   booted the device successfully.
3. AOSP had only the basic apps like the camera, phone etc.
4. The Gapps.zip file was downloaded from providers and attempted to be flashed
   using ADB.
5. The flashing was attempted using the recovery mode,

$ adb reboot recovery

6. Gapps are available as packages of .zip files provided by OpenGapps, NikGapps,
   etc.
7. The .zip file can be downloaded from these providers depending on the google
   apps requirements.
8. Gapps support and availability was not present for the android 12L version in the
   SONY version of the Android code base.
9. Therefore, new build for android 12-userdebug was done and was flashed to the
   device.

Issues while flashing Gapps:

1. The NikGapps-stock-arm64-12-signed.zip file was downloaded from
   https://nikgapps.com
   The ‘Apply update from ADB’ option in the stock recovery was selected for flashing the
   Gapps.zip file with the command,

$ adb sideload <filename.zip>

Error:

E: Failed to find META-INF/com/android/metadata

E: Failed to parse metadata in the zip file

2. The zip file was unzipped and the directory tree was checked.
3. META-INF/com/android/metadata was not present.
4. The branch is META-INF/com/google/android/
5. To test, the ‘android’ directory was brought outside the ‘google’ directory
   alongside it.
   The new directory branch is is META-INF/com/android/ wherein the ‘android’ was the
   directory present inside the ‘google’ directory.
6. The sideload was repeated which resulted in the error:

E: footer is wrong

E: Signature verification failed

E: error: 21

7. The same errors occurred for the zip files downloaded from many such
   providers like MindTheGapps, BitTGapps etc.
   All of them did not have the metadata in the android directory.
8. The stock recovery does not have the signature verification disable feature.
9. Third party recoveries like TWRP and ClockWorkMod were attempted, but had
   no support for Xperia 10 III.
10. Few custom built recovery images that was mentioned for Xperia 10 III were
    downloaded from Git and flashed but the device did not boot.
11. The APK of google play services were installed in the device but did not function normally which said 'Error with google play services'.
12. The .zip file was copied to an SD card and the option ‘Apply update from SD
    Card’ was selected in recovery which resulted in the same error.

Request for details from SONY team

1. Successful addition of customized packages to the build
2. Procedure for signing the customized images for it to be accepted as
   part of OS image to be loaded
3. Can Secure boot be used?