Signal trying to use disabled Google Play Services instead of Websocket

[allmynamesweretakenomoreideas]

Bug description

Signal trying to use disabled Google Play Services instead of Websocket

Steps to reproduce

• disable Google Play Services in Android Apps settings
• install Signal APK

Actual result: Signal does not receive new messages in background. Notification informs about "Permanent Signal Communication Error"
Expected result: I expect Signal to detect disabled Google Play Services upon installation and switching to Websocket automatically

Screenshots

Device info

Device: Sony Xperia 1 III
Android version: 13
Signal version: 6.14.5

Link to debug log

https://debuglogs.org/android/6.14.5/fb5cf984d02e3378da2b26c9b2b6ae2bb7c6fb8606b339a42c153e0658d25d06

[greyson-signal]

We determine whether or not to use play services during registration. That's because a lot of people will do the opposite of you, where they'll disable them during registration to put themselves in this mode, then enable it afterwards so other apps can use them.

Also, auto-detecting these conditions after-the-fact can result in temporary error states triggering this and causing confusion. I think the real solution would be to have some in-app setting to go into this mode, but we need to try to look into what the correct UX is.

Regardless, this is currently "working as intended", so I'm gonna close this, but we'll think about improvements.