Bug made WhatsApp 'obsolete' for some users: Here's the fix

By Bhavika Bhuwalka

Jan 14, 2018

10:19 am

---

What's the story

WhatsApp stopped working for many users in India as of midnight on January 13, 2018.

The Facebook-owned chat app became "obsolete" to users following a bug, a lot of whom took to Twitter to report the issue.

Here is more on what caused the bug, and how you can fix it.

Details

Users stuck in a Catch-22 situation due to WhatsApp bug

The app was apparently asking to be updated with the message, "This version of WhatsApp became obsolete on 13 Jan, 2018. Please go to the Google Play Store and download the latest version."

However, when users tried doing that, there were no updates available on the Play Store.

Some tried leaving its beta testing program or re-installing the app altogether, but to no avail.

You're

33%

through

Fix

Third-party app distribution responsible for the bug: WhatsApp

The problem mostly seems to exist on Xiaomi phones.

Assuring that the bug is being fixed, WhatsApp said, "It was a problem with how our app is distributed, which is not under our control."

According to a report, users can also try the following: Go to Settings > enable automatic date and time > automatic time zone > kill all apps > relaunch WhatsApp.

You're

66%

through

Background

WhatsApp stops working for second time in two weeks

The same issue had affected some users in the first week of January as well.

Further, recently on New Year's Eve, the app had suffered a global outage affecting locations like Europe, India, Malaysia, and parts of the US and Africa, leaving many users frustrated and with the hashtag #WhatsAppDown.

The services were restored shortly.