The service offered by WhatsApp is really very stable, especially after it was bought by a company like Facebook. Unless there is a general blackout of the service or servers, which can happen for a few hours just once or twice a year, all the problems you can have with WhatsApp depend on the wrong use of the application on our smartphone.
This means that for everything that doesn't work, for every error or problem, there is a solution and you just need to correctly configure the app or some general phone settings.
In this article we see a list of the most common problems with WhatsApp, explaining what to do when something doesn't work .
If the problem is not among those described below, we can always send a message at the end of the article to indicate any new or unpublished problems.
1) I can't download WhatsApp
If we are unable to download WhatsApp to our Android smartphone, the problem is almost certainly due to the store's failure to connect to the Internet or a problem with the cache of the latter.
In this regard, we refer you to reading the guide to solve the problems of the Google Play Store on Android; after solving the problems with the Google Play Store, we should be able to download WhatsApp without problems.
If it still fails or we want to get the latest version of WhatsApp, we can download the APK file from the whatsapp.com website or alternatively from APKMirror .
The APK file is an application installation file and a special phone option must be activated to install them; for more details, please read the guide to download the APK of Android apps and receive updates without Google Play.
2) I don't get the activation code
When you install Whatsapp on any device, both for new and old members, you must receive an SMS activation code in order to correctly associate the smartphone with our account.
The activation of Whatsapp can only be done on a mobile phone with a working SIM card; this can create another difficulty: that once the application is installed, after writing the phone number, the activation code is late in arriving or does not arrive right.
The most obvious reason for this problem is that an incorrect mobile number was written, perhaps because the country code was included which WhatsApp automatically includes instead.
In general, the activation of Whatsapp should be instantaneous, but if the confirmation SMS does not arrive due to network problems, you can request to be called in order to receive the activation code by voice ; in this case the call is automatic and there is no need to talk to anyone, there will be a voice that will dictate the code to be entered (better get a pen and paper).
3) Contact recognition does not work for me
The contacts of WhatsApp are only all the numbers that we have in the address book.
All those whose cell phone numbers are in the phone book and who use WhatsApp are our contacts and we can contact them.
If one of our contacts does not have our number in the address book, we will not be included in his contact list and if we try to write to him he will see us with the simple phone number, without any details.
To add a contact in WhatsApp, just add the number, taking care to add the international prefix (+39 for Italy).
That of the missed prefix is perhaps one of the most known problems: even if the calls start anyway, in order for a user to appear on WhatsApp, the international prefix must be present to his phone number.
If a contact does not appear, we open the Contacts list in Whatsapp, press the Menu button and then Update .
On Android, make sure that WhatsApp is allowed to view our address book; to solve this problem go to Settings > Apps, tap on the WhatsApp app and then on Permissions ).
Regarding contacts, if we can't chat with someone, it may have blocked us.
In another article we saw how to understand if we have been blocked on WhatsApp.
4) WhatsApp doesn't connect
As mentioned at the beginning, WhatsApp is one of the most reliable services in the world and rarely does not work.
If there were problems logging in, the first thing to do is that the phone's internet connection is up and running, by opening a random site or trying another app and seeing if they work.
In other cases, this may be a temporary problem, so try restarting your phone.
If everything fails, you can open Twitter and check immediately if there are trends of messages that talk about Whatsapp Down .
If, in fact, a service like WhatsApp, used by a billion people, were to be interrupted for even a minute, there would immediately be a very rapid exchange of messages on Twitter and other social networks.
Another site to check if WhatsApp is not available is Downdetector, which immediately collects all the reports of service malfunction and shows them in a graph (the more reports there are, the more likely there are problems).
5) It is not possible for me to send or receive images on WhatsApp
A more frequent problem of WhatsApp can be that of not receiving images.
This can only depend on two things: the internet is not working or the mobile phone memory is full.
If we want to free up space from internal memory or from microSD, we recommend you read our guide to Free up space in Whatsapp and clean the archive use.
6) I can't see images and videos received in the past
If a video or photo that was sent to us via WhatsApp in the past can no longer be opened even if the message with the preview is still present in the chat history, it means that that file has been deleted.
Whatsapp does not keep the files transferred via chat in memory therefore, if a photo is deleted from memory after receiving it, it cannot be recovered from the chat but it will be necessary to request a new sending.
7) Restoring the backup does not work
If on Whatsapp for Android we use the backup in Google Drive, if we try to restore after a new installation and this fails, the reason may be that we were using the beta version and we want to return to the normal version.
We can also retry the restore by reinstalling the app, but the advice we give you is to make a backup copy of WhatsApp to be saved on the PC, as seen in the guide on how to save Whatsapp chats, conversations and photos also on PC.
8) I don't receive messages immediately
If there was a delay in receiving messages in WhatsApp, we are probably using a "Task killer" app that automatically terminates processes.
These apps are useless and harmful, so let's remove them without problems: WhatsApp needs to stay running in the background to work well and those automatic memory management or battery management systems that disable background apps are deleterious for apps like Whatsapp.
If our phone has an integrated energy saving system, make sure to add WhatsApp to the exceptions and allow automatic start, otherwise the messages may delay or arrive only when we open the WhatsApp app in the foreground.
In this regard, we refer you to reading our guide -> If notifications are delayed, disable Android battery optimization .
