‘WhatsApp Obsolete’ error: How to fix the issue in simple steps

Are you getting the WhatsApp Obsolete error message all of the sudden? Well, check out how you can resolve it without uninstalling the app or losing your data from the steps given here.

| Published: Saturday, January 13, 2018, 22:56 [IST]

WhatsApp is a prime messaging app is used by over one billion users across the world. Apparently, a small outage or bug in the platform will affect many users. After the outage issue caused on the New Year's Eve, the next one that has affected many WhatsApp users is said to be the error message stating that WhatsApp is obsolete on January 13, 2018 and that a new version has to be downloaded from the Google Play Store.

‘WhatsApp Obsolete’ error: How to fix the issue in simple steps

Many users who received this error message have taken to Twitter to vent out their frustration. The error asks users to update the app and gives a link to the Google Play Store for the same. However, the Play Store does not show any option to update but just displays uninstall and open options. Eventually, users are not able to download the latest version of the app as claimed by the message as there is no such update.

How to control storage space used by WhatsApp on Android

Apart from this, the app states that the affected users are in a beta testing program and provides them an option to leave the beta program. And, there is no respite on tapping this option, claim the users. Moreover, not all users who faced the issue are not the beta testers of WhatsApp.

Issue likely related to Xiaomi phones

In addition to the tweets made by many users, one of our writers at GizBot too faced the same issue on her Redmi 3S Prime. The problem appears to exist mostly on Xiaomi smartphone as only users with Xiaomi devices are facing the issue.

WhatsApp acknowledges the issue

A report by Techook claims that WhatsApp has acknowledged the ‘WhatsApp becomes obsolete' issue and claimed that it is working on a fix to resolve the same. The report quotes the messaging platform stating, "It was a problem with how our app is distributed, which is not under our control".

Steps to follow to fix ‘WhatsApp Obsolete’ issue

If you are facing the WhatsApp Obsolete issue on your smartphone, then do not hurry up with uninstalling the application. You can follow the steps given here to resolve it safely without losing your WhatsApp data or uninstalling the application.

First, enable the ‘Allow installation of apps from unknown sources' option under Settings on your smartphone.
Visit whatsapp.com/android to download the latest version of the app. Alternatively, you can also download the APK of WhatsApp on your phone and install it.
That's it! WhatsApp will be updated with the existing data and will not be obsolete.

Once WhatsApp is updated, remember to disable the option that lets installing apps from third-party sources for security purposes.