WhatsApp says "official app needed"

Fyi the whatsapp apk can be downloaded from the official website Download WhatsApp for Android
Maybe that way you don’t have to fake anything, it always worked well for me

Fyi the whatsapp apk can be downloaded from the official website Download WhatsApp for Android
Maybe that way you don’t have to fake anything, it always worked well for me

And it does run out-of-the-box in Waydroid without any MicroG requirements.

I use App Support, but in general Whatsapp doesn’t require any Google service to work. I didn’t install microG

Linking with WhatsApp works fine. Don’t forget to open the original WhatsApp on the other phone every fortnight. And: I wasn’t able to download a sent file within that solution.
Matrix chat with bridges is also an option.

1 Like

I also tried the version of their website, and it gave the same error when checking the phone number to log in.

1 Like

Yes, at the moment, it’s the choice I’m using. See if they hopefully finish implementing interoperability with other services and I can leave this shit app and only use XMPP and matrix

Are you sure you never ever used an unofficial client? It looks like they put your phone number in a sort of blacklist

I used whatsapp plus over 10 years ago, in fact I was banished 24 hours for it, but I don’t think they’re putting up something over 10 years now

Linking my Xperia 10 III doesn’t work anymore. WhatsApp on my Sailfish (as the linked device) crashes during QR-scanning from the original phone. Even on other Android devices it crashes.
Is there a solution? Using Sailfish as a linked device was best solution.

If it fails on Android, it seems to be a problem with that version of WhatsApp and should be tested with other versions. If the problem continues, the next options are to use WhatsApp Web from the phone’s browser, or the WhatsApp bridges for XMPP or Matrix (which can be a privacy issue if the server is not yours).

Every day I am more and more sure that it is necessary to make people aware of the need to migrate to free platforms such as XMPP.

4 Likes

My 1 cent cotnribution to the discussion. I am still using this App by downloading it directly from the website, at their very own main webpage, without using any appstore. I’m doing this on Xperia 10 ii with SFOS 4.5.0.19, a very old LG Wine phone (foldable with physical buttons) with Android 5 and play store deactivated: it works at every update.

On the other hand I got issues with QR code pairing as second device on a brand new Samsung A33 5G, while an old Samsung S duos with Lineage OS fails to install it because Whatsapp says “please download from play store”

A good point. I tested serveral versions. The problem is, that I cannot test much older versions becaus WhatsApp immediately says that the version is too old. So I cannot link the phone.
But: I realised that WhatsApp from their website runs ans links well when installed on older Android versions (I habe a phone using Android 6).
The Problem seems to hide in something WhatsApp tries to use in Android.
WhatApp became all rights on my phone, so that ist not an issue.

I managed to bypass the account verification and was able to use WhatsApp natively on Sailfish again.

I remembered that the Android phone on which I installed WhatsApp and then paired my Xperia 10 plus with Sailfish, was rooted. Therefore, I backed up the whatsapp data included in /data/data/com.whatsapp and sent it to my Sailfish phone. I restored that data in the WhatsApp path of AppSupport /home/.android/data/data/com.whatsapp, I put the directories and files the owner and group corresponding to whatsapp and when I started it loaded all the data, having the account active without having to log in again! :partying_face:

That sounds hopeful. But I am not a geek. Handling linux is a burden for me. How do I copy a folder from non root folder to a root folder (I found all places you talked about but I stuck in copying)

you have two options, with command line, or with file browser in root mode:

Command line:

  • devel-su
    mv /path/to/whatsapp/folder/copied/from/android /home/.android/data/data/com.whatsapp

Start file Browser in root mode:

  • devel-su
    echo 'yourpassword' | env XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=/run/user/100000 harbour-file-browser
  • copy folders with file browser

That didn’t work for me. Has anybody installed whatsapp on sailfish the last days?

WhatsApp detects that is not the original app and therefore doesn’t allow verification.