WhatsApp web not working on Chromium

[One Above All]

I am using Chromium Version 70.0.3538.77 on Xubuntu 17.04. When I open web.whatsapp.com it shows thats WhatsApp Web works only on Google Chrom 36+ and suggest other browsers to use.

I am facing this issue recently. I used to browse the site earlier on same machine with Chromium and it used to work.

I am eager to know why website thinks I am on Google Chrom v36-

[PhistucK]

My guess is that they are using feature detection (in addition to browser detection?) and they require some features that are unavailable in Chromium out of the box (for example, Flash, H.264, push notifications perhaps, speech recognition and synthesis...), but the message was not updated to match the detection.

Another possibility is that this distribution of Chromium has a bug.

☆PhistucK

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[One Above All]

Is there any work around so that I can still use WhatsApp Web on Chromium.

[anike...@iiitd.ac.in]

As PhistucK wrote, maybe there's a bug with this version. Whatsapp web works out of the box (at least for me). 

According to launchpad, the latest version is 71.0.3578.80. Give it a go, and do post the result.

[Piokaz Piokaz]

I have the 71.0.3578.80 version, it doesn't work either.

[PhistucK]

Like I wrote, it is either a WhatsApp bug, or a Chromium distribution bug. Since the Chromium project does not distribute Chromium binaries, you should consult with the distributor.

☆PhistucK

[Olivier Tilloy]

On Tue, Dec 4, 2018 at 3:19 PM PhistucK <phis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> My guess is that they are using feature detection (in addition to browser detection?) and they require some features that are unavailable in Chromium out of the box (for example, Flash, H.264, push notifications perhaps, speech recognition and synthesis...), but the message was not updated to match the detection.

From a quick test, it looks like UA string detection only. Spoofing
the user agent with an extension such as User-Agent Switcher for
Chrome allows me to proceed to authentication. I didn't try any
further though.

[PhistucK]

Then I guess they look for "Chromium" in the user agent string and block it. How nice...

☆PhistucK

[Pedro Angel Garcia Benavente]

It's OK, it is UA detection. Use an UA allowed for overriding the problem. For instance, I used this one: "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/44.0.2403.157 Safari/537.36"

[Pedro Angel Garcia Benavente]

I has the same problem. It looks like the server is cheching ONLY the User Agent 

It can be solved by installing any extension for modifying the User Agent (User Agent Switcher in my case) and defining the useragent as that for Chrome 40: "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/44.0.2403.157 Safari/537.36" 

[Arthur Khan]

I dont get why the stuff from Developers tools doesnt seem to work https://www.technipages.com/google-chrome-change-user-agent-string honesly I wont install an extension just to use WhastApp, hope this incredibly retarded stuff is solved quickly from the WhastApp side.

[JJCA]

As they said, changing the user agent is enough to use WhatsApp Web again, in my case I have to delete the cookies either.

But it just stopped working a few days ago, and I have been using Chromium without trouble, and with this trick, stills working without troubles either. I think is just that they blocked Chromium...

If there's a fix that is not changing the user agent, please post it.

Thanks!

[Gregor W. Sky]

Hi, I am using Chromium Version 71.0.3578.80 (Official Build) Built on Ubuntu 16.04 (64-bit) and until yesterday 13th December I was using Whatsapp Web in this browser without any kind of problems. Now I am seeing "WhatsApp works with Google Chrome 36+" too.

I guess we should all send a bug report to Whatsapp to make them fix this problem?!

[JJCA]

I already contacted them, this is the answer they gave me:

Hi,
Unfortunately, this browser is not currently supported by WhatsApp Web.
If WhatsApp Web used to work on an unsupported browser, and it is currently experiencing issues with WhatsApp Web, please contact the browser's support for more information. WhatsApp Web is currently only supported on Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Edge browser. This feature is only available on desktop browsers and is not supported on mobile and tablet browsers.

[Luca REz]

The same exact problem appeared right now to me just after I tried to force quit WhatsApp and blocking all background internet access. It didn't liked what I did and shut me down (obviuosly), but what it did print was this error instead of some more specific error.

I tried using different UA but it didn't work. I cleared all website data (localStorage, DBs, cookies, etc.) reloaded and it stated working again with Chromium original UA.
(I'm on Ubuntu 18.04 @ 64bit)

[alantrad...@gmail.com]

What user agent did you use? Doesn't work for me even after clearing cookies although the error is different, doesn't seem to like any of hte UA's that I set with google ua switcher.

[alantrad...@gmail.com]

I had the same issue with Slack web, at the exact same time after I updated chromium. It could be a bug in chromium user agent or whatever, switching UA worked for slack but not whatsapp (after clearing the cookies from those sites)

[Aidan Samuel]

I was having the same problem (changing the UA didn't make the problem go away)

The problem was I was using the "EditThisCookie" extension to manage cookies, and it was telling me there were no cookies.

Well, there is a service worker that creates a cookie that doesn't appear in EditThisCookie. But you can delete it if you click on the padlock and then click cookies.

Once I deleted it, spoofing the UA was successful.

Obviously, the ideal solution would be for Whatsapp to resolve this on their end, but for the moment, this works.

[Dan Silver]

I got same problem, updated to last stable version from official repository from Chromium:

Versión 71.0.3578.98 (Build oficial) Built on Ubuntu , running on LinuxMint 18.3 (64 bits)

Problem persist.

[julien...@celoxica.com]

Same problem here for about a month it's not working 

Version 71.0.3578.80 (Official Build) Built on Ubuntu , running on LinuxMint 19 (64-bit)

[PhistucK]

Issues with distributions or products not affiliated with the Chromium projects are pretty much off topic.

Please, contact the distributor if you want Chromium to be fixed (they are responsible for changing their user agent string) or contact WhatsApp if you want WhatsApp to be fixed (they chose not to support Chromium user agent strings).

☆PhistucK

[Kara Bina]

On Tuesday, December 4, 2018 at 1:49:04 PM UTC+1, One Above All wrote:

Hi,

I found the solution here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1100645/why-should-i-update-chrome-when-i-am-using-chromium   

 

[Michael Stucki]

As mentioned above, Whatsapp support replied to a user that the browser is not supported. As far as I understand it, the feedback means that Chrome is supported but Chromium is not.

If Whatsapp doesn't want to fix that and Chromium devs don't see this as their issue, it just means that Chromium and Chrome become two separte products...

[PhistucK]

Chromium developers (as in the Chromium project authors) are not responsible for the distribution of Chromium you are using.

If I am not mistaken, the unmodified version of Chromium (the test binaries that are available from the Chromium project) has the same user agent string as Chrome.

Chromium distributors sometimes change the user agent string of their distribution (for whatever reason), which is out of the control of the Chromium project.

☆PhistucK

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[Michael Stucki]

See your point. You are right. So it's more a problem of Ubuntu unless Whatsapp changed their UA detection...

Nevertheless, the comment of Kara helped me. In fact, all that is needed is to remove the string "Ubuntu Chromium/71.0.3578.80 " from the user agent:

old: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Ubuntu Chromium/71.0.3578.80 Chrome/71.0.3578.80 Safari/537.36

new: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/71.0.3578.80 Safari/537.36

After clearing all application data, Whatsapp Web is working again.

[Olivier Tilloy]

On Tue, Dec 18, 2018 at 4:38 PM Michael Stucki <agent...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> See your point. You are right. So it's more a problem of Ubuntu unless Whatsapp changed their UA detection...

That's clearly a recent change in whatsapp's UA detection code,
because the Ubuntu chromium UA string hasn't changed in several years.

[Andrew Osin]

The latest version of Chromium and Ubuntu web.whatsapp application is working, for a while it's broken, but now everything is ok

[Gus Hauptfleisch]

This person has the right answer

https://askubuntu.com/questions/1100645/whatsapp-web-is-asking-to-update-chrome-while-using-chromium

[Gregor W. Sky]

I also wrote to the Whatsapp support and got 2 automated replies containing useless hints from their FAQ. I replied to both (as they suggested if the answers don't help) and still waiting for a real reply.

Actually, I remember having this problem before some time ago, once and temporarily.

The problem seems to be the version number: 70.0.3538.77

I bet it will just work again when the subversion number 3538 will be 36XX or greater.

Who wants to enter the bet? 😁

It's just sad that the WhatsApp developers seem not to understand this problem and seem to be unwilling to help, as they say “this is not a supported browser“.

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[Michael Markstaller]

When will this be fixed in Whatsapp web ?

 I dont want to use obsure things like faking the UA, just use Chromium..

I also wrote to WhatsApp-support and only received automated crap-answers: Just fix it or - maybe the better solution - I'll uninstall Whatsapp at all..

best regards, Michael

[Olivier Tilloy]

On Tue, Dec 25, 2018 at 5:35 PM Gregor W. Sky <grego...@gmail.com> wrote:

I also wrote to the Whatsapp support and got 2 automated replies containing useless hints from their FAQ. I replied to both (as they suggested if the answers don't help) and still waiting for a real reply.

Actually, I remember having this problem before some time ago, once and temporarily.

The problem seems to be the version number: 70.0.3538.77

I bet it will just work again when the subversion number 3538 will be 36XX or greater.

Who wants to enter the bet? 😁

Nope, that's not it, apparently.

It looks like whatsapp fixed the user agent detection for the chromium ubuntu packages, this is now working fine. However it's still refusing to work with the chromium snap package.