A new WhatsApp bug is annoying users around the world, including those in India and the UK. Blocked contacts are suddenly able to send messages to the people who blocked them.
Reports about this happening started trickling in a few days ago on social media sites like Twitter. Frequent WhatsApp tipster WABetaInfo says he received several messages from users about the issue. Most of them followed the same pattern. A person they had banned was able to send texts to them again.
As per screenshots of these conversations, WhatsApp informs the user that the individual is not in their contact list. It then presents them with 3 options. They can either Unblock the person, Report Spam, or Add to Contacts. The first option clearly indicates that WhatsApp has blocked the person on some level.
WABetaInfo thinks the WhatsApp bug is a server-side issue since both Android and iOS users are affected by the problem. He also notes that blocked parties can see a person’s Status and profile picture. This is very creepy, especially since some folks have banned stalkers and abusive exes from getting in touch with them.
WhatsApp Bug Solution
The best solution for the issue is also the simplest. Just unblock and then re-block the unwelcome contact. This should help the situation in most cases. As an extra precaution, users can try removing the person from their address book, muting the chat, and configuring their privacy settings in My Contacts.
These are all temporary solutions though, since people might not even know about the glitch until someone has messaged them. Gadgets 360 reports that WhatsApp is aware of the issue and rolling out a fix.
Also See: New WhatsApp text bomb crashing Android, iPhones
In related news, WhatsApp for iOS version 2.18.52 and WhatsApp for Android beta version 2.18.145 recently gained the ability to make group calls. It’s restricted to a small pool of people right now, but it should spread to others soon.