A bug in the most recent versions of WhatsApp appears to have broken the ability to send on-device video files on Android phones.
[Update 04/30]: A fix is now rolling out to resolve the issues that Android users have faced while attempting to send video files in WhatsApp. According to Artem Russakovskii – who was vocal about this issue – WhatsApp v2.24.9.71 allows you to continue sending video files without issues.
This stable release can be sideloaded if you haven’t yet received an update from the Google Play Store. As Russakovskii also notes, a solution to the problem might have been fixed server-side. According to the Play Store listing an update has been pushed out overnight. If you’re running WhatsApp Beta v2.24.10.3 then you should also be able to send videos again.
Let us know if you are still experiencing issues down in the comments section below.
Growing complaints have appeared on Reddit showing problems with sending videos on WhatsApp for Android. After hearing of the issue, we have since tested and experienced the same problem with video files not being sent as expected over the past 24 hours. A pop-up message will appear reading:
“Can’t send this video. Choose a different video and try again.” Annoyingly, this persists and the message will only appear after attempting to process the video file within WhatsApp. Photos and other filetypes don’t seem to struggle.
From our testing, it seems that videos shot or downloaded locally to your Android device will encounter an issue during the upload process within WhatsApp messenger. MOV video files shot on iPhone and received from other contacts within WhatsApp can be forwarded or sent on without hiccups. That said, even some files we have downloaded from the Instagram app on Android directly to device storage cannot be sent to contacts within WhatsApp.
As far as we can tell, the problem isn’t manifesting on all Android devices. However, we have only been able to test on several other Android devices including Galaxy S series handsets. This could be widespread as of the latest v2.24.9.34 update which is running on our test units, but reports suggest this is also affecting the most recent WhatsApp beta update.
A temporary solution that will allow you to continue sending video messages on your Android phone is to downgrade to Whatsapp version 2.24.8.85. It’s not clear just how widespread the issue is or if devices are randomly affected by the bug. Let us know if you are still having issues down in the comments section below.
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