WhatsApp users report 'scary messages' that freeze or crash messaging app - here's a possible fix

WhatsApp users are complaining about a series of messages that is causing the app to freeze or crash. These messages contain characters in a foreign language which WhatsApp is not able to process, leading to an indefinite crash.

The issue has been out there for years but recently has been affecting a number of users. When a user receives this particular series of message on WhatsApp, the app will crash indefinitely.

If you try to force close and re-open the app, it would still crash, reported WABetaInfo.  The issue is widespread, particularly in Brazil where users are reporting about the app’s “weird behaviour”.

A user showed some messages and explained that WhatsApp Mods have implemented a sort of “Crashcode protection”. There are a lot of secret WhatsApp groups where many users share these codes. 

These crash messages, which WABetaInfo refers to as “scary messages”, are also in the form of virtual cards (vcards). When you open a card, you can verify that there might be like 100 associated contacts.

Every contact has a very long weird name, that contains a crash code. Sometimes the vcard is also altered, editing/injecting something called Payload that makes the situation worse. 

If you receive a scary message, you should try to block the contact from WhatsApp Web. Next, set your group privacy settings to “My Contacts” or “My Contacts except..” and remove the message containing the crash code, if it is possible using WhatsApp Web.