The issue was discovered on January 13 morning when many users in India stumbled upon an error message that said, “This version of WhatsApp became obsolete on 13 Jan 2018. Please go to the Google Play Store to download the latest version.” However, users were unable to update the app from Google Play Store. A number of users complained about the issues on Twitter saying that they were not able to update the app. WhatsApp, however, accepted the issue and also reacted to it to a query. “On background, this is an issue that’s being fixed. It was a problem with how our app is distributed, which is not under our control,” said WhatsApp to Techook’s query. WhatsApp users with certain Android handsets have been found complaining about being unable to use WhatsApp since midnight January 13. In case you are facing the similar issue, here’s how you can fix the issue without losing your data and without the need to uninstall the older WhatsApp.
How to fix WhatsApp “obsolete” issue
If you’re still facing the “obsolete” issue on your WhatsApp, you don’t need to uninstall the app. Instead, you can follow these simple steps to solve the issue without uninstalling the app or losing your data.
Go to Settings>Security>Device Administration. Now, enable the ‘Allow installation of apps from unknown sources’ button on your device. After that visit WhatsApp.com/android from your phone and download the latest version of the app. After you download the APK on your phone, you can install it, then by simply tapping the downloaded APK and ‘install.’ Now, WhatsApp will update your existing installation and it will no longer be ‘Obsolete version. Moreover, it will be updated without losing any data.
