A WhatsApp update rolled out on November 9 affects some Android users’ ability to open their WhatsApp messages, presenting a green screen rather than their conversations. Here’s how to access your WhatsApp messages if you’ve already installed the update.
It’s likely that you’ve already tried uninstalling and reinstalling WhatsApp (and hopefully backing up your WhatsApp account first), as well as clearing your WhatsApp cache, and yet you still get the same green screen when you try to open your messages. This is because you are reinstalling the same version of WhatsApp.
Instead, you need to downgrade WhatsApp. To do this, you will first need to uninstall your current version of WhatsApp. Next, find and load an old version of WhatsApp. Here’s how we did it.
How to Download an Old Version of WhatsApp and Fix Green Screen Error
Step 1. You can use any trusted APK service, but we used APKMirror. Trust here is important, because by loading apps you are bypassing Google Play’s protection. Open the site in your phone’s browser and search for WhatsApp. You will find a list of WhatsApp versions, so scroll down and select an older version. We found that WhatsApp Messenger 2.24.22.78 fixed the issue on our device.
Step 2. Four different versions of this APK pack are available for Android. You will need to know some details about your phone in order to choose the right one. Install any device information app, for example Device Info, launch it and check the CPU tab. You want to know if your phone’s processor has an x86 or ARM 32-bit architecture, or an x86_64 or ARM64 64-bit architecture.
Step 3. Our phone’s processor has ARM64 architecture and so we downloaded arm64-v8a version of WhatsApp Messenger 2.24.22.78 from APKMirror.
Step 4. Next, we needed to install the official APKMirror Installer app to help us load the WhatsApp APK Bundle file. Download, install and launch the app, then find the APK file you downloaded and click on it.
Step 5. Follow the instructions to install the WhatsApp file. You will need to allow the APKMirror installer to install unknown apps, but you will be prompted to do so. Simply tap the toggle button to allow, then click the Back button to return to the previous screen.
That’s it. Launch WhatsApp and you should be able to access your messages again.
If you’re worried about having viruses on your device, check out our selection of the best antivirus apps for Android.
