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  • WhatsApp crashing without native code debugging

Hi!

According to a user report here, WhatsApp should work fine with native code debugging disabled, but if I disable it then I get crashes when opening the app after it's been inactive for a minute or two, then clicking on a chat.

No errors are reported, the app just quits out.

Enabling native code debugging for just WhatsAapp seems to have fixed this and I'm no longer seeing crashes (...so far).

Is anyone else getting the same problem, or is something broken with my setup maybe?

I'm using the APK from www.whatsapp.com/android, installed to the main owner profile, with no Google play installed. The same problem occurs when installing from Aurora.

Thanks.

    Bumping this since I'm having the same issue. Could be a problem of the app, but I wasn't having issues with other OS builds, and I haven't updated whatsapp since then; the crashing appeared with the latest GOS build (2024031400). I also tried using the app with both native code debugging enabled and disabled, and the issue still appears.

      Can you perhaps see something in the log files (long press WhatsApp icon>App info> View logs)?

      Which device do you use ( by the way: If you start a new post, you can also tag your device model, which sometimes makes it easier to help)?

      If it is a Pixel 8 (Pro): Is memory tagging enabled (long press App icon>App info> Memory tagging)? If it is enabled, you could deactivate it and see if crashes still happen. Since I don't use WhatsApp, I unfortunately can't check the app's default settings and behaviour myself.

      Otherwise, these steps may also help you:
      https://grapheneos.org/usage#bugs-uncovered-by-security-features

      It seems that indeed, the problem was caused by MTE.

      I had MTE crashes with Spotify before they fixed it, and when those occurred, I had a system pop-up notification reporting the error.

      I wasn't getting those notifications with the WhatsApp crashes, so I assumed it wasn't MTE related.

      I'm no longer able to reproduce the crashes with MTE protection disabled, but I'll report back if the problem does occur again.

      I have a Pixel 8 btw.

      13 days later

      upstage4186 Yes, it seem that after having disabled the "Memory tagging" options the crashes didn't occur anymore. Also, I wanna point out that some time ago I received a system notification saying that "Memory tagging detected an error in WhatsApp"; I would be surprised if that shitty app was also buggy as hell and the memory tagging is what is made it crash.
      Also, as an interesting note, for me it seemed to crash only when trying to open the emoji menu next to the compose field, but I don't know how this may be related to memory problems.

      For the sake of completeness, these are my whatsapp's settings, which for now seem to not cause it crash:
      "Exploit protection compatibility mode": disabled
      "Hardened memory allocator": enabled (default)
      "Memory tagging": disabled (default)
      "Extended virtual address space": enabled
      "Native code debugging": blocked

      So the only thing that seem to make whatsapp crash it MTE. I will try to update this thread if any new information come to me or if I detect any other bugs or crashes.
      EDIT: spelling.

        9 months later

        Hello, I am also facing a few Whatsapp crashes.
        I see this option in Memory Tagging: "Show notifications about detected errors".
        In theory, should we expect to receive a notification if the crash is caused by MTE? I haven't seen any notifications so far.