@UglyBrawler
Did you use any specific setting in the GOS Whatsapp app settings after reinstall, like "Exploit Protection Compatibility Mode" or "Native Code Debugging" ?
I did not apply anything specific. I think that is the default GOS config. You can check my settings below.
After reading the GrapheneOS post mentioned above, I am starting to wonder if my situation resolved itself after installing GPS in the owner profile. Before I could not log in, but, with GPS, after a bit I was able to do some requests and at some point get a verification code. When I had to redo the same process again, with the proper backup, I was able to get the verification code again even if I removed GPS completely.
As mentioned before, I installed GPS without giving them any permissions (not even network).
In all cases I installed Whatsapp using Aurora (as I never managed to create a dummy GPS account).
I did not hear about the Whatsapp score before. Never faced any issues in the past 3 years and I am sure we are quite a number of people using Whatsapp in a profile without GPS. I could understand they increased some restrictions, however it does not explain why I was simple to bring things back to normal then. I am basically back to the same state as before and it works fine again.
Hope it helps you to make it work on you end.