Why WhatsApp won’t let you send messages

If we can't send messages on WhatsApp, your data connection or the app's servers may be to blame. Here's how to solve the problem

OCTOBER 4, 2021: WHATSAPP, MESSENGER, FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM ARE DOWN: ALL THE INFO HERE

It happens sometimes that you send a message on WhatsApp and it is not received by the recipient. This is not a minor problem, since the instant messaging application is now used for any type of communication, both personal and business.

The non-receipt of a message may depend on several factors, which you can not always catch on the fly. Most often, the problem is caused by WhatsApp down (as happened, for example, on January 22, 2019), that is, the failure of the servers - or computer systems - related to the messaging platform. To understand what the problem depends on, however, it is necessary to learn to understand the difference there is between the various icons of WhatsApp: gray tick, double gray tick, double blue tick and the dial with two clock hands. Each icon indicates a different action: while the meaning of the blue tick is known by everyone, the same cannot be said of the others. And it is precisely the other three icons that help you understand why WhatsApp does not make you send messages or they are not received by the recipient.

How to understand if the message on WhatsApp was sent

Before analyzing the reasons why the message was not received by the recipient, it is necessary to understand if it was sent. And in this case we are helped by the "ticks of WhatsApp". When you send a message to a friend, an icon appears next to the time, which can take four different forms: a gray tick, a double gray tick, a double blue tick and a clock with two hands. Depending on the type of the icon we will be able to tell whether the text of the message has been delivered to the recipient.

Let's start with the single gray tick. If there is this icon next to the time, it means that the message has been sent successfully, but the recipient has not received it yet. What can this be due to? Mainly due to one reason: our friend does not have an active data connection or is not connected to the home Wi-Fi network. In some cases it could also be that he is in an area where there is no connection or the smartphone is turned off. The gray checkmark is also shown in case the recipient has blocked us.

The double gray checkmark means that the message has been sent and has been successfully received by our friend. But it hasn't been read yet. The first time he logs into WhatsApp he will read it and reply to us. In groups, the double gray tick indicates that all users have received the message.

The double blue tick doesn't need much explanation. Since WhatsApp introduced it, friendships and loves have ended. For those who don't know, the double blue tick indicates when the message has been sent, received and read by the user.

The dial with the two hands, on the other hand, is the icon that should concern us the most. It indicates that the message we wrote, was not sent. And the problem is not the recipient's, but ours.

The reasons why WhatsApp messages are not sent

If WhatsApp does not send our messages, it will be impossible to communicate with our friends. The first thing we need to check is whether the data connection is active. Very often we blame the smartphone, but in reality the fault is only ours that we forgot to activate the data connection. If, on the other hand, we are at home, we check if we have activated the Wi-Fi connection or if the router is turned off. These are the two main reasons why we can not send messages on WhatsApp. In case we have done all the checks and both the data connection and Wi-Fi are working, the problem may not be the smartphone, but the application. As mentioned, it may happen that WhatsApp servers do not work for a few hours and the service blocks worldwide. It has happened more than a few times that WhatsApp has gone down, but within a few hours everything is back to normal.