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WhatsApp 'Last seen' problem (not what you think)

NotMyName

Newbie
Oct 21, 2012
34
2
So you'll probably be thinking I'm going to ask how do I display when someone was last seen.
Nope.

Ok so I was an iPhone user 2010-2020, made the switch to a Galaxy S10, everything going great.
A few days ago I got a Galaxy S20 on a good deal so I started to make the switch.

My wife also made the switch from a Galaxy A71 to a Galaxy S20 at the same time, though she set her phone up sooner than me as I'm a procrastinator :D (my wife's inclusion in this will become clear in a sec...).

So we both used Samsung Smart Switch to make the switchover from our original Galaxy devices. Hers has gone absolutely perfectly. I have an issue with WhatsApp (we are running the same app version 2.22.14.74).

The really annoying thing is that now, when I open a chat, the 'last seen..........' scrolls to the left instead of just staying there as 1 readable entry.
It's now 10am here, so once it stops scrolling, if they were last seen 30mins ago, it'll end up just saying 9:30am as what is visible on the screen.
However if they were last visible the day previous, it may say something like 10:30pm & on quick look you're thinking hang on, it's 10am, why's this saying 10:30am? Ohhh ... it's saying PM.

Annoying!

So I'll open a chat I have with someone & it'll start out like this (all normal, kind of (it's cutting the pm off))...

Screenshot_20220709-155520_WhatsApp.jpg


But then it starts to scroll automatically left....

Screenshot_20220709-155514_WhatsApp.jpg


And this is what it looks like when it stops....

Screenshot_20220709-155522_WhatsApp.jpg



For the record - this isn't how it was on my Galaxy S10.

My wife doesn't have this experience. It's exactly how mine USED to be & how hers was on her A71. So why mine is now suddenly doing this, I do not know.

I backed up WhatsApp, deleted the app & then re-installed again & restored from the backup but this hasn't fixed it.

Any idea what's going on & how to get it to revert back to normal?
 
The thing that strikes me in your pictures is that there isn't space for the whole of "last seen today at xx:yy pm" to be displayed, so I wonder whether the scrolling is a consequence of that?

However I've not been able to test this because I've not been able to make that text large enough on my phone (Galaxy s21) that it won't fit! I've tried everything: setting 12 hour clock (to make the date/time longer), changing font size in the app's "chat" settings, changing system font size, changing system font style, using accessibility settings to enlarge everything, but nothing has made that string take as much space as it does in your pictures! However that's my guess at what is happening there, and I suspect that if you can shrink that text until it fits the scrolling will stop.
 
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The thing that strikes me in your pictures is that there isn't space for the whole of "last seen today at xx:yy pm" to be displayed, so I wonder whether the scrolling is a consequence of that?

However I've not been able to test this because I've not been able to make that text large enough on my phone (Galaxy s21) that it won't fit! I've tried everything: setting 12 hour clock (to make the date/time longer), changing font size in the app's "chat" settings, changing system font size, changing system font style, using accessibility settings to enlarge everything, but nothing has made that string take as much space as it does in your pictures! However that's my guess at what is happening there, and I suspect that if you can shrink that text until it fits the scrolling will stop.
Thank you for the reply.

Sorry for the late one from myself. I've been having a lot of bother going on with my PC so only now got round to replying.

What you said triggered something in my head & I finally got the answer.

Settings > Display > Font size and style > Front size (right at the very bottom)

On my old Galaxy S10 the slider was all the way to the left. On this Galaxy S20, if the very left most setting is what we'll call "1" then it was on 5. Knock the slider to the left and it solves this WhatsApp issue.

What I don't understand is why this setting wasn't transferred over to my new phone when I used Samsung SmartSwitch, but at least we got there in the end :)
 
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