Most recent issues in 0.13.0

[Peverell90]

Thanks a lot for version 0.13.0 which included a lot of the requested features, such as the blue ticks for example.

However, there are still some more or less salient issues. I'm trying to list what I noticed:

1.) Video media files do not have text descriptions in chat

If you send a video media file in chat, you can choose to add a text message / text description that will be send right underneath the media file. For pictures, this works, but for videos it doesn't:

Video file sent without text description underneath:

Picture file sent with regular text description underneath:

2.) If you send media files in HD (WhatsApp - Settings - Storage & Media), there will be duplicates in the chat exporter output

In WhatsApp settings you can (and everyone should) activate HD media transmission. It will cause that all media you send and receive will be rendered in the best quality possible, which is HD.
In the regular WhatsApp app on the phone, this is indicated by a small "HD" sign on the bottom right of the media file.

In the Chat Exporter output, two versions of the same media file will be displayed right after one another. The reason for this is the following:

If you activate HD for media files in WhatsApp settings, WhatsApp will send two media versions of the same file. One is the non-HD version (which is smaller in size and worse in quality), the other one is the HD version (which is bigger in size and better in quality). In the WhatsApp app, only the HD version will be displayed in chat. The non-HD version will be ignored and not displayed.

In the WhatsApp Chat Exporter however, both versions will be displayed in the output because the Chat Exporter finds and processes ALL media entries in the "Message_Media" table of the WhatsApp database. In the "Message_Media" table, both media versions are listed right after one another: first the non-HD version, then the HD version. So the Chat Exporter can't distinguish between non-HD and HD version and thinks it's two separate media files and then displays both:

3.) In the most recent version 0.13.0 some random media files suddenly can't be displayed any longer, but in the previous Chat Exporter version they could:

4.) Message reaction emojis are not displayed in the Chat Exporter Output:

In the WhatsApp app on your phone, you can long press any message and then a set of emojis will appear so you can react to any message by sticking an emoji to it. It will then appear as a tiny / small emoji in the bottom right corner of the message.

In the Chat Exporter output, those reacion emojis are being ignored. No tiny / small emoji reaction is visible in the Chat Exporter output. These emoji reactions are important as they are part of the chat communication. If they are missing, chat communication sometimes doesn't make sense.

If I find more issues, I will keep this thread updated.
Thanks a lot for this awesome project!

[KnugiHK]

1. Video media files do not have text descriptions in chat

This could be a bug or a feature request. I will take a look into this.

2. If you send media files in HD (WhatsApp - Settings - Storage & Media), there will be duplicates in the chat exporter output

Thanks for reporting this new (probably?) feature!

3. In the most recent version 0.13.0 some random media files suddenly can't be displayed any longer, but in the previous Chat Exporter version they could

This is probably a bug and I will take a look at it later.

4. Message reaction emojis are not displayed in the Chat Exporter Output

Are you working on iOS? Reaction in Android is already implemented, and iOS is still being tracked at #77.

[Peverell90]

This could be a bug or a feature request. I will take a look into this.

It's definitely a bug. Because why would it work for pictures but not for videos?

Thanks for reporting this new (probably?) feature!

HD media has been implemented in WhatsApp for a while. It's still new, but not very recently. I think it has been around for a year or so.

Are you working on iOS? Reaction in Android is already implemented, and iOS is still being tracked at #77.

No, I'm using Android and for some reason I cannot see any reaction emojis in the recent 0.13.0 output.

Thanks for taking care of these issues!

[KnugiHK]

It's definitely a bug. Because why would it work for pictures but not for videos?

Classification depends on the underlying schema mapping. For example, if message.text_data is the universal container for all media captions and the parser is failing on video, it's a regression or logic bug. If video captions require joining a different table or parsing a separate metadata BLOB/column not yet explictly supported by the exporter, it's a feature request. That's why it requires investigation.

No, I'm using Android and for some reason I cannot see any reaction emojis in the recent 0.13.0 output.

Interesting... Let's move the discussion on this to #77.

[Peverell90]

Correction:

I have now found out that reaction emojis DO work for me as well. I don't know why in my last export they didn't appear. Maybe something went wrong...

So we can cross this topic off the list.