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I'm sending messages on Whatsapp and when I open up Chrome's developer tools and go into Network, my outgoing messages don't result in any traffic. Conversely, incoming messages do.

How is this possible? Shouldn't Chrome's networking tools display all incoming/outgoing traffic?

Daniel
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  • Are you sending the message and then opening up the console? Click `Perserve log` in the network tab as there might be a page refresh happening that would clear it out –  Jan 14 '16 at 19:40
  • What you are possible seeing is the response from the other side ( single and double check's updates ), all the conversation goes into the websocket -> `wss://w3.web.whatsapp.com/ws` – joaumg Jan 14 '16 at 19:43
  • No, I made sure to only send the messages after I've started recording. Checking `Preserve log` (predictably) doesn't make a difference. – Daniel Jan 14 '16 at 19:43
  • @joaumg I don't have any experience with websockets: is websocket traffic not intercepted by Chrome? – Daniel Jan 14 '16 at 19:44
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    @Daniel it is, it's on the `WS` tab, you can click the `frames` sub-menu and see the trafic inside the websocket. ( Network > WS > Frames ) – joaumg Jan 14 '16 at 19:47
  • @joaumg Thanks! Move your comments into an organized answer if you want and I'll accept it. – Daniel Jan 14 '16 at 19:51
  • @joaumg By sending long messages I've realized that the frames containing the messages are represented in Chome as "Binary Frame (Opcode 2, Mask)" - do you know how I can extract the actual binary data from the message? – Daniel Jan 14 '16 at 19:55
  • @Daniel no, I don't... – joaumg Jan 14 '16 at 20:00

1 Answers1

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Google Chrome does log all actions, and as whatsapp uses websockets, you have to see the frames to see all the communication between client and server.

All websocket communication can be seen in the Network > WS > Frames.

Why and when to use websockets in an application can be seen here

Community
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joaumg
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    A quick comment on that. In order to see the WS option, you have to click on the filters icon on the network bar. This will show the Filter bar and the WS option is there. I couldn't find it at first and took me a while to see that. – Yvens Rebouças Serpa Apr 15 '19 at 15:18