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I'm trying to figure out why desktop client doesn't generate preview for urls from particular website.

For example, this url - https://est.ua/ru/press/9259664/

When I send this url from whatsapp on android, I correctly see a preview block. When I send this very url from whatsapp on windows desktop, I don't see a preview block at all.

Steps to reproduce the issue.

  1. Open whatsapp on android or ios phone (doesn't matter which one).
  2. Open conversation with someone
  3. Type in message box (without sending): https://est.ua/ru/press/9259664/
  4. After a short while appears a preview of the url
  5. Send message. Message appears in dialog, preview exists in the message.
  6. Open whatsapp on windows pc
  7. Open conversation with someone
  8. Type in message box (without sending): https://est.ua/ru/press/9259664/
  9. Preview of the url doesn't appear at all, no matter how long I wait
  10. Send message. Message appears in dialog but doesn't contain a preview of the url.

The problem occurs on steps 9-10 (on windows). There is a difference between steps 4-5 (on android) and steps 9-10 (on windows).

Here is a screenshot of a problem:

Here is a screenshot of a problem

The first message (15:33) has been sent from whatsapp on desktop, and it somehow doesn't have preview. The second message (15:35) has been sent from whatsapp on android, ant it does have preview.

The mentioned page contains required og: metatags (og:type, og:image, og:title, og:description, og:url, og:site_name) and is correctly validated:

Tested on these:

  • Android Phone: Xiaomi Mi A3 (android 9), whatsapp: WhatsApp/2.20.47 A - ok
  • Windows: Windows 10 pro, version 1909 (build 18363.657), whatsapp: WhatsApp/0.4.930 N - issue

So I have a question. What's wrong with previews on whatsapp on desktop? Or maybe something wrong with this particular url, what exactly then?

Mustafa
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zema
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3 Answers3

1

I've found the issue for me personally was using WhatsApp in a corporate setting where SSL traffic (HTTPS) is being proxied. It seems that the self-signed internal certificates from the proxy cause the previews to not show.

Oliver
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  • does letsencrypt a kind of self-signed internal certificates? now my reverse proxy sites seems not working on whatsapp sharing too, ie. the image not showing up – HUNG Dec 03 '21 at 22:51
  • Was anybody able to make it work with Letsencrypt? – saibbyweb Feb 07 '22 at 16:35
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I had the same problem a time ago and I just figured out how to solve this. in the meta tags I had the og:image like this:

<meta property="og:image" content="images/image.jpg" />

And today I put the actual URL of the website instead of calling just the partial route and now the link preview works fine in WhatsApp Desktop. So now I have that og:image meta tag like this:

<meta property="og:image" content="https://www.{your_website_domain}/images/image.jpg" />

Jυαη Δηdrés
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Also should make sure the source image is less than 300MB. Can't find an official statement on that. But did find that larger images wouldn't work and the same image of a smaller size (in bytes, not viewable pixels) worked. JPG can get smaller than PNG in most cases

Good reference https://stackoverflow.com/a/43154489/38841

Robert J Berger
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