How to solve the problem of not being able to scan the QR code in Whatsapp web
WhatsApp is a great piece of software that allows you to do instant messaging as well as calls for free using your phones data connection or WiFi.
Unfortunately you cannot use WhatsApp on a device that does not have a cellular mobile connection, so this limits it to use on Android and iOS.
Another limitation of WhatsApp is unlike some other instant messaging apps such as Skype and Yahoo messenger there is no desktop version of Whatsapp for PCs and Mac computers, this is unfortunate as despite the popularity of mobile devices many people prefer the experience of using a large screen and proper keyboard of a desktop PC or laptop when communicating.
The developers of WhatsApp obviously considered that somepeople would want to use it with a big screen and keyboard and created a version of WhatsApp that runs inside a web browser named Whatsapp Web.
Whatsapp web is not actually stand alone version of WhatsApp though as to use it you still have to have access to a mobile device with the WhatsApp software installed and working.
To use Whatsapp on your PC you open up the Whatsapp Web site on your computer, and then on your phone go to the Whatsapp app and in the top corner of the screen click on the three dots and choose WhatsApp Web. This will then activate your phones camera to scan the QR code from https://web.whatsapp.com, on successfully scanning the QR code your phone syncs to your computer and allows you to send and receive messages via your PC as long as you phone is still connected to WhatsApp.
Unfortunately many people found that when they tried to scan the WhatsApp Web QR code using their phones camera it would not successfully scan. Some people reported that turning your phone through 90 or 180 degrees and scanning the QR code would work but for me that was not successful. I could scan the code using a external QR scanner app so it was obviously not a problem with the phones camera.
None of the fixes I found while searching on this topic seemed to resolve the Whatsapp Web QR scanning problem, Some of the fixes I tried from suggesting include using Chrome browser on my PC and zooming the screen to make the QR code bigger without any joy when i tried to scan the QR code. I then found a posting by rufy93 a user on the XDA forums.
Rufy93 suggested downloading an app to lock the orientation of the screen on my phone so that it remaining in landscape mode. I tried a free app called ‘Rotation Locker‘ by Madmack. It is very simple to use, it has 3 options, Automatic, Portrait or landscape.
I set the screen to lock to landscape mode, opened up WhatsApp on my phone, went to the WhatsApp Web setting, and scanned the QR code from the website and it immediately logged me into the WhatsApp Web.
Once connected you can then go back to your phone and change the orientation to automatic and continue to use it as normal.
I hope this tip helps some others, there are other screen rotation locking apps on the Play store that will probably work as well, but I choose this one as it was free and doesn’t contain any ads.