WhatsApp crash messages: what to do and how to protect your group

A WhatsApp crash message (known in Brazil as a trava zap) is a message built to overload the app: usually a giant text or one full of heavy characters that the phone tries to draw on the screen and cannot handle. The result is an app that is slow, frozen or closing by itself every time someone opens that group.

You do not need to become an expert to deal with it. This guide explains, without technical jargon, how to spot the attack, what to do right away and how to get the group ready before it happens.

What a crash message is

Think of a message that, instead of conversation, is a weight: it takes so much memory to display that the app chokes. Whoever sends it usually does it on purpose, as a prank, for revenge or to take a group down. On simpler phones the effect shows up faster, but nobody is immune just because they have a good device.

Signs your group was attacked

• The group takes a long time to open, or the app closes by itself when you enter it
• The phone gets slow or freezes when you scroll the conversation
• A huge message appears, or one full of strange symbols that nobody understands
• Several members complain about the same problem at the same time
• Right before the slowdown, an unknown or recently joined person sent something out of the ordinary

What to do right away

WhatsApp's own tools work, as long as you act calmly and in order:

• Do not keep opening the group on your phone if the app is closing, especially on a weak device. Every attempt just repeats the crash
• If the phone app will not open the group, try WhatsApp Web on a computer to delete the message
• Delete the message for everyone, so it disappears for the other members too
• Remove whoever sent it from the group, so the person cannot repeat the attack
• Close the group (Group settings, Send messages, Only admins) so nobody sends a second one while you clean up

Warn the other admins outside the group and ask members not to keep opening the chat until you give the all clear.

How Becca helps in the moment

Becca runs in the cloud, not on your phone, so she does not depend on your device's app to act. As an admin of the group, she has commands for this moment:

• !fechargp closes the group right away, and !abrirgp reopens it when everything is clean
• !destrava (admins only) sends a ready-made text meant to unfreeze the group in case someone sends a crash message
• !deletar deletes the tagged message and !ban @member removes whoever sent it
• !addlistanegra @member keeps the person from coming back: if they join again, they are removed immediately

Prevent it with a character limit and antiflood

The best time to deal with a crash message is before it arrives. Two protections help a lot:

• !limitec turns on the character limit and opens the menu of levels (Only Delete, Delete & Remove, Delete & Warn or Delete & Mute). With !addlimitec followed by the number, you set the maximum size of a message (if you do not set one, the default is 4000 characters). Text that long or longer from non-admins is deleted. Pick a limit well above what anyone writes in a normal conversation
• !antiflood acts when someone sends 5 messages in about 2 seconds, common in spam attacks

The character limit is useful against walls of text and against crash messages made of very long text. It is not a guarantee against every kind of attack, but it removes a large part of the risk without bothering anyone's conversation.

A crash message can come from someone who just joined the group. So combine the text protection with protection against foreign numbers. !antifake removes anyone with a country code that is not allowed at the door (only 55 is allowed by default), and the blacklist keeps out anyone who already did harm. Admins and anyone on !autorizar are free from the limit and antiflood punishments, so choose carefully who goes on that list.

What no protection can guarantee

It would be nice to say that with Becca nothing ever crashes again, but nobody can promise that. Some types of attack are not visible as long text, and your device can suffer anyway. What you get is lower risk and a fast response: less chance of a crash message getting through, and ready commands to close the group, clean up and remove whoever sent it. Keep WhatsApp updated and have more than one trusted admin.

Next step

Write down your emergency plan today: close the group, enter through WhatsApp Web, delete and remove. Then add Becca to the group (R$ 15 per group per month, no lock-in, Pix or card), make her an admin, send !limitec and !addlimitec to set the limit, and turn on !antiflood and !antifake. If an attack comes, the first command is !fechargp.