re-activating whatsapp in another country
 

Hopefully there is some android expert/whatsapp expert here.

My dad has been using whatsapp in Asia for a few years to connect with his old friends/co-workers.

Hes back in Canada now with his Canadian phone. Is there anyway to bypass the activation on whatsapp to allow him to use his Asian phone number here for whats app only?

Does he still have the SIM for Asia? Activate with that sim locally on WIFI then just switch out to your Canadian sim.

when u put in a new sim and use whatsapp, itll say ur sim has changed, and ask if u want to change ur whatsapp acc to that number, choose not to, ur dads whatsapp will still be using the hk number while the sim in the phone will be canadian number

If you are going this route, just make sure that you dad does not deactivate the HK number or else when someone got that number, that someone will kick your dad off whatsapp.

Another way is to back up the contact list on the HK phone and put it on the Canadian phone and activate whatsapp using the new Canadian number.

The thing is that his contacts are all from HK. If the HK sim isnt in, then he wont get any msg from them because it would go to the HK #

the only thing he can do is keep the HK sim and just use WiFi or tell all his contacts the Canadian # so they will send msg to it instead of the HK#

maybe whatsapp changed their auth/activation process, if not, then just putting in the canadian sim in and choosing not to update to the new network number will allow his dad to keep whatsapp on the hk number but the phone on canadian number. ive done this a billion times last year when i traveled to hk and china bac and forth within 3 months and was still able to keep using my canadian number to whatsapp

but what doest make sense (to me) is that people are sending msg to your canadian number, if you have a HK/china#, how would the msg get through? maybe Im missing something...

^ The messages are not sent to any phone with that number and the number merely acts as an identifier on the Whatsapp network. Does it make sense?

my canadian number is associated with the whatsapp account on my phone, if i change sim cards with a new number, whatsapp will ask if i would like to update to the new network number, choosing not to will keep whatsapp associated with the original number yet the sim card on the phone will/can be another number

technically u dont send whatsapp messages to phone numbers, u just send messages to an account associated to phone numbers, so if u dont change the phone number on that account, whatsapp messages will continue to work

but from reading your post, how would he still get msg to the canadian # if his HK# is the active # on that account??
I know the phone # is the identifier on the whatsapp network... but Im somewhat confused with your answer.. because on the whatsapp network, they still think your dad is still using the HK#...

your suppose to activate it on the phone # so the whatapp network knows that you change #

he cant get mesg on his can # since it never activated(or in this case he doesnt want to activate his can #) on his phone.

u r right, the whatsapp network will still think his dad is using the asian number which is exactaly what he wants to do

so now all his dads frnds in canada will have to mesg his asia number to reach him on whatsapp

I'm not sure how it works, but my whatsapp is associated with my hk number and whenever I put in a China or Macau sim, and even recently a Canadian SIM, I have never been asked to update or change whatsapp numbers.
I just pop in any sim and continue to use my WhatsApp as normal.
But all my contacts need to msg my hk number and that's ok since I tell them to call my local number but whatsapp my main number as normal
Posted via RS Mobile

Use whatsapp plus. Its essentially a modded version of whatsapp but with a bunch of more functions. One being that you can use a different number for your phone and your whatsapp simultaneously.
Posted via RS Mobile