Once you click on the Whatsapp icon, the screen shows a message which says that the application is on an obsolete version. As soon as you click on the update version option, the app store does not provide an update. You will again be given the option to open it.
Once you go to the reviews section of the application, you get to see that a lot of people are facing the same problem and most of them started facing the problem since Saturday morning.
It is also to be noted that majority of the users who are facing the problem are Xiaomi users and to further test this claim we checked the Xiaomi phones in our office. The Xiaomi Remi 4 was facing the same problem.
Many have also shared their anguish on Twitter –
Many users are saying that installing WhatsApp directly from their website helped them to resolve the issue others download the .apk file of the application. Some say that merely uninstalling and installing the application helped them but if you haven't set the data synchronization to daily, then you might lose your backup data.