EDIT: We’ve been in touch with WeChat on Twitter. They’ve sent us a couple of Direct Messages there. Here’s what they said:
“Hi Brian. Thx for helping us answer users’ questions! I can see that ur site is a super useful resource! We really appreciate it!”
All well and good but how about some help! Here’s the next one:
“We read through some of the comments & submitted these issues to the team. We’ll get back to you as soon as I hear back….”
The last one was back on September 27th, 2013. Still waiting. We’ll post when we hear from them.
Last week, we wrote about WeChat. Here is the post: WeChat/Weixin . Here is the link to WeChat at the Apple Store. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/wechat!/id414478124?mt=8 It’s available in the Android app store, as well.
Sometimes it seems that the only innovations in social networking are coming out of China. Honestly, that’s not all that hard to figure out, seeing as how there are over a billion people there and almost half of them use the Internet. Of those users, about 400 million access the Internet using the various mobile devices available, many of which are Smartphones.
Add the fact that Chinese Internet users are very sociable, probably more so than North Americans, and you’ve got a perfect wave forming for a company like Tencent (http://www.tencent.com/en-us/index.shtml). Enter Weixin or WeChat. Tencent already has a huge market with QQ and its own version of Weibo but now, with WeChat, they have come up with a purely mobile chat application that is, to us anyway, stunning.
Read our previous post then come back and find out how to meet new people using WeChat. Take your time, we’ll wait.
OK! Here we go. There are three completely different ways to look for other WeChat users. Of course, you can plunk in your other social media passwords and find out which friends already use WeChat or you can invite them to start using it, but here we’re talking about meeting completely new people.
1. The first way is to simply ‘Look Around’. If your mobile device has a GPS monitor, you’ll be able to search out WeChat users who live in your area. In my case, I found users within 900 meters of my home. To me, that’s kind of like standing on your porch and shouting, “Is there anybody out there?” Of course, the local users are all Chinese, except for me that is. Most early adopters of WeChat are overwhelmingly Chinese but, theoretically, that will change.
Once you find a WeChat user nearby, you can simply say, “Hi”. You can also tune the Look Around feature to show only males, only females or both. Personally, I think this feature is pretty cool but I can also see how it might seem creepy to some of you. If it does, you can easily delete the Look Around plug-in. It is part of the default set of plug-ins and is easily removed.
2. Instead of looking around for other WeChat users, you can shake your way to new relationships using the Shake plug-in. Choose the option from the screen and simply give your mobile phone a shake. WeChat looks around for other users who are shaking their devices at the same time and gives you the option to say hi to them. This plug-in is more proactive than the Look Around feature since you already know that the person shaking their phone is looking to make contact with someone. Say hi and see how it goes. You can always shake again if things turn sour. Remember, again, that virtually every user you contact will be Chinese. If you know anything about China and the Chinese people, you will know that almost everyone wants to learn English but many Chinese already have a rudimentary knowledge of it. Many Chinese speak and write better English than some of your friends and neighbors, too.
TIP: If you meet someone you like and the English thing isn’t getting you anywhere, you can download QQ International. We’ll do another post on it but, for now, we’ll simply say that you can chat with someone who only knows Chinese even if you only know English. There is a wonderful translation app built into the International version which has opened up the world to China and, of course, China to the world.
3. The last way to meet new friends is to simply cast a bottle out into the ocean. Of course, this is a virtual bottle but it works the same way as a real bottle with a message in it. Type in your note or use a voice message and then toss your bottle into the ocean of WeChat users. WeChat will notify you when someone replies. Just now, I tossed a bottle out and almost instantly got three replies. One was a female exchange student in Denmark, another was a man who left me a voice message and the third was also a guy who just said, ‘Hello”. In the span of five minutes, I’ve got three new people to share things with. Cool!
WeChat isn’t for everyone. At this point, you have to have a keen interest in China and the Chinese people. You also have to be patient and be able to understand that not everyone in the world speaks perfect English. Once you’re over those hurdles, WeChat is loads of fun. Additionally, if you wait a year or so, WeChat will be flooded with millions of other users. At this point, it supports Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Portuguese, plus English and Chinese. (If you know social networking, you’ll see the importance of having WeChat available in Portuguese. Orkut, the Google version of Facebook, is extremely popular in Brazil.)
Questions, comments, links are all welcome. Thanks for reading!
If ever I uninstalled wechat, is it possible that when they call me it still rings?
Or if it rings, it means that my application is uninstalled.
For example, my friend said that she uninstalled wechat, but whenever I call her, it rings…
How is that?
I’m looking forward for your affirmative response
Thanks
If you uninstall the app, how could it still ring? There is no way it could possibly work/ring/whatever after you uninstall it. Is it possible that your friend has linked the app to something else? Has she installed any helper apps? Tell her to install WeChat again, delete all of her contacts and then uninstall it. That would solve the problem. If she has linked WeChat to another app or if she has installed some kind of helper app, tell her to delete those also. Good luck!
Thanks for commenting.
Search the my lmcation in the shake wechat
Sorry. We don’t know what you’re asking. Leave another comment. OK?
I like to know how “public” my photo album is? I only accepted friends for 10 ppl in my contact lists which they can view my pics. Can users ‘not in my contact list’ or ‘not accepted as my friends’ able to view my photos too?
Theoretically, no they can’t, as long as you have turned ‘Public Moments’ off. Go to Me, Settings then Privacy and set the Public Moments to OFF. That way, only your contacts can see your moments. We say ‘theoretically’ because the little greyed out sentence at the bottom doesn’t change, no matter if the setting is on or off. What you might want to do is to make one or more groups from your contact list. That way you can share your moments with them, no one else. See what we mean? If you want to test your settings, give us your WeChat ID (we won’t publish it) here or in a message on your Facebook page, then we can check it for you. With the setting to Off, we shouldn’t be able to see any of your Moments, just your profile pic. We would contact you via email or as a message on Facebook. OK?
Thanks for commenting.
Hi. I have a problem with using “people nearby”. For the first few days of using wechat everything was fine. I was getting greetings and was chatting with people in my area but after a few days i noticed that i am not anymore visible at “people nearby” while i was using my sibling’s account. I also tried to send my sib a greeting. I was able to send it but it was never received. Thinking it was my account which has a problem, i made 2 more accounts but it had the same problem. I was not visible, it cannot send and receive greetings. I even tried to log my accounts in another mobile device but it didnt help. This is so frustrating. I have tried everything. How do I get it fixed??
Wow that’s a big problem. Unfortunately we don’t have a solution for you. You’re ruled out any problem with your account and, theoretically anyway, a problem with your data provider. Is this happening on WiFi or on data? It seems hardware based, to us anyway. At this point, we can’t access Shake or People Nearby on our Android device, it logs out of WeChat and goes back to the main screen, and connections ‘time out’ on our iPod. All of these features may be victims of their own success. Millions of users worldwide are using WeChat to connect with others. There has never been anything like this before and we’re quite sure that TenCent might be reconsidering or reconfiguring their wonderfully popular app. If we get any insights on your problem, we’ll post again. Let us know if you fix it.
Thanks for commenting.
If i uninstall wechat, can someone still send messages or call me???
Yes, they can send messages but they will never be read or seen. If someone is bothering you, delete and/or block them, then uninstall WeChat if you don’t want to use it again. You can’t close your account, from what we can see anyway. Uninstalling the app means that no one will ever see the messages,etc. but your profile pics and Moments will still be visible. Delete all of that, delete everyone on your contact list, then uninstall the app. That’s about as good as you can get. Good luck!
Thanks for commenting.
Hello,
I’m using WeChat on Iphone and when I shake I always get people from European countries. However, I want to know if there is a way to get more Chinese users. My friend has a windows phone, which I think is an older version of Wechat and she only gets Chinese users but she doesn’t speak Chinese lol. Idk what the issue is. I even tried downloading Wechat from the Chinese appstore.
That’s interesting, most people have the opposite problem. We don’t know of a solution to this. In retrospect, when WeChat first came out, we seem to remember getting a few contacts in China but since then, only contacts from other areas of the world. If you could compare software on the two phones, maybe see what additional apps your friend has, that might explain why she is getting only Chinese results. That still won’t help you but it would solve her problem! Did you access the Chinese appstore from the U.S.? Or did you choose Chinese as your language and access the U.S. store using a menu that is in Chinese? See what we mean? On the web, you can see what the url is but on a phone, the store has no url. That would be interesting for us and other users.
There is a possibility that the Chinese have moved on to something else. Most of our contacts come from QQ and/or renren.com, not from People Nearby or Shake. This is something that we’re constantly working on so a solution might be forthcoming in the future.
Thanks for commenting and we hope to hear some updates.
using web wechat can we use wechat in computer,if yes,then how. thanks
Yes, you can chat on the web quite easily. Go to Me, then Settings, then General then to Web WeChat. Follow the instructions there. Basically, you scan a QR code on your computer monitor with your phone which then allows you to open up a chat menu on your computer. We’ll do a whole post on this later. This is quite a step for WeChat, we feel. If you have problems, let us know. OK? Thanks for commenting.
We just posted an article on how to use WeChat on your computer. Thanks for the suggestion!
using web wechat in the phone can we use wechat in computer
Already answered. Thanks for commenting.
Hello I want to know that whenever I use shake features why I always get a a Chinese people dere are a lots of countries why I dont get people from usa, or Australia or russia , , another thing is in shake dere was a setting which helps to get only female in shake but I forgotten from where I will get that setting to get a female user in every shake..
Set your preferences in People Nearby to ‘female only’ and they should be the same for Shake. If you are getting only Chinese, maybe you are using Shake too frequently. Take a break or change your username/display name. That has helped some people. Good luck and thanks for commenting.
How to do moments on wechat using Nokia E71?
We don’t have every mobile device at our disposal, unfortunately. The E71 is fairly dated, isn’t it? Perhaps it doesn’t have the capability to use Moments. Update your phone or stick with the chat feature.
Thanks for commenting.
my shake not working cos whn i shake only
chinse there
ur answer : display name change but not working this way
Sorry it didn’t work. That solution works for other people.
Hi there.
I have two cell phones and both have WeChat installed on. When I shake my old cell phone which is Sony Ericsson, I get people from my own country (Iran) mostly. But all the shake results that I get from my new cell phone (SAMSUNG Galaxy Mega) are people from China. I’m just wondering what the problem could be. Please help me out with this snag if possible.
It is to be mentioned that I use WeChat version 4 on my old cell phone, and WeChat version 5 on the new one.
Thank you.
The only thing we can think of is that the new version is corrupted somehow. If you downloaded the app from the proper place, it should work the same way on both phones. Perhaps the update you downloaded isn’t the real WeChat app. We don’t know what else to suggest, sorry. Are you using any helper apps on your new phone that may be interfering with the Shake results? Good luck.
Thanks for commenting.
My friend has blocked me.
How do i get to know his wechat id.
He has hidden his id and am able to see his name only
Please reply.
No, there is nothing you can do. Once you’re blocked, you’re blocked, that’s the purpose of it. You could try having a friend try and find your friend or create a new account. Good luck!
Thanks for commenting.
Hey. Didn’t read all the comments. But when you get the “fake Chinese profiles” that say they are 5-20km away from you it means you have been using the ‘shake’ function too much – there’s actually an unknown limit to how many shakes you can use per day. So just wait a while and you’ll be able to use it again – or as someone suggested changing your user name might set your shake to zero again so you can start using it immediately again.
Yes, that seems to be the thing to do. Change your display name has been suggested just below this.
Thanks for commenting.
Hi Guys, the information on this thread is really useful, and i can see WeChat surpassing other apps pretty soon.
However we need to acknowledge a little bug.
I have been testing the shake feature for over 4-5 weeks now from the same locations and phone as now. And earlier it actually used to be random however you could rarely see the same name in every 50-100 shakes.
Vut recently i tried playing around with my display name, and maybe that caused the issue. But now no matter ho often , which location and at which time i shake, it keeps cycling through the same set of 10-20 profiles which apparently look fake.
I understand randomization and probability pretty well. but it cant be possible that these 15-20 people, are really close to me and keep chaking almost all day long !
Anyone know how to fix this bug ? would appreciate any help.
It was like fishign in the sea earlier, not its like fishing in a bucket.
If you changed your display name, change it to something else. We’d be interested to know what you changed it to, as that seemed to cause the problem. Was it in any way suggestive of something else? Did it have a word that might change your Shake results? Hopefully you’ll see what we mean here but we also hope you don’t take this the wrong way. Change your name back to the original one and see if the results change.
Thanks for commenting.
when i shake my phone i have only fake frnds at chinees at near.continuesly in one week help me
Read the tips on this page. Maybe one will help.
Thanks for commenting.
hello, i have something to ask. i accidently block and deleted my friend. how can i find him back? it because i dont have his number or id. can you help me?
The person should still be in your blocked list. Here is the route: Me, Settings, Privacy, Blocked List (down near the bottom) then to the contact you want to unblock, then to the three dots up on the top right then ‘unblock’. Let us know if you get lost, OK? Thanks for commenting.
Please advise how to unblock someone you have blocked. The person whom i blocked is not showing on my contacts now.. how does one unblock .. please help.
thanks
Already answered but here it is again: Here is the route: Me, Settings, Privacy, Blocked List (down near the bottom) then to the contact you want to unblock, then to the three dots up on the top right then ‘unblock’. Let us know if you get lost, OK? Thanks for commenting.
I blocked a friend just to check how it works. I want to unblock her. But now its not showing on the contact list.
Please help how do i get her back.
thanks
Here is the route: Me, Settings, Privacy, Blocked List (down near the bottom) then to the contact you want to unblock, then to the three dots up on the top right then ‘unblock’. Let us know if you get lost, OK? Thanks for commenting.
how to know someone is block me or delete me? as when i open his account, its moment is empty. then i give him a message then got a note ask for friend verification. is mean iam been block or delete? then he stil can see my moments updated?
Yes, it seems you have been blocked. If someone deletes you, you can still see their moments. Alternatively, they may have blocked you from their Moments AND deleted you as a friend. That’s different than simply blocking you totally.
Thanks for commenting.
how to know someone is block me or delete me? as when i open his account, its moment is empty. then i give him a message then got a note ask for friend verification. is mean iam been block or delete?
Yes, it seems you have been blocked. If someone deletes you, you can still see their moments. Alternatively, they may have blocked you from their Moments AND deleted you as a friend. That’s different than simply blocking you totally.
Thanks for commenting.
Im using nokia 5800 symbian device (known as s60v5). My device has front camera and supports video call but in wechat i cant have video chat may i know why
And one more question does there will be any future update for symbian devices(specially for s60v5)
We’re not familiar with the Sumbian products but we know that any app that uses a device’s functions has to have permission to do so. Go back to your device settings to see if there is an option for WeChat to use your webcam. Alternatively, check to see if any chat app can access your camera. Are you on WiFi when you want to use the cam? If not, make sure your data settings will allow streaming. Also make sure your data supplier allows streaming and that your data speed is sufficient for it. We don’t think the problem is with WeChat, more likely it’s your device and/or your data supplier’s restrictions. As for updates, you’ll have to ask WeChat directly. They are on Facebook now. Maybe you will get more updates directly from them.
Thanks for commenting.
I have a question about Shake. When you Shake it’s supposed to show 1 person that is shaking “at the same time” as you, right? But is it like a 1 on 1 thing where 2 people are matched up – say they’ll get shown your profile and you get shown theirs? Thanks.
Yes, each of you will see the other’s profile photo. If you or they want to continue, you can see some of their Moments and/or send them a message. Each time you do it, you get another person who is shaking their phone at that moment. Sometimes you get more than one but it’s usually just one.
Thanks for commenting.
I think the WeChat “Shake” option is more than a bit dubious. I’m in the UK and when I “shake” it shows users in various parts of China, Hong Kong and Macau that are supposedly 2km to 12km away from me. Needless to say most of the profile photos are fakes of models or Anime characters that have been lifted from the internet (some even still have URL’s printed on the bottom of the photos – like rank amateurs) and often the same profile comes up and the photo suddenly changes. Add to this the fact that all these people are supposedly awake and ‘shaking’ even though it’s say 3-5am in China at the time leads me to the conclusion that the Shake is a bit of a fake. Very disappointing.
You’re having the same problem as many of our other readers. Nothing much we can say except to see if there is a suggestion to fix the problem on this page, somewhere in the comments.
How can I solve my problem ((Too Many Operations)) I cant log in
When we search ‘wechat too many operations’ we get an account recovery page. Seems like your account has been banned because of ‘too many operations’. We suspect that WeChat thinks you are spamming other users, perhaps.
Thanks for commenting.
Hi,
I am a nee WeChat user. Just started it a couple of days ago actually. I went to ‘find nearby people’ option and wechat is suggesting that some people are within hundred meters distance from my location. What the actual problem I am facing is that I found someone who WeChat suggests is only 3 km away from my location whereas the person tells me that her location is Thailand? Could that be possible? How would WeChat do that? Please can you reply to my post. I shall be much obliged:)
It is frustrating, isn’t it? We can’t duplicate that problem but it seems that many other users are in the same situation as you. We’ve asked WeChat many times but they do not respond to our queries. Sorry but we can’t help you. As we’ve said many times, we’re not associated with WeChat in any way. We help when we can but that’s about it.
Thanks for commenting.
Why does d wechat profile pic of some of the users change exactly when we try to open it by clicking on small pic ?
Also, some of my frnds say that they are still viewing my old profile pic though hav changed my pic 3 times after d pic which they are viewing.
Please help with the above quries.
This may have something to do with data transmission or a cache problem. Unless people use their device on WiFi, these things may not update themselves on a regular basis. Some people may have their data set to low usage or their cache is too large and needs to be cleaned out. Since each device is different, we can’t advise you on how to do that or how to tell your friends to do it. Good luck and thanks for commenting.
sorry i cant find my post to replay on it
so
this is from the begining
hi im reading some of the part i am look at the date and time of question and answer thank you this is my problem i update my wechat on android to 5.0.3 whean i use the shake and the person who add me we are chating after a time mabye 5 min maybe 5 day’s i do not know i receive this eror the message is successfuly sent but rejected by the receiver i know they dont ignor me or some thing like that i get the eror many time’s almost every one in shake who accept my request ???
Here is the new reply:
That is a new problem, one we haven’t seen before. If your device says the messages have been sent, then it sure looks like they have blocked you. The other possibility is that their data plans are limited. Do you send long messages or photos? Maybe you are sending too many messages without waiting for a reply. The problem isn’t with WeChat or your device, they both seem to be working fine. It may have something to do with the country where these people are located or their data plan, something like that. If we figure something out, we will reply again. Thanks for commenting.
_____________
you admited a good point
country
iran
my country always doing limited some thing like this app
viber
facebook
wechat and . . .
because boy’s and girl’s . . .
OK, glad you agree with us. We know that other countries censor communications, Dubai for one. They have filters that will not let certain words in text messages (SMS) through to the recipient. If the message is sent from Dubai, it never reaches its destination. In the future, if you think this is the case, you can try using code words or euphemisms for some things. We wish the world wasn’t like it is but there’s not much we can do. As an aside, we know many Persians here in Toronto and they are, as a group, some of the nicest people we’ve ever met. Maybe things will change and open up in the near future. Good luck!
hi
im reading some of the part
i am look at the date and time of question and answer
thank you
this is my problem
i update my wechat on android to 5.0.3
whean i use the shake
and the person who add me
we are chating
after a time
mabye 5 min
maybe 5 day’s
i do not know
i receive this eror
the message is successfuly sent but rejected by the receiver
i know they dont ignor me or some thing like that
i get the eror many time’s
almost every one in shake who accept my request
???
That is a new problem, one we haven’t seen before. If your device says the messages have been sent, then it sure looks like they have blocked you. The other possibility is that their data plans are limited. Do you send long messages or photos? Maybe you are sending too many messages without waiting for a reply. The problem isn’t with WeChat or your device, they both seem to be working fine. It may have something to do with the country where these people are located or their data plan, something like that. If we figure something out, we will reply again.
Thanks for commenting.
How do I change my own Alias?
Go to Me then tap on your profile at the top then tap on Name and change it. Your profile is still the same, but your Alias can be anything. The only problem with this is that your friends may lose you in their string of contacts. Unless you tell your best friends that you’ve changed your name, they may not be able to send you messages. That’s just something to consider.
Thanks for commenting.
Why i’m not getting indians in shaking feature?
if i creates a new wechat id and logs in with it then i am able to find indian people in shake option for first 10-15 min and again after 10-15 min there are no indians in that, it’s just showing chinese, thai and malasiyans why why why? is there any permanant solution for this?
No, nothing we can suggest. Many are having the same problem but, so far, we haven’t found a solution. Sorry and thanks for commenting.
Hi
I HAVE A PROBLEM WITH MY WECHAT SHAKE,WHEN I SHAKE I GET ONLY CHINESE PEOPLE WHO ARE WITHIN 10 KMS BUT IM FROM INDIA HOW CAN I WILL GET ONLY CHINESE PEOPLE BUT NOT FROM OTHER COUNTRIES,I HAVE INSTALLED LATEST VERSION OF WECHAT 5.0 SHENZHEN, TO SOLVE THIS I HAVE EVEN INSTALLED OLDER VERSIONS AND UNINSTALLED SHAKE FOR 2 DAYS AND INSTALLED BUT THERE WAS NO OUTCOME FROM IT.
HOPING FOR A PERFECT SOLUTION
THANK YOU.
If you read the other comments and replies on this page, you might find an answer. Good luck!
There is no solution to it, almost everybody has this same issue. It happens to me as well, and I live in a small Canadian Arctic community where I know for a fact there is only abut 40-50 Chinese and none of them is using WeChat. It may simply be a glitch, and hopefully the WeChat team is working on it. I also suspect that many of these close users from China that come up when you shake are “fake” accounts. To see if they were real, I contacted every single user from China that popped up and were supposedly a few km from me, and not a single user has ever replied. However, when I contact a regular user from China, I get a reply at least 75% of the time. I can’t tell for certain, but I find it strange. In any case, WeChat is a very fun app and I made some nice connections from China and other countries, just enjoy it for what it is.
Exactly what we suggested! Thanks for this update. For some reason, we can’t duplicate it at all on either our Android or Apple devices. That’s the curious part of it. If it was a glitch in WeChat, it should be universal. Since it’s not, we think that something else is skewing the results, either a virus or another app. With Shake, we get one or two profiles, always legitimate in distance and location. Granted, we don’t shake every two minutes but we have tried it for extended periods, simply to try to get the error that others say they are getting. Anyway, thanks for your comments. We’ll refer people to this when we get more questions.
Wechat shake function seems to default to show fake profiles after you’ve used it ‘several times’. It’s pretty annoying.
Many of our readers have that problem but we don’t. We have no idea why this happens, other than using the Shake feature too many times in a row. It’s meant for fun, not for continuous use.
Thanks for commenting.
when I shake it shows a loop of some people n they r chinese , n whn I clicked on their profile pics it changes everytime. it’s a lag. I guess , I m tryin since morning. its irritating. -_-
Yes, this is a common problem. You’ve added a helper app perhaps or you have used Shake more than the limit which WeChat has set. We don’t know what that limit is, however. Give it a read for a few days and try again. You could also create a new account. That might work. Good luck and thanks for commenting.
HelloI have problem with my wechat in the shake
function in the beggening its started perfect but
niw when i shake it keeps finding people frim
china and it saids that they are 13 km away i live
in india how that must be possible do i have
somthing wrong with my gps please help!!!
We think it’s because you’ve used Shake too often. We’re not sure but that seems to be the consensus from other readers. Try leaving it alone for a while then using it a few times. It should correct itself after a period of time. Good luck!
Hi,
The wechat shake option only shows chinese users after some time and even if we wait for 2 or 3 days and shake again,still only seeeing them.Could you provide for this problem.
Sorry, we’re not affiliated with WeChat in any way. You can try sending a message to them, they are on your contact list. It could be a helper app that you’ve installed. We don’t get the same results when we use it. Good luck.
hye.ive problem with accqepting friend request.ive deleted an individual for twice,but now he greets again,and i really want to accept friend request that been sent together.but,i cant do so,i cant even reply to the greetings.what can i do?ive tried logged out/in,restart phone,change language setting but still it didnt work.it keeps showing”unable to add” “unable to send message”.
We’re not sure what the problem is. Is the person’s profile still active? How old is the friend request you received? There is a chance that he has created a new account. Alternatively, check all of your settings to make sure you haven’t blocked him. From the sounds of it, though, he seems to have blocked you. When you can’t add someone or respond to a message, it’s the other person’s settings that are usually at fault. You could try to open a new account then send a message to this person. Try to explain the situation and hope that he understands. Good luck and thanks for commenting.
Hello team,
Iam facing issue using shake option. As I use the option for at least 10 mins I start getting some profiles from Beijing or some other countries of Hong Kong china within of 10 km which is not corect. Hence I had to stop using it for day to get the issue refix. Please help me with proper solution
Well, you’ve answered your own question, right? If you use Shake for a longer than normal period of time, you start to get incorrect results. The proper solution is to use the Shake feature sparingly, not for long periods of time. We will say it again. WeChat is a free app. The fact that you can use it now and then to meet people from around the world is pretty nice, isn’t it? The Shake feature is meant to be fun. It’s not a dating service. Take it for what it is, fun. There are many other ways to meet people on the Internet, although none are quite as simple and fun as WeChat. Think of it this way. If WeChat came up with a ‘pay per use’ feature, would you still use it?
Thanks for commenting.
Pls, what should I do my wechat opens for a while and then closes. Im not enjoying it anymore. I tried to download another application and deleted the former one but the problem still occurs. Pls Im from Nigeria
Sorry, we don’t have any suggestions for you. It could be your device (phone) or it could be your connection, we’re not sure. It does sound like it’s not the app itself, however. More than likely another app is interfering with it or it’s a hardware problem. Good luck! Sorry we couldn’t be more helpful.
Bawo ! 🙂 Due to a bug in WeChat, may I suggest when you open WeChat you go firstly to the Contacts option tab, type some characters in Search Contacts … then, you can hopefully leave Contacts and use WeChat normally without it crashing.
That’s great! Thanks for letting us know. We’ve only had one question about WeChat crashing but maybe this is a new bug. We appreciate your input.
This came in from another user: “Due to a bug in WeChat, may I suggest when you open WeChat you go firstly to the Contacts option tab, type some characters in Search Contacts … then, you can hopefully leave Contacts and use WeChat normally without it crashing.” It might help you.
I can’t see people’s profile picture from shake even if they have a profile picture..it appears to be blank…please help
Make sure you phone is not on a data saving setting. Also, check with your provider to see if images are blocked. We assume that some countries may block images. Just a guess but possible since countries also block Youtube and Facebook. Thanks for commenting.
i am using wechat using bluestack and i am unable to use the shake option because i guess there are no sensors in my lappy so kindly assist what to do..??
Looks like you’re stuck. If you can’t actually shake something, you can’t use Shake, at least as far as we know.
Thanks for commenting.
I had the same problem with wechat for weeks now and i didn’t even had one single normal person anymore. So the shake to much solution doesn’t seem to be correct. I tried to shake again now after a long time and now it just keeps loading. I’m not even getting the fake accounts anymore. I tried all the solutions but none of them work.
OK. Thanks for commenting.
shake app was stopped working.. firstly it was very nice when i downloaded wechat..next it goes on seeing other country people r in 5km ,10km.. now it was not showing anything.. it was going on showing “searching for people shaking their phones” i tried whole day..it was showing nothing.. if anyone knows the solution please help..
Sorry, we have no idea why Shake isn’t working. Is it possible that you shook too much at the start and your account has been banned? Try another profile. Good luck!
another account also i tried.it was also not working.
I bought an Spice MI 510 and installed we chat. My phone has android 4.2 (Jelly bean) but we chat shake is not working all other feature are working. Any remedy ?
Sorry, we don’t know much about specific devices unless we use them ourselves. Hopefully someone will read your comment and let us know what the situation is on this. Other than deleting the app and re-installing it, we can’t offer any suggestions. Have you enabled it in your settings? Good luck, sorry we couldn’t offer any better information.
Thanks for commenting.
Hi there. I’m having a weird issue with my moments (or posts as they’re now called). I post all my moments to “All”, but despite this, users who are not my friends cannot see my most recent 10 moments. They can see my greeting message, and profile and cover pics, but the moments simply don’t show.
I have confirmed this first-hand on multiple occasions – friends who I meet in real life, who then try and add me on WeChat cannot see the moments at all.
I would really like to have my last 10 moments available to everyone, as it provides that extra bit of familiarity when someone is considering adding you as a friend.
Under Settings -> Privacy, there is the setting “Public Moments” with the description: “Strangers can see your 10 most recent Moments shared to ‘All'”
This setting is set to ‘on’. I have even turned this setting off and on again in the hope of rectifying this problem, but all my moments are still invisible to strangers.
Was wondering if you guys had any idea why this happens, or better yet, if any solution had been found.
Thanks a lot for your time.
Moments are still Moments, at least on our Apple iOS and Android devices. Unless you are using Symbian or another OS, you might want to check why your Moments are called Posts. If you’ve installed a helper app, that might be the cause. Other than that, we can’t see why your Moments are being seen by others. To eliminate a few things, sign up for another account, add yourself then post a Moment. Switch back to the other account and see if you can see it. Do the same thing in reverse. You’ve got a good handle on the settings so it can’t be something like that. This is the first we’ve heard of it but if we get more comments, and an answer, we’ll let you know.
Thanks for commenting.
Thanks for the reply.
I’m using WeChat on iOS. On the “Me” settings screen “Moments” are now called “My Posts”, as of a couple of updates ago. The naming is kind of inconsistent across the app though.
I’ll give what you suggested a try. I guess I was hoping there might be a simple solution, but no worries. Thanks a lot.
Maybe it’s because you are using it on a new iPhone or OS 7.1, something like that. We’re using 5.0.1 and our Moments are still that, not posts. Our OS is 6.1.3 on an iPod Touch which can’t get the latest OS update. We’re curious about your ‘Posts’. Have you linked WeChat and Facebook? Anyway, good luck. We think Posts is a key that you can work on.
As of WeChat 5.0 on iOS “My Moments” in the “Me” settings (i.e. where you go to post a new one), is called “My Posts”. It’s still “Moments” everywhere else. If you’ve got an up-to-date version of WeChat you’ll be able to see this on yours. That’s a universal change and not problematic. I’m more interested in why my most recent 10 Moments/Posts aren’t showing up publicly, despite the settings supposedly allowing this. No helper apps, no Facebook linking, no iOS 7 yet. Just standard vanilla WeChat here. Thanks anyway for your help. If I find out anything more about this problem I’ll check back in.
OK, we hope you work this out. By any chance did you post something that was marked Private? Is it possible that this setting is now your default setting? Alternatively, post something and mark it so it can only be seen by one person or a few people. See if that changes things for you. Good luck!
I don’t know if the main cause it’s 3G or not, but it’s just coincidence…? I don’t know… Thank you anyway. I checked my settings more than once and I even re-installed the app but nothing. *Sigh*
And sure, I have so many things to say about being a female Wechat user, I’d love to share experiences and anecdotes with you all. How to do it though?
We will send you an email with the subject line ‘WeChat Experiences’. It will be from a gmail account and might end up in your junk mail bin but we will send it right away. We can’t put the email address here for obvious reasons. Thanks!
I am also facing the same problem where only chinese people are visible. Could anyone post how to download a old version of wechat. All the websites offer only latest version.
We’ve tweeted the WeChat people and, according to them, they are monitoring these comments and will respond when they can. Someone on this page mentioned that they could download old versions but we can’t find the URL for the site. If you find it, please let us know and we’ll tell our other readers.
Thanks for commenting.
we i managed to find couple of sites where we can download the apk files of we chat old versions. but that doesnt solve the problem. I think Wechats serveres are getting screwed big time and this is a great drawback which can result in exodus of wechats user atleast here in India.
Be careful! Don’t download these apps from anywhere but a trusted site. There are lots of new viruses and malware for phones created every day. The WeChat servers may be the same ones they use for QQ. At some points, there are hundreds of millions of QQ users online. We did a post on this yesterday and put up a graphic of how many WeChat users there are. Three hundred million of which 50 million are WeChat, the rest use Weixin. You’re right though, maybe it is time for them to invest in new servers. Check out our latest post to get more tips on this. Still no answer from WeChat but we’ll let our readers know when they contact us again.
Ok , below is the result of my analysis. All the features in wechat like Driftbottle , Shake have limits. Currently I am allowed to pick and drop n number of bottles per day then i get a message saying I have to wait till next day. And wechat has put inplace same set of limit of shake where at one session you shake hardly 5 to 6 times and then it starts to show really annoying chinese fake accounts.Ok , we understand that wechat want to stop the users from live their entire day shaking and trying to get new friends , but my question why can’t you just simply put a message saying todays quota of shaking is over , wait till next day and disable the feature for certain time frame. So what wechat is trying to do is they want to stop the users from using shake to get new friends (to get a new girl from anypart of the world :)) but they still want the users to connected to them all the time. Now if wechat is really concerned about its end users its high time that they stop this gimmick and put in place a proper functionality.
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves, so thanks for this. We’ve been kind of beating around the bush, trying to say this delicately, and your advice is excellent. Your suggestion regarding the message is good too but those ‘fake accounts’ are a source of income for Tencent International. If someone is shaking for hours on end, it’s rather obvious that they are in search of something other than a casual friend. Consider the fake accounts as a message that gets these guys to stop shaking, at least for a while, and makes some money for Tencent. Sure, it’s cheesy, but so is the tendency to use Shake to fish for contacts. Then again, we’re sure some users spam WeChat users on Shake and this might be a way to prevent that. Five or six shakes is normal. Endless shakes aren’t. With the way WeChat is exploding around the world, we really don’t think they are too worried about losing users who abuse the system. They aren’t the only ones who have things like this in place. We can think of several other apps like this that use similar tactics to discourage over use.
Thanks for the tip. We will refer to this when we’re answering other comments on this topic.
I still have the shake bug, only chinese fake account. I tried to change name, delete some contacts who block me, delete other programs. I found a name which works, but it lasts just 20 shake. Sometimes it works just once, then bug return. I’d rather pay like whatsapp, if it works correctely. There are some news? WeChat Team knows this problem? This is a bug that will be fix? There will be a new updates without this bug? Thank you for your time 🙂
We think the problem has to do with the number of times that you use Shake in one session. It seems that your problem is a bit different. We suggest you delete any helper apps, apps that suggest they can enhance your WeChat experience. Do your messages have some words underlined in blue? We’ve noticed that in some text messages from other users. That signifies that another app is interfering with WeChat. Delete anything you don’t use and try again. Also, change your password and don’t allow any other apps to gain access to your account. Good luck!
Thanks for commenting.
Hello I’m having some problems with Shake too. It’s actually working since users appear when I do it and such but I don’t get any greetings! I’m a female lol so every time I tried to Shake on 3G (now I’m living abroad, so I use my phone only when there’s WIFI) it appeared like 5 or 6 greetings in a row! I don’t get any for some reason now, and I don’t get why!
That’s an interesting problem. We think you mean that you aren’t getting greetings since you stopped using 3G, is that right? We use Shake on WiFi also and get very few greetings back, if any, but we would think a girl would get many more greetings than guys would. We don’t have an answer for you, unfortunately. What you could try is shaking at the same time as a friend to see if you can see each other. If you can, send a greeting and see what happens. Also, double check your settings to make sure that you can receive messages from strangers, things like that. Good luck!
Thanks for commenting.
P.S. We’d love to hear your thoughts on Shake and your reaction to it and WeChat from a woman’s point of view. We’re curious about what guys send out as opposed to what girls send out, things like that. If you can share some experiences with us, we’ll do a post. Of course we will not mention anything that would identify you. Thanks!
hi brother,
when I shake my phone I can find only few peoples,again and again..no one else..why its so..?
It could be the time you are shaking as compared to the times in the rest of the world. We get results from Europe and South America when Asia is sleeping. Usually we only find one user per shake.
Thanks for commenting.
Hi. I’m from Argentina and I’m getting the same issue after shaking. Only people from China too close like 12 km. But in these results the profiles has no moments and the main photo looks fake so I think it is some kind of ban if you shake a lot. If you wait 20/30 min the first shake is real but then you will get fakes results again. Maybe it is not a bug.
We agree. Good point! We don’t know how frequently other users use Shake but it seems that some of our readers depend on it for daily entertainment. Because of that, WeChat may suspend real Shake results and show these fake ones, maybe hoping that the user stops using the feature, even for a while. If Shake works normally after a pause, then the ban seems to be temporary. Thanks very much for pointing this out.
I ve been using wechat when I was in China, dubai ann India between 2012 and 2013. So far never had any issue.
Recently, after the 5.0.1 update, I am only seeing Chinese ppl on shake and it shows distance as 10 or 15 kms.
-Currently I am in a part of India where there aren’t much foreigners-less than 5 if at all. Even if there are tourists, the possibility of them being Chinese is none
-I used a translator and did chat with a few. They are all in China in the Chinese cities they have mentioned
As a few people have mentioned, looks like there is a bug in the latest release. Pls help.
We now think that this may be a function of using the Shake feature too frequently. There is a comment on this page near yours that suggests that this is the problem. If you’ve been shaking for a long period, we assume that WeChat stops linking you up with other shakers. It’s not meant to be in constant use, just now and then. Thanks for commenting.
If you’ve been shaking for a long period, we assume that WeChat stops linking you up with other shakers. It’s not meant to be in constant use, just now and then. I found a solution to this problem. Thanks to David ( Wechat ID : davidflannery ). All I’ve to do is (1) Rename myself (Display name), (2) Sign out and sign back in and it works fine.
Thanks to you and David for this. Maybe our readers will give this a try to see if it works for them. We’ll also post it on your Facebook page.
Thanks for commenting.