Long Message Transcription Failures

Experiencing issues with transcribing longer voice messages? Here’s what you need to know.

What’s happening?

You might notice that:

• Only part of a long voice message is transcribed
• The transcription cuts off abruptly mid-sentence
• An error message appears when attempting to transcribe very long messages
• Messages over 5 minutes in length frequently fail to transcribe completely

Why is this happening?

WhatsApp’s voice transcription feature has limitations when processing longer audio files. This is due to several factors:

• On-device processing has memory and computational constraints
• Timeouts are built into the system to manage processing load
• Longer audio files require more resources and are more likely to trigger these limits
• The system is optimized for typical message lengths (under 2-3 minutes)

These limitations are particularly noticeable on older devices or those with less available memory.

What can you do?

• Try to keep voice messages under 5 minutes when possible
• Break longer messages into multiple shorter segments
• Make sure your device has sufficient free memory before attempting long transcriptions
• Consider listening to the original audio if the transcription fails