WhatsApp search crashes on iPhone after backup restore

Hello everyone. I need some help with a very specific issue that I have already spent a lot of time diagnosing across two different iPhones.

My WhatsApp on my iPhone 16 Pro Max using iOS 26.1 has been crashing every time I use the search function. As soon as I tap search it shows Preparing Results and eventually freezes or crashes. This happens consistently unless I start an iCloud backup. When the phone is backing up, the search bar shows a percentage next to Preparing Results and does not crash.

To identify whether the issue was with my device or the application itself, I restored my WhatsApp backup onto a completely different iPhone. Unfortunately the exact same behaviour was replicated on that device as well. The search bar again showed Preparing Results and the app became unstable. This confirms that the problem is not with the phone and not with the WhatsApp installation. The problem is inside the WhatsApp backup database itself.

Below is a detailed list of all the steps I have taken so far.

1. Deleted WhatsApp on the main device and reinstalled it.
2. Restored from the latest iCloud backup.
3. Issue appeared again immediately after restore.
4. Took a secondary iPhone and restored WhatsApp using the same iCloud backup.
5. The exact same search crash occurred on the second phone.
6. Since the behaviour was identical across two devices, it confirms that the chat database or the search index in the backup is corrupted.
7. While the phone is performing a backup, search does not crash. The Preparing Results line shows a percentage, which indicates that the indexing system is stuck or damaged only when not in a full backup state.

Based on this, the only logical conclusion is that the chat backup is corrupted. It is possibly a damaged search index file, a corrupted chat thread, or a broken media database that prevents WhatsApp from building the global search index.

I would be grateful if someone from support or someone with technical expertise could confirm the best way to fix this. From what I understand, the possible solutions are the following.

1. Restore the corrupted backup on a second device and then create a fresh iCloud backup from that device. This can sometimes rebuild the internal database and produce a clean backup.
2. If the new backup still carries the same issue, identify and delete any large or problematic chats and then create another backup.
3. As a final resort, export important chats manually, start WhatsApp without restoring any backup, and rebuild the chat history.

If anyone has dealt with this issue or knows a reliable method to repair a corrupted WhatsApp chat database, I would really appreciate your guidance. I want to fix this without losing my chat history if possible.

Thank you in advance for your help.