Companion won't display non-English chat messages [Oct 2025]

Known Issues
1

Since the 1.98 update, when running the companion app (Android) on a device with the language set to English, the companion app no longer shows incoming Japanese chat messages, instead it just shows a blank message.

What’s weird is that if I send a message in Japanese it displays correctly.

2

Hi @Nathan_M

Shuji at Zwift HQ here. Want to clarify all the places where incoming Japanese characters stopped rendering. Is it:

  1. the Companion app’s chat tab only
  2. but the main Zwift app’s chat dialog displays just fine
  3. or in both places?
3

Hi Shuji,

Thanks for the reply. I don’t recall the main Zwift app ever having shown Japanese characters when the app language is set to English. The behaviour has changed slightly though, as an the past the main app would display a narrow and empty text bubble, but since the latest update it displays a wide empty text bubble that is only a few pixels high.

I tried again with the companion device set to Japanese, but this didn’t have any effect. I did notice that in the pen, before a group ride stated, the Japanese characters were working fine, but as soon as the group ride stated, the Japanese characters stopped working. I don’t recall if this was the case with the companion set to English, but it probably was.

As a summary -

  • English App + English Companion:

    In Pen: Companion - can’t remember
    In Group Ride: Companion - Japanese characters not working

  • English App + Japanese Companion:

    In Pen: Companion - Japanese characters working
    In Group Ride: Companion - Japanese characters not working

I have now set the main app to Japanese, which I believe should display Japanese characters (I’m yet to try), but I have also heard from my Japanese teammates that since the 1.98 updates there are many Kanji characters that are no longer appearing.

Thanks

4

Hi Shuji,

I’m just off a ride with my Japanese club.

1 Context: During the ride- in the Companion app messages section .

2 Up to last Friday incoming Kanji messages send and receive were fine .

3Today the incoming messages were blank , my kanji messages, cut and paste from Google translate seem to send fine..

4 English send and receive is good.

I hope this helps - any questions let me know.

5

Thanks for the additional context. I’ve added that to the ticket.