Home Assistant 2026.8 introduced real changes that, on some installations, show up as broken HACS, a failed update, or a companion app stuck on install. This isn't a mistake in your configuration — these are known, currently reported issues with this specific version. Before you start changing things, it's worth figuring out exactly which case you're dealing with, because each one needs a different approach.
Some installations trying to move from 2026.7.4 to 2026.8.0 report Home Assistant hanging or restarting mid-update. If the update got stuck halfway, further attempts without checking the logs first can make things worse instead of better.
After 2026.8, some panels accessed through Ingress (for example MQTT-related views) can render at a drastically shrunk size — this is a known rendering issue with this version, not a fault on your end.
On some iOS 26.6 devices, the companion app update gets stuck and won't finish. A device restart usually helps, but not always — sometimes the issue sits deeper, in the integration's own configuration.
Less common, but it happens: HACS fails to update because of file permissions in the custom_components directory, or a temporary GitHub rate limit. This needs a different check than a simple restart.
Before digging for a deeper cause: do a full Home Assistant restart (not just an integration reload). Statistically, this is the most common, simplest cause — HACS downloads the new files, but the old code already in memory keeps running until you do a full restart.
If a restart didn't help, the next step depends on exactly which case you're dealing with — a failed update needs a different approach than a broken Ingress screen, and that's different again from a permissions issue. Without visibility into the logs and the actual configuration, it's easy to end up guessing, and random changes can add new problems on top of the existing one.
Not sure if it's a simple restart, a broken Ingress screen, a failed update, or something with permissions? I can remotely check the logs, HACS configuration, and integration state to find the exact cause instead of guessing. If the problem genuinely comes down to a known bug in this Home Assistant version, I'll say so directly — sometimes the best fix is simply waiting for a patch, and sometimes there's already a way around it.
