After updating to Home Assistant 2026.9.2, your system might continue running in the background while the web interface gets stuck on the splash screen. According to reports from affected users, common troubleshooting steps such as clearing the browser cache or switching to mobile apps did not resolve the problem. Instead, a community-driven workaround focuses on removing user-specific frontend files.
What you need
- Home Assistant version: This issue was observed in version 2026.9.2 (for instance, after upgrading from 2026.8.3).
- Access: Console access to your system (e.g., via your NAS VM console or via SSH using a terminal or PuTTY).
- Time required: Just a few minutes.
Always take a snapshot of your virtual machine or save your backups off-system before manually modifying internal system files.
1. Establish a console connection
If the web frontend is unreachable, you can access the system via the command line—either through your virtual machine’s console window or via SSH from a terminal:
ssh youradminuser@yourhaipReplace the placeholders with your actual login credentials and the IP address of your Home Assistant installation.
2. Test safe mode (optional)
To determine whether custom integrations or add-ons are preventing the frontend from loading, check if booting into safe mode helps:
ha core restart --safe-modeIf the frontend still fails to load in safe mode, the root cause is likely corrupted frontend configuration data.
3. Delete user-specific frontend data in .storage
User-specific frontend files located under .storage/frontend.user_data_... were identified as the trigger for the loading loop. Removing these files allows the frontend to rebuild properly:
rm .storage/frontend.user_data_*Did it work?
Once the file has been removed, verify whether the web interface or the Companion app loads normally again and the loading screen disappears.
Troubleshooting
- Frontend still doesn’t load: Clear your browser cache or open the interface in a private/incognito window to rule out leftover local browser data.
- App display is unresponsive or lagging: On Android, clear the app cache in system settings; on iOS, consider reinstalling the Companion app.
- Input issues in the console: Some VM consoles encounter problems with special characters, scrolling, or copy & paste. In these cases, connecting via SSH is strongly recommended.
- Errors persist after downgrade or restore: If restoring a backup or downgrading does not resolve the issue, manually cleaning up the frontend data in
.storagecan provide a fix.
For future maintenance tasks, it is always a good practice to have a working SSH connection set up in advance.
Sources: Forum: Simon42 – Forum, antwort.net, community.home-assistant.io