I can’t answer that for certain, I rolled back to 3.3 first, then flashed to arduino. My Vue’s were always esp-idf since I installed them over a year ago.
Same issue here with my two Emporia Vue 3 units. After flashing to 2026.04, they both showed up as offline.
My config files have framework set to esp-idf.
I really do not want to pull the units out of the wall to reflash if I don’t have to. But if they aren’t connected to wifi and local ssid/captive portal aren’t showing up, it seems like they’re effectively bricked until that happens?
Please post the serial logs before the rollback happens. If the component is causing a watchdog reset, the component needs to be fixed properly or the problem is just going to come back later.
Yeah, I fear you’re going to have to do that.
I’m back in business now after removing the bricked one from the panel, bringing it to the workbench and flashing my 2026.3.3 firmware via UART.
I had to bust out my original janky pogo pin monstrosity that I created to originally flash the Vue3 units when I first bought them. I made rigid but bendable rods out of 12 gauge home wire, taped Dupont wires to them, shoved pogo pins in one end and can then attach additional Dupont wires to route to my USB serial interface, etc. Pop it under the microscope with some magnetic bendy “magic hands” holding stuff in place. I combined GND and IO0’s pogo pins through a breadboard so I could just momentarily poke IO0 with the end of it as I plugged in the USB serial interface. Voila - esptool sees everything just fine.
Works like a charm. 
I should make something more elegant or invest in a proper pogo holder, but the goal is not to have to do this routinely.
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Oh my goodness. I have to admit I got lazy after a dozens or more ESPHome flashes that went off without a hitch. I am not looking forward to opening my panels, removing the unit and busting out the BDM frame and probes, let alone refreshing my memory on how to do all the flashing shenanigans 
When you say Flashing to 2026.3.3, do you mean reverting ESPHome to 2026.3.3, then running Install/Manual Download on the Vue profiles to get the bin file to manually program via serial? It’s been a minute for me.
Yes. Not saying I did this the ideal way, but the way that I assumed would be good.
I installed ESPBuilder 2026.3.3 in my HA instance alongside the updated 2026.4.0 one that bit me this morning. So I see two instances of ESPHome on my left sidebar, one labeled as 2026.3.3. My two Vue3 units appear there like normal - one I never upgraded today, so it was already using 2026.3.3. I then ran the build/install on the entry for my offline unit and chose the option to manually install. That gave me a factory .bin file I could download to my Mac.
Once I assembled my insane pogo pin atrocity, I just flashed that bin onto the chip, plugged it into the panel power-wise and confirmed I was seeing lights again for the first time since this went sideways. Only then did I take the time to reattach A and B and the 16 (fortunately labeled) CT clamp pairs.
HA looks happy with one exception: I noticed that, after the four hour gap of data, all of my various per circuit “Total Energy” variables that have been accumulating for ages reset to zero when it came back online. I’m not sure if that’s a temporary thing… haven’t gotten my head into that aspect yet.
EDIT: Crap - yeah - just looked and realized those values were being stored on the Vue units to survive reboots, etc. Today’s activities blew that up, so now I have to figure out what impact this is going to have on my historical data in HA.
Got it, thanks for the details. I didn’t even know you could have two ESPHome Builder instances installed/running under HA.
I had an HA backup of 2026.3.3, so I restored that, which is allowing me to build the 2026.3.3 bin files for my two Vue units. I’m going to try to reflash one of those and see how it works out.
Guess it’s a good time for me to break out the label maker and label all the CTs.
I’m also going to be extremely distrustful of future ESPHome updates, unfortunately
I’m sure I have a backup and could have just used that - but my head was in rolling back to a state where I could function until I better understand when it’s safe to get back on the release train.
There are probably various (better) ways to do it, but in the moment, I found that adding this guy’s legacy repo to the add-on store made it easy to do:
EDIT: Also, in the midst of this, I wasn’t inclined to mess with my backups not knowing if I might roll back collected data that I didn’t want to lose while everything in my system was still running. I need to explore the restore process more and answer those questions for myself…
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Sorry, a couple more Qs -
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Did you choose factory (modern) or OTA (legacy)? I’m downloading both in case.
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Did you also change the framework from esp-idf to arduino, or keep it as-is? The last time I made framework changes to ESPHome devices, I remember there was a whole lot more I had to modify in the yaml to get it to compile, so I’m very reluctant to make this change if not needed for recovery.
Ty!
I chose factory rather than OTA. It sounded like it fit the bill and worked in the end.
No, I didn’t change to Arduino. I’m unsure on that issue, another reason I wanted to just go back to 2026.3.3 with everything in a known working config. My units have always been esp32-idf and I figured if I worked from 2026.3.3, it could remain as such.
I’m speculating that I could go to 2026.4.0 and switch to Arduino before doing another build and OTA install, but I’m holding off until I know for sure that works or until there is a future release others confirm works. I don’t feel like living in pogo land for the time being.
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You don’t have to flash via serial. I rolled back to 2026.3.3 and connected the Vue 3 to the USB TTL adapter and did the ESPHome install, from ‘Plug Into This Computer’ picked the adapter (in my case it was the wchusbserial2020) and flashed it. Then updated back to 4 and skipped the update for the 2 Vue 3’s
That is an interesting option. When ESPHome upgrade is available I always select make a backup. Since that backup is just the Addon (App) it was easy to restore to version 2026.3.3 without restoring the entire HA Server and loosing data from all the other sources. I think you can also selectively restore just the ESPHome Addon (App) from the nightly HA Backup (if you are running that).
So I just successfully restored one of my Vue3s. Following what @halfpress described, except I just rolled back my ESPHome Builder app in HA to 2026.3.3 from my HA backup.
I did flash through serial, requiring opening my electrical panel, disconnecting all the CTs an power to the Vue, opening the VUE case and using my BDM frame and probes to tap the right pads.
@jkosharek’s option of ESPHome is an interesting one, but since I have everything set up already for my second Vue, I’ll keep the process the same.
I’ll also bring ESPHome Builder back to 2026.4 but skip the upgrade for the Vues this time. In fact, I’m not sure I want to update the Vues at all anymore unless there’s a critical update. I totally get that this was a DIY operation and all the risks are known and accepted…but a routine firmware update bricking a device connected to my high voltage stuff and requiring this level of recovery…I think I’ve pretty much discovered my limits
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I just finished doing the same…
Couldn’t have said it any better! I was eager when I set all of this shit up a few years ago. Now I’ve spent the past few months trying to simplify everything. I just want stuff to work.
There’s really no reason to update a fully working and local device running on a dedicated IOT VLAN that’s blocked from the internet. This is now the 3rd time I’ve had to pull the damn thing out of the panel to reflash it. It will die on 2026.3.3 unless something critical needs an update.
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Is that not also flashing via serial, though? It’s either OTA (which broke) or it’s UART with the USB TTY as a fallback. There are multiple ways to initiate that, though, be it esptool or webserial.
Just wish there was a USB interface on the Vue3 so I didn’t have to use pogo pins or deal with those insanely fragile pads that come off if you look at them in a place above room temperature.
Very glad to know one can restore that selectively from the HA backups. I should have looked before I did the parallel install… but that approach gave me a little versatility anyway.
I think I’m going to slow down my upgrade pace going forward short of something that seems truly critical. Time to start suppressing update notices with abandon.
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I restored esphome plugin in HA to 2026.3.3. Hooked up my Vue 3 to serial to usb adapter and flashed. I did not have to change idf to arduino. Just downgrade the esphome version.
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The “funny” thing here is I complain about how much time, at home and work I spend on updating every app/program I use.
I usually wait until .1 to update for HA to avoid these things, but at the same time when I am waiting sometimes .1 of HA happens I also update other things and that’s what happened here. I didn’t “hold off” on 4.0 (for 4.1) and it bit me
I LOVE HA, and appreciate the hard work people are doing for this platform, but you for sure gotta be mindful of the fast iterations and non enterprise level testing (not that that’s bulletproof either).
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Thank you all for guidance because I came home to the same situation. I did a roll-back to 2026.3.3 but I did change the type to Arduino. I still have a second Vue to rollback as well but its a pain to get to the second panel and take everything apart to perform a manual update.
I have not determined specifically what is going on with the latest update but it looks like to me that communications bus is not even started. I wasn’t able to get anything in the log and it just looks like a hard stop when the com bus is enable on the bootloader.
13:14:38]
[13:14:38]
[13:14:38]
[13:14:38]
[13:14:38]ELF file SHA256: 025e97958
[13:14:38]
[13:14:38]Rebooting...
[13:14:38]I (13) boot: ESP-IDF 5.5.0 2nd stage bootloader
[13:14:38]I (13) boot: compile time Apr 16 2026 12:59:42
[13:14:38]I (13) boot: Multicore bootloader
[13:14:38]I (13) boot: chip revision: v3.1
[13:14:38]I (16) boot.esp32: SPI Speed : 40MHz
[13:14:38]I (20) boot.esp32: SPI Mode : DIO
[13:14:38]I (23) boot.esp32: SPI Flash Size : 4MB
[13:14:38]I (27) boot: Enabling RNG early entropy source...
[13:14:38]I (31) boot: Partition Table:
[13:14:38]I (34) boot: ## Label Usage Type ST Offset Length
[13:14:38]I (40) boot: 0 otadata OTA data 01 00 00009000 00002000
[13:14:38]I (47) boot: 1 phy_init RF data 01 01 0000b000 00001000
[13:14:38]I (53) boot: 2 app0 OTA app 00 10 00010000 001c0000
[13:14:38]I (60) boot: 3 app1 OTA app 00 11 001d0000 001c0000
[13:14:38]I (66) boot: 4 nvs WiFi data 01 02 00390000 00070000
[13:14:38]I (73) boot: End of partition table
[13:14:38]I (76) esp_image: segment 0: paddr=00010020 vaddr=3f400020 size=20620h (132640) map
[13:14:38]I (129) esp_image: segment 1: paddr=00030648 vaddr=3ff80000 size=00020h ( 32) load
[13:14:38]I (129) esp_image: segment 2: paddr=00030670 vaddr=3ffb0000 size=024ach ( 9388) load
[13:14:38]I (136) esp_image: segment 3: paddr=00032b24 vaddr=40080000 size=0a274h ( 41588) load
[13:14:38]I (157) esp_image: segment 4: paddr=0003cda0 vaddr=00000000 size=03278h ( 12920)
[13:14:38]I (161) esp_image: segment 5: paddr=00040020 vaddr=400d0020 size=5adach (372140) map
[13:14:38]I (294) boot: Loaded app from partition at offset 0x10000
[13:14:38]I (294) boot: Disabling RNG early entropy source...
[13:14:46]E (15529) task_wdt: Task watchdog got triggered. The following tasks/users did not reset the watchdog in time:
[13:14:46]E (15529) task_wdt: - loopTask (CPU 1)
[13:14:46]E (15529) task_wdt: Tasks currently running:
[13:14:46]E (15529) task_wdt: CPU 0: IDLE0
[13:14:46]E (15529) task_wdt: CPU 1: IDLE1
[13:14:46]E (15529) task_wdt: Aborting.
[13:14:46]E (15529) task_wdt: Print CPU 1 backtrace
[13:14:46]
[13:14:46]
[13:14:46]
[13:14:46]
[13:14:46]Backtrace: 0x40083cc7:0x3ffb8680 0x40100c81:0x3ffb86a0 0x40129b2b:0x3ffb86c0
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I just came to confirm that I have emporia vue 2’s and the 4.0 did break the devices. (No wifi). Had to flash through the UART. Rolled back my HA to ESPHome 3.3 and then updated the device yaml to say arduino. Loaded the config and everything was back online. NOT SIMPLE when these things are installed in electrical boxes. 