Up Next: What to Expect in the 2026.1 Release

Last updated: 12/12/2025 Expected Release date: Last week of January

This is an early preview of the release notes; the features and details may change as we move closer to the final release.

Expect further updates in upcoming release notes. The final release notes, including the build number and upgrade details, will be shared as part of the actual release notes that will be published around the end of January.

We’re introducing exciting new features, enhancements, and critical fixes to improve usability, security, and performance. Here’s what’s in the 2026.1 release:

What's New in 2026.1

N-central version available for Cybersecurity for Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) for On-Premises Partners

N-central now includes a dedicated CMMC-ready version to help MSPs operate in environments that require CMMC Level 2 compliance, and this capability will be officially made available for GA.

CMMC (Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification) is a security framework developed by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) to safeguard Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and Federal Contract Information (FCI).

As a result, any organization participating in the government contracting supply chain including MSPs and IT service providers must meet CMMC Level 2 controls in order to continue delivering services to the DoD.

Details are noted here: CMMC N-central version

UI Refresh: Updated Layout and Navigation Experience

This release introduces several improvements to N-central’s interface as part of the ongoing UI refresh multi phased approach. These updates enhance usability, streamline navigation, and without functional changes.

This view will apply to all: CMMC, non-CMMC, on-premises and hosted, trial or contracted versions of N-central.

The following are the changes applied:

Simplified page layouts and reduced visual clutter

Lightened and simplified page layouts and removed excessive bold text, heavy colors, and redundant icons.

Form updates:

General buttons are now white, and primary/submit actions now use Apex Teal.

Tabs and titles lightened with clear underlines

New Horizontal Button Sliders on the All-Devices page

Action buttons remain hidden until at least one device is selected. Disabled buttons are no longer shown.
All buttons now appear in a single row instead of multiple rows. New left/right arrow controls allow you to scroll through the full button to set horizontally.
The Active Issues page will receive the same enhancement in an upcoming release.

Polished high-traffic components (tables and filters):

Dropdowns, selection boxes, and combo boxes now use the new UI styling standards.
All buttons across N-central have been slightly increased in size for improved accessibility and readability.
Remote Control, Two-Way Chat, and Tools buttons in All Devices, Active Issues, Dashboards, and the Device Header now use the new button styling.

Left-Hand Menu Behavior

Left-hand menus now start collapsed by default when logging in, refreshing the browser, or opening a new tab.
Logos previously displayed next to each sub menu items have been removed.
Highlighted background when a left navigation menu item is selected
The Expand/Collapse Button control for the left navigation has been moved and no longer in the top-right corner of the navigation area but appears as a standalone button in the bottom-right corner, separate from the lower menu items.
Side Navigation Menu no longer disappears when collapses they gracefully minimize to icons. Quick navigation widget now restyled to blend into the background of the side menu bar.

Collapsed sub-menus.

Collapse and expand buttons, with collapsed left navigation.

Sub-menu with logos removed.

Highlighted background for selected section.

Authenticated In-Product Support Chat (N-Able Login)

N-central now includes an authenticated support chat experience, replacing the previous unauthenticated chat flow. This enhancement ensures all support interactions initiated through the in-product chat button are securely tied to a verified N-Able Login SSO and N-AbleMe user.

Where to Access:

The chat button remains in the top-right navigation bar (see highlighted icon below).

When clicked, N-central now initiates a secure, authenticated chat session using the user’s N-Able Login credentials.

User Flow:

If the user is already signed in to N-Able Me, the system validates their session and sends them directly to the product chat experience.

If the user does not have an N-Able Me account, they are prompted to create one.
Creating an N-Able Me account initiates SSO user provisioning and sends a welcome email with instructions to complete the setup.
Once the user completes this setup and signs in, they can immediately access the in-product authenticated chat.

NetPath End-of-Life (EOL)

NetPath by SolarWinds is an on-premises, single-tenant solution that provides performance metrics and a visual hop-by-hop path for monitoring the traversal route of a URL over the internet and was delivered as part of the Orion Platform within the Network Performance Monitor (NPM) product.

As part of N-Able’s decision to retire NetPath, N-central is aligning with this direction and officially ending support for NetPath across all N-central versions, both On-Premises and Hosted (NCOD).

Impact on N-central Customers:

Existing customers who are already using NetPath or who are licensed for it will continue to have access and may keep using the feature without interruption. After upgrading, partners with active NetPath usage will retain the feature.
Customers who are not licensed for NetPath, or who have never used or configured it, will no longer see any NetPath options or references in the UI.
On brand-new N-central installations and for newly created Service Organizations (SOs), NetPath will not be available or displayed anywhere in the interface.

Bug Fixes

A range of high-impact bugs have been resolved in this release. Be sure to review the full list included below for more details.

Category	Updated Summary	Issue Key
Core	Login & Authentication - OIDC Login Errors- Some users could not sign in with SSO Issue: Certain login responses could not be read, causing sign-in failures. Fix: Improved how N-central reads and processes SSO login tokens.	NCCF-1146711
Core	PSA Integration - ConnectWise Mapping - Creating a new device mapping in ConnectWise failed Issue: Clicking “Create New” resulted in a 404 error. Fix: Updated the connection path so new device mappings work again.	NCCF-1094947
Core	Agent Upgrade – DLL Issue -Agent upgrades failed on some devices Issue: An outdated internal file caused upgrade failures. Fix: Updated file references so agents upgrade successfully.	NCCF-1076908
Core	Monitoring – Custom Services - Custom services didn’t run when they should Issue: Scheduled custom services either didn’t run or didn’t self-heal. Fix: Updated scheduling so services run and correct themselves reliably.	NCCF-1049176
Core	LWT Integration – Timeout Problems- EDR/LWT connections timed out Issue: API requests stopped responding due to short timeouts. Fix: Added longer, configurable timeouts for more reliable communication.	NCCF-1043379
Core	PSA Integration – Tigerpaw Setup - Tigerpaw integration couldn’t be set up Issue: Version checks were outdated, blocking setup. Fix: Updated validation so Tigerpaw connections work correctly.	NCCF-1014460
Core	Device Management – Large Deletions- Deleting lots of devices at once caused system errors Issue: Cleanup tasks failed when too many devices were deleted together. Fix: Improved processing so mass deletions work smoothly.	NCCF-1003837
Core	User Provisioning – Incorrect Selection- Provisioning selected the wrong users Issue: Selecting all users and then deselecting some still provisioned everyone. Fix: Your final selections are now honored correctly.	NCCF-1003629
Core	Backup Manager UI – Missing Version Info- Backup Manager info failed to load Issue: Devices reporting empty version numbers caused the UI to break. Fix: The UI now handles missing version data safely.	NCCF-988410
Core	Remote Control – Connection Handler Issue-Corrupted network packets caused RC failures Issue: Damaged packets caused the Remote Control handler to stop working. Fix: Improved validation so RC sessions handle bad packets safely.	NCCF-962079
Core	Performance – All Devices Page- All Devices took too long to load Issue: Version lookups slowed the page down. Fix: Optimized the lookup process for much faster loading.	NCCF-957016
Core	EDR Monitoring – Large Streams- Large EDR responses caused monitoring issues Issue: Very large data streams exceeded internal limits. Fix: Increased capacity and improved processing of large responses.	NCCF-932612
Core	User Management – Access Group Errors- Removing users from groups caused system errors Issue: Permission updates failed during removal. Fix: Fixed the update process so users can be removed cleanly.	NCCF-923864
Core	Permissions – Wrong Error Message- Permission issues showed as system errors Issue: Access-denied actions looked like system failures. Fix: Users now see accurate, clear permission messages.	NCCF-879871
Core	UI – Switching Customer/SO Levels- Switching between Customer and SO views didn’t refresh properlyIssue: The screen didn’t update fully for users with restricted access. Fix: Updated refresh behavior to always load the correct view.	NCCF-881473
Core	Monitoring – HP Drive Status- HP HotSpare status showed incorrectly Issue: The SNMP OID mapped the wrong state. Fix: Corrected the mapping so the right drive status appears.	NCCF-862881
Core	Task Logs – Missing Expiration – Some old task logs never cleaned up Issue: Logs without finish times were skipped during cleanup. Fix: All applicable logs now expire correctly.	NCCF-859660
Core	Azure Deployments – Missing waagent- Azure installs were missing the required waagent package Issue: The package wasn’t included in some deployments. Fix: It is now installed properly in all Azure setups.	NCCF-840762
Core	UI – Character Display Issue- Scandinavian letters did not display correctly Issue: Characters like å, ä, and ö appeared incorrectly. Fix: Updated encoding so these characters show properly.	NCCF-762243
Core	EDR Integration – Uninstall Not Working-EDR stayed installed even after being disabled Issue: The uninstall process didn’t trigger. Fix: Updated workflow so EDR is removed when disabled.	NCCF-744241
Core	Notifications – Customer-Level Profiles-Notification profiles caused errors when saving Issue: Customer-level notifications triggered system errors. Fix: Validation logic updated so profiles can be saved correctly.	NCCF-746033
Core	Notifications – Wrong Scope-Customer-level notifications were applied to sites Issue: Re-saving a profile pushed settings to site-level devices incorrectly. Fix: Improved scoping so notifications stay at the correct level.	NCCF-302846
Core	Notifications – HTML in Subject Lines-Self-healing emails showed HTML code in the subject Issue: The system didn’t strip HTML tags from subject text. Fix: Cleaned formatting so subjects appear normally.	NCCF-859523
Core	API – Special Characters- ü, ä, ö were saved incorrectly through the API Issue: Customer-create/update API calls corrupted certain characters. Fix: Encoding updated so special characters can be saved properly.	NCCF-594320
Patch Management	Reboot Prompt Timing - Reboot countdown timer showed the wrong time Issue: When postponing a reboot, the timer displayed the incorrect remaining time. Fix: The timer now shows the correct countdown.	PMCM-10788
Core/Patch Management	Patch Management - Probe Cache Access- Devices couldn’t download patches from the probe Issue: Agents were unable to pull patches from the probe’s cache. Fix: Restored proper communication so devices can download patches normally.	NCCF-1146711

How to Prepare for 2026.1 in Advance

If you would like to participate in the public preview to test the new 2026.1 version in a non-production environment before rolling it out fully, the Public Preview of 2026.1 will be available in the 1st week of January.

Stay Tuned

Be on the lookout for the official N-central – 2026.1 release in January 2026. We look forward to delivering these exciting updates- stay tuned for the full release package!