Up Next: What to Expect in the N-central 2026.4 Release

Last updated: 12-Jul-2026
Expected release date: Between last week of July to first week of September

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 February.

We’re introducing exciting new features, enhancements, and critical fixes to improve usability, security, and performance. Here’s what’s in the 2026.4 release:

What's New in 2026.4

Native Dark Mode, Themes and Accessibility

N-central now introduces a native personalization and accessibility framework designed to improve comfort, usability, and inclusivity for every technician.

Choose between Light and Dark Mode, personalize your experience with multiple built-in themes, and enable accessibility modes that support a wide range of visual needs, including high-contrast viewing, color vision deficiencies, dyslexia-friendly text rendering, and reduced blue light.

Highlights

  • Native Light and Dark Mode.

  • Four built-in themes: Classic, Blue, Purple, and Teal.

    • Classic: The N-central experience you know

    • Blue: Clean and professional

    • Purple: Bold and modern

    • Teal: Fresh and contemporary

  • Accessibility modes including

    • High Visibility: Enhanced contrast

    • Protanopia: Red color-blind support

    • Deuteranopia: Green color-blind support

    • Tritanopia: Blue-yellow color-blind support

    • Achromatopsia: Minimal color dependency

    • Dyslexia Friendly: Improved readability

    • Low Blue Light: Reduced eye fatigue

  • WCAG 2.2 AA compliant contrast across supported user interface surfaces.

  • Consistent rendering across supported browsers.

Customer Benefits:

  • Reduce eye strain during extended work sessions.

  • Personalize the interface without relying on third-party browser extensions.

  • Improve accessibility for technicians with diverse visual needs.

Migrate Integrated Backup (BUI) Devices to Cove Without Uninstalling the Backup Manager

Partners can now migrate N-central Integrated Backup (BUI) devices to Cove Data Protection while keeping the Backup Managerapplication installed on the device. Previously, disabling Integrated Backup removed the Backup Manager from the endpoint, requiring it to be manually reinstalled before the device could be protected by Cove.

What's New:

Partners can now:

  • Migrate one or more Integrated Backup devices directly from the All Devices view.

  • Migrate all eligible BUI devices for a customer from the Cove Data Protection menu (coming in a future update).

  • Keep the Backup Manager application installed throughout the migration process.

  • Automatically transition device monitoring from Integrated Backup to Cove without reinstalling the Backup Manager.

Before You Begin

Before migrating, ensure:

  • The partner has an active Cove Standalone account.

  • The partner has been informed of the migration scope and has provided explicit email approval.

  • Target devices are running N-central Agent version 2026.4.0.1 or later.

  • Integrated Backup (BUI) is currently enabled on the devices being migrated.

Migrate Selected Devices

  1. Open the customer in N-central.

  2. Navigate to All Devices.

  3. Select one or more devices with Integrated Backup enabled.

  4. Select Migrate BUI to Cove.

  5. Review the confirmation dialog.

  6. Select Continue to begin the migration.

(Customer-wide migration from the Cove Data Protection navigation, and migration support within Maintenance Tasks and Rules are currently under development.)

What Happens During Migration

When migration begins:

  • The Backup Manager application remains installed on the endpoint.

  • Integrated Backup (BUI) is disabled.

  • MSPBackup monitoring services are removed automatically.

  • Cove Data Protection monitoring services are enabled automatically.

  • Backup Manager configuration options are hidden for migrated devices.

  • N-central rules no longer reapply Integrated Backup to migrated devices.

Verify the Migration

After the migration completes, verify that:

  • Cove monitoring services are present.

  • MSPBackup monitoring services have been removed.

  • The Backup Manager application remains installed on the Windows device.

  • Cove backup services report a healthy status.

Important Notes

  • This capability is intended as a support-assisted migration tool rather than a self-service migration workflow.

  • After migration, N-central no longer manages the Backup Manager in the same manner as Integrated Backup devices.

  • Availability depends on Cove integration being enabled and the appropriate permissions being assigned.

  • Additional migration options, including customer-wide migration from the Cove Data Protection menu and migration support through Maintenance Tasks and Rules, are currently under development.

Server Upgrade Pre-Check & Progress Visibility

Upgrading N-central is now more predictable and transparent with comprehensive pre-upgrade validation and real-time upgrade visibility.

Before taking the server offline, N-central performs a series of readiness checks including disk space, database health, certificates, backup readiness, operating system prerequisites, and network validation allowing administrators to resolve issues before beginning the upgrade.

During the upgrade, administrators can monitor progress through each stage, receive immediate notification of failures, and download diagnostic logs directly from the user interface.

Highlights:

  • Online pre-upgrade validation before downtime begins

  • Pass, Warning, and Fail status for each validation check

  • Stage-by-stage upgrade progress tracking

  • Real-time failure reporting

  • One-click upgrade log download

Customer Benefits:

  • Eliminate unnecessary downtime caused by failed pre-checks.

  • Upgrade production servers with greater confidence.

  • Troubleshoot upgrade issues more quickly.

  • Reduce time spent working with Support.

  • Encourage faster adoption of new releases and security updates.

Dedicated Ecoverse Navigation

N-central now includes a dedicated Ecoverse section within the left navigation, making cloud-native capabilities easier to discover while enabling new experiences to be delivered independently of traditional server releases.

The new navigation provides a clear separation between core N-central functionality and modern Ecoverse services, and a scalable foundation for future cloud capabilities.

Highlights:

  • Dedicated Ecoverse section in the side navigation.

  • Improved organization of cloud-native capabilities.

  • Customers can enjoy a cleaner and more intuitive navigation experience.

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 Platform
Core Summary: Improved server performance during security token verification. NCCF-2078544
  Issue: Under heavy load; token verification could reduce server responsiveness.  
  Fix: Updated verification handling to prevent performance degradation.  
Core Summary: Resolved monitoring tasks becoming stale when scheduled triggers are left paused. NCCF-2353153
  Issue: Quartz-scheduled monitoring tasks whose trigger became stuck could silently stop scanning; causing services to be marked Stale.  
  Fix: Updated task trigger handling to prevent paused triggers from stalling service scans.  
Core Summary: Resolved system errors caused by deadlocks when updating Service Templates with many device associations. NCCF-2307063
  Issue: Updating a Custom Service within a Service Template deployed to thousands of devices could cause a database deadlock and system error.  
  Fix: Updated task ID processing order to prevent concurrent database lock conflicts during service template updates.  
Core Summary: Resolved slow upgrades caused by AIDE integrity scanning large output file directories. NCCF-2249046
  Issue: The AIDE integrity check during upgrades could take several hours when the scheduled task output directory contained millions of files.  
  Fix: Excluded high-change directories from AIDE scanning to prevent upgrade delays.  
Core Summary: Corrected email validation that blocked upgrades for domains with long top-level domains. NCCF-2140790
  Issue: N-central upgrade could fail if the notification email address used a top-level domain longer than four characters.  
  Fix: Updated email validation to support top-level domains of any valid length.  
Core Summary: Resolved upgrade failure when invoked within one hour after a backup restore. NCCF-2101113
  Issue: Starting an upgrade shortly after a backup restore could fail because a delayed cleanup script removed the upgrade repository.  
  Fix: Updated the backup restore process to prevent interference with active upgrade operations.  
Core Summary: Resolved NullPointerException when running NCLI commands. NCCF-2114342
  Issue: Running NCLI commands could fail with a NullPointerException after certain code updates were applied.  
  Fix: Corrected the SOAP binding initialization to prevent null class references.  
Core Summary: Updated LaunchDarkly client dependency to address feature flag stability. NCCF-1944862
  Issue: A connectivity issue with LaunchDarkly could cause all feature flags to be disabled; potentially breaking SSO login.  
  Fix: Updated the LaunchDarkly SDK to a supported version to improve connection resilience.  
Core Summary: Corrected scheduled task removal when changing device licence mode. NCCF-1936757
  Issue: Changing a device from Professional to Essential licence mode did not remove scheduled tasks from the device.  
  Fix: Updated the licence eligibility lookup to use the correct licence mode values.  
Core Summary: Corrected time server configuration not being applied by chronyd. NCCF-1533434
  Issue: Changing the time server in N-central did not update the active time source used by the system.  
  Fix: Updated chronyd configuration loading to use N-central's time server settings.  
Core Summary: Resolved Azure disk expansion failures when more than 24 data disks are attached. NCCF-950596
  Issue: Azure deployments with more than 24 data disks could fail during volume group creation.  
  Fix: Updated the disk expansion script to correctly handle device names beyond /dev/sdz.  
Performance & Stability
Core Summary: Reduced table contention in the DMS cache framework during asset discovery. NCCF-2334266
  Issue: Read/write lock contention on the extended appliance configuration table could cause thread stalls during asset data processing.  
  Fix: Optimized cache locking to reduce contention and improve concurrent processing.  
Core Summary: Improved submit queue handling for customers with very large device counts. NCCF-2326713
  Issue: Customers with a disproportionately large number of services under one customer could overwhelm a single submit queue.  
  Fix: Updated submit queue thread assignment to better distribute processing load.  
Agents & Device Management
Agent Summary: Prevented MMS service from resetting its configuration to incorrect default values. NCCF-2249740
  Issue: The MMS service could overwrite its configuration with incorrect defaults (such as port 80) after a crash or recovery event.  
  Fix: Updated the configuration recovery logic to use correct default values.  
Agent Summary: Restored auto-detection of Veeam backup monitoring service templates. NCCF-2124781
  Issue: Veeam 13+ backup monitoring service templates could not be detected and auto-onboarded because Veeam now uses PowerShell 7.  
  Fix: Updated asset scanning to support Veeam backup detection with PowerShell 7.  
Agent Summary: Cleaned up and signed PowerShell scripts in the Windows Agent bin folder. NCCF-1976766
  Issue: Unsigned and outdated PowerShell scripts in the agent installation folder could trigger security tool warnings.  
  Fix: Removed inactive scripts and signed active scripts to align with security expectations.  
Agent Summary: Resolved probe crashes caused by concurrent SNMP operations. NCCF-1863538
  Issue: The probe service could crash with a NullReferenceException when multiple SNMP tasks ran simultaneously.  
  Fix: Updated SNMP manager handling to prevent concurrent access conflicts.  
Agent Summary: Corrected SNMPv3 handling of per-OID response exceptions. NCCF-1842962
  Issue: SNMPv3 monitoring could incorrectly report Error 102 (invalid parameters) when individual OIDs returned noSuchInstance or noSuchObject responses.  
  Fix: Updated SNMP response validation to treat per-OID exceptions as expected responses rather than fatal errors.  
Agent Summary: Improved performance of Windows service monitoring to prevent services from going stale. NCCF-879370
  Issue: WMI-based service monitoring calls could stall; causing agent-based monitoring services to become stale periodically.  
  Fix: Updated Windows service monitoring to use Service Control Manager directly for faster; more reliable results.  
Notifications & Alerting
Core Summary: Resolved intermittent failure of scheduled task email notifications. NCCF-1954771
  Issue: Scheduled task completion email notifications could intermittently fail to generate on certain days.  
  Fix: Updated notification creation handling to ensure email notifications are reliably generated after task completion.  
PSA & Integrations
Custom PSA Summary: Prevented PSA tickets from being incorrectly closed when services are in Warning state. NCCF-2228912
  Issue: The nightly maintenance job could close PSA tickets when a service transitioned to Warning state; leading to duplicate tickets on subsequent failures.  
  Fix: Updated maintenance job logic to only close tickets when the associated service has returned to Normal state.  
Backups
Core Summary: Corrected FTP backup process not deleting previous backups in subdirectories. NCCF-2065449
  Issue: The backup process could fail to delete previous backup files on FTP servers when a target directory was configured.  
  Fix: Updated FTP delete operations to include the correct directory path.  
Reporting
Core Summary: Resolved duplicate exports occurring from N-central to Report Manager. NCCF-2414793
  Issue: N-central could trigger multiple duplicate export operations to Report Manager.  
  Fix: Updated export processing to prevent duplicate exports from being initiated.  

How to Prepare for 2026.4 in Advance

If you would like to participate in the public preview to test the new 2026.4 version in a non-production environment before rolling it out fully, the Public Preview of 2026.4 will be available in the 3rd week of July.

Stay Tuned

Be on the lookout for the official N-central – 2026.4 release in August 2026. We look forward to delivering these exciting updates - stay tuned for the full release package!