Home Assistant OS has added a safeguard for systems that lose power shortly after downloading a container image. After each image layer is unpacked, the change forces its data to disk instead of allowing the container database to record the layer as complete while some files remain only in memory.
That mismatch can leave executables empty or truncated while the image still appears valid. Because the damaged shared layer is considered complete, deleting and downloading the image again may not repair it; affected installations can require a reset of their container storage. The change is especially relevant to Home Assistant systems running from SD cards without an uninterruptible power supply.
In verification, two ordinary power cuts corrupted two baseline downloads. A more severe controlled test left 1,215 zero-byte files without the safeguard and an intact image with it. The measured cost was 0.6 seconds on a fast 2 GB image load and about four seconds, or 1.9%, on throttled storage. Stefan Agner contributed the change, which sairon reviewed and approved.