Quick-Tip: MkDocs stopped detecting changes - how to fix

Friday, May 15, 2026 at 9:11 AM UTC

I just noticed that MkDocs on my Mac stopped detecting any changes in my files and also did not reload the browser page. Even a manual reload did not present the changes, so the watchdog process did not work properly.

After an hour of debating with different AIs and using different approaches (using Docker) I found the solution. This was by accident when I was setting up a Dockerfile for running MkDocs in an isolated environment since Python is a bitch.

If you just upgraded to the latest Python 3.14.5 (or maybe even early than that), you may also run into this problem. I did the upgrade because I needed to compile a new image for my Home Assistant Voice module locally and that needed the current version of ESPHome - which wanted a current Python environment. During this update obviously another package was updated: "click".

I am absolutely not familiar what this does and how Python works in general, I only know it's very picky and messy if not run in an isolated environment - which by the way did not solve my problem with MkDocs.

If you have trouble like this, downgrade click to an older version:

pip install "click==8.2.1" --force-reinstall

or

pip3 install "click==8.2.1" --force-reinstall

if you installed Python using Homebrew on a Mac like I did.

I hope this saves you some time.







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