diff --git a/qbittorrent/CHANGELOG.md b/qbittorrent/CHANGELOG.md
index 822d93a32f..5d6843a901 100644
--- a/qbittorrent/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/qbittorrent/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -1,4 +1,7 @@
 
+## 5.2.0-3 (2026-05-12)
+- Fix WireGuard "RTNETLINK answers: File exists" crash loop: clean up stale interface and routing rules before re-establishing the tunnel on S6 service restart
+
 ## 5.2.0-2 (2026-05-10)
 - Fix startup loop on aarch64: drop s6-notifyoncheck wrapper so s6 supervises qbittorrent-nox directly (LSIO arm64 image has no notification-fd, causing EBADF restart loop)
 
diff --git a/qbittorrent/config.yaml b/qbittorrent/config.yaml
index 9b987cc09b..78eca23a9f 100644
--- a/qbittorrent/config.yaml
+++ b/qbittorrent/config.yaml
@@ -143,4 +143,4 @@ schema:
 slug: qbittorrent
 udev: true
 url: https://github.com/alexbelgium/hassio-addons
-version: "5.2.0-2"
+version: "5.2.0-3"
diff --git a/qbittorrent/rootfs/usr/local/sbin/vpn b/qbittorrent/rootfs/usr/local/sbin/vpn
index 91a1fa0e02..e27b2e2d2f 100755
--- a/qbittorrent/rootfs/usr/local/sbin/vpn
+++ b/qbittorrent/rootfs/usr/local/sbin/vpn
@@ -279,6 +279,16 @@ _wireguard_up() {
         fi
     done
 
+    # Clean up any leftover state from a previous run (e.g., after an S6 service restart).
+    # Without this, `ip link add` and `ip rule add` fail with "RTNETLINK answers: File exists"
+    # when the svc-qbittorrent service is restarted while the WireGuard interface is still up.
+    if ip link show "${config["Interface"]}" > /dev/null 2>&1; then
+        bashio::log.info "WireGuard interface ${config["Interface"]} already exists. Cleaning up before re-establishing connection."
+        ip link set "${config["Interface"]}" down 2>/dev/null || true
+        ip link del "${config["Interface"]}" 2>/dev/null || true
+    fi
+    _routing_del 2>/dev/null || true
+
     _cmd "ip link add ${config["Interface"]} type wireguard" || return 1
 
     mapfile -d ',' -t local_ips < <(echo "${config["Address"]}" | tr -d ' ')