Nicholas,
I just upgraded to 5.26 and lirc does not work after upgrade. The fix is simple, in /boot/config.txt replace
dtoverlay=lirc-rpi
with:
dtoverlay=gpio-ir,gpio_pin=18,gpio_pull=1,rc-map-name=rc-rc6-mce
Thanks.
Also please see my other reply about adding inputstream.adaptive.
Batocera is the most straightforward, stable and smallest way to run kodi.