Having deployment issues

Technical
1

Subject: Issues with SENAITE 2.6 installation, missing setup options (Units/Analysis Services), and request for guidance

Hello SENAITE Community,

I am the head auditor of a laboratory currently working on implementing SENAITE LIMS for ISO 17025 compliance.
I have been assisted by AI (ChatGPT) to speed up configuration and troubleshooting, but I am now facing several issues that I cannot resolve alone.

Environment

  • OS: Windows 10 with Docker Desktop

  • SENAITE Version: 2.6.0 (from ghcr.io/senaite/senaite.lims)

  • Setup: Running via Docker with persistent volumes (senaite_data)

  • Use case: Laboratory quality control (milk, olive oil, water, HACCP workflows, sampling plans, reports with conformity interpretation)

Problems encountered

  1. Image availability

    • Some images/tags (e.g., 2.5.x, 2.6.0) were difficult to find or inconsistent between GitHub and Docker Hub.

    • Pull attempts sometimes failed, requiring manual intervention.

  2. Default admin credentials

    • The default admin/admin works, but users sometimes disappear after restarts.

    • We had to script custom backup/restore procedures to preserve users.

  3. Missing setup options

    • In the current 2.6.0 installation, the “Units” and “Analysis Services” menus are not visible in the Setup panel.

    • Without these, I cannot define measurement units (e.g., pH, °C, mg/L) or create analysis services linked to methods.

    • This makes it impossible to configure tests like pH in milk vs. pH in water, each with its own method and reference.

  4. Backup/Restore

    • We scripted manual backup/restore with docker run --rm -v senaite_data:/data -v $(pwd)/backup:/backup alpine:3.19 ...

    • It works partially, but restoring often breaks user accounts or requires resetting admin.

My needs

  • Clear guidance on how to properly enable/restore missing setup items such as Units and Analysis Services in 2.6.0.

  • Advice on whether it is safer to downgrade to 2.5.x for stability (before the Dexterity migration).

  • Best practices for persistent backup/restore of users, configuration, and lab setup without breaking the system.

  • Confirmation on the default admin/admin policy: is this still the official way, or should a new user system be configured after installation?

Final note

I strongly believe SENAITE is the right platform for my lab (compared to building a custom HTML/JS solution), but I need to avoid wasting time if I am running into version-specific bugs.
Any help or official documentation update would be highly appreciated.

Kind regards,
K.Chihab Ed.
Head Auditor

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