Conda install and update do not work also solving environment get errors

Question:

I am using anaconda as below:

(base) C:Usersxxx>conda info

     active environment : base
    active env location : C:UsersxxxDocumentsANACONDA
            shell level : 1
       user config file : C:Usersxxx.condarc
 populated config files : C:Usersxxx.condarc
          conda version : 4.7.11
    conda-build version : 3.18.9
         python version : 3.6.9.final.0
       virtual packages :
       base environment : C:UsersxxxDocumentsANACONDA  (writable)
           channel URLs : https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/win-64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/noarch
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/free/win-64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/free/noarch
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/win-64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/noarch
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/msys2/win-64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/msys2/noarch
          package cache : C:UsersxxxDocumentsANACONDApkgs
                          C:Usersxxx.condapkgs
                          C:UsersxxxAppDataLocalcondacondapkgs
       envs directories : C:UsersxxxDocumentsANACONDAenvs
                          C:Usersxxx.condaenvs
                          C:UsersxxxAppDataLocalcondacondaenvs
               platform : win-64
             user-agent : conda/4.7.11 requests/2.22.0 CPython/3.6.9 Windows/10 Windows/10.0.16299
          administrator : False
             netrc file : None
           offline mode : False

Now I have 2 issues that stop my work.
1) I cannot use conda install for any package.
It will give me the error in solving environment list this:

failed with initial frozen solve. Retrying with flexible solve.

then it will fail again and give message like this:

Found conflicts! Looking for incompatible packages.
This can take several minutes.  Press CTRL-C to abort.

Even after the checking for incompatible packages, it didn’t give me the solution.

2) When I want to upgrade or downgrade conda by the command:

conda update -n base conda

or

conda install conda = 4.6.11

It will give me errors again in the solving environment, and I think this is related to the first issue.

Now I cannot use conda for anything, please advise and thank you!

Asked By: J.D

||

Answers:

Recommend to upgrade conda latest version.

conda install --quiet --yes conda=4.7.11 
python -m pip install --upgrade pip==19.2.2
Answered By: Taewon

I ran into the same problem and I couldn’t find a solution, but I did find a workaround. If you create an env and activate that env and then do the install, it seems to work just fine. If you don’t need a lot of libraries I would try that.

Commands are:

  1. Create env
conda create --name myenv
  1. Activate the env
conda activate myenv
Answered By: SKiD

You may downgrade to an older version of conda 4.6.14 and then install your packages.

conda config --set allow_conda_downgrades true
conda install conda=4.6.14
Answered By: Abhyudai

Create a new environment if your are not superuser, after that activate environment to install packages

Answered By: Rochan

If your conda version is greater than or equal to 4.8, you may see that error.

(base) [localhost ~]$ conda --version
conda 4.8.2
(base) [localhost ~]$ conda install -c anaconda requests-kerberos
Collecting package metadata (current_repodata.json): done
Solving environment: failed with initial frozen solve. Retrying with flexible solve.
Solving environment: failed with repodata from current_repodata.json, will retry with next repodata source.

Downgrade your conda if possible using the following commands

conda config --set allow_conda_downgrades true
conda install conda=4.6.14

Then create your virtual environment:

conda create --name myenv_conda

Then activate your myenv_conda

conda activate myenv_conda

Now try to install packages using conda -c install anaconda

eg: conda install -c conda requests-kerberos

output:
(myenv_conda) [localhost ~]$ conda install -c anaconda requests-kerberos
Collecting package metadata: done
Solving environment: done
....
....
....
Preparing transaction: done
Verifying transaction: done
Executing transaction: done
Answered By: Guru

https://stackoverflow.com/a/61117831/7802476 helped me. Creating a new environment using the accepted answer didn’t get my jupyter notebook to recognize the installed opencv. I could only import cv2 when I was in the environment on my terminal.

The fix was to use pip instead of conda, pip install opencv-python

Answered By: Prox

I started running in to this problem when one package suggested following modifications before installation

conda config --set channel_priority true

so I just reverted it and voila error’s gone

conda config --set channel_priority false
Answered By: exan

I run into same problem while installing geopandas. The issue was gone after I upgraded to a newer version of Anaconda using:

conda update --prefix C:appsanaconda3 anaconda

Note: you’ll have to modify the path C:appsanaconda3 pointing to your own installation directory.

Strangely, I did download Anaconda from the official homepage just a few hours ago and thought I had the newest version…

Answered By: Thomas

I solved a similar problem by doing the following:

conda update --all --yes
Answered By: Rosario Scavo

I had same problem but I solved because of SKİD.

After you create new env, You can run one of the codes in this link.

https://anaconda.org/rdkit/rdkit

Answered By: teksoy

I’ve generally had good results with conda and pip, but learned over time that environments really can get broken by unusual combinations of packages, and just starting a new env from scratch is often the only way forward. In my case it was tensorflow-gpu that wouldn’t install from conda-forge, into an env I’d already been using for some weeks. The list of packages cited as being incompatible was in the dozens. I tried all the things listed on this page, but in the end I just hammered out a new env. Since I was deducing what packages I needed to install in the new env by running my program and installing one package at each error (ie instead of being methodical about listing my former env), along the way I reproduced this frozen solve thing several times. Each time it happened, I shuffled that conda package back to the initial conda create command and started again. Eventually my program ran in the new env, with tensorflow-gpu imported, and the root cause was revealed as conda installs which occur after pip installs. It wasn’t anything to do with conda version or conda config.

A specific note for anyone using opencv-python, I ended up needing to install qt via conda, before attempting to install opencv-python via pip. That was a tricky one because it’s a runtime error, and on stack overflow many of the solutions refer to various qt lib requirements which aren’t part of python/conda and which I already had.

A further specific note. Some pip installs will roll back a version of a related package, thus breaking other conda-installed packages. In my case the example was a package called peakutils rolling back numpy, which then broke a from numpy import ma in scale.py module in the matplotlib package. My head is still spinning.

Answered By: J B
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