conda not available in newly created environments

bren...@gmail.com

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Jan 18, 2018, 11:10:19 AM1/18/18

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I'm on Windows 7. I have some existing environments. After activating one of those environments, I can use "conda", e.g., to do stuff like "conda install blah". If I use "where", it shows something like:

(myenv) C:\Users\me>where conda
C:\path\to\Anaconda3\envs\myenv\Scripts\conda
C:\path\to\Anaconda3\envs\myenv\Scripts\conda.bat

And I can see that those files are indeed there in the environment's "Scripts" directory.

However, if I create a new environment with "conda create -n newenv", the new environment does not have conda. Trying to do anything with conda gives an error: "'conda' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file." If I look in the environment's Scripts directory, I indeed see no conda file.

To make things even more peculiar, if I first activate the base environment, and then from there activate my new environment, then I can use conda, but it's accessing conda from the base environment:

C:\Users\me>\path\to\Anaconda3\Scripts\activate

(base) C:\Users\me>\path\to\Anaconda3\Scripts\activate newenv

(newenv) C:\Users\me>where conda
C:\path\to\Anaconda3\Library\bin\conda.bat
C:\path\to\Anaconda3\Scripts\conda.exe

I'm not sure exactly when this change took place. It seems that environments created within the past couple months have no conda.

What is going on here? I could do "conda install conda" in my new environment, but I thought you were supposed to install conda in non-root environments. What am I supposed to do to get conda working in all environments?

Will Warner

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Jan 18, 2018, 8:07:24 PM1/18/18

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What's the output of "conda -V" in the base environment? I wonder if upgrading conda in the base environment to the most recent version with "conda update conda" could solve this.

Are you using the Anaconda Prompt? It should activate the base environment when you first start it, although something may be going wrong with that. Conda doesn't support other shells such as the default Windows command prompt or PowerShell.

Brendan Barnwell

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Jan 18, 2018, 10:09:03 PM1/18/18

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On Thursday, January 18, 2018 at 5:07:24 PM UTC-8, Will Warner wrote:

What's the output of "conda -V" in the base environment? I wonder if upgrading conda in the base environment to the most recent version with "conda update conda" could solve this.

It says conda 4.4.7. I already tried "conda update conda" and it says it's already installed.

Are you using the Anaconda Prompt? It should activate the base environment when you first start it, although something may be going wrong with that. Conda doesn't support other shells such as the default Windows command prompt or PowerShell.

That's news to me. If that is the case, where is that stated in the documentation? In particular, why does it not say that here ( https://conda.io/docs/user-guide/getting-started.html#managing-envs ) or here ( https://conda.io/docs/user-guide/concepts.html ) or indeed ANYWHERE that I can see? Everything says "Terminal or Anaconda Prompt", and "Terminal" on Windows means the standard Windows command prompt.

Also, all the Anaconda Prompt shortcut does is run CMD.EXE with some arguments. How then can CMD.EXE itself not be supported?

The Anaconda Prompt, like the default windows prompt, is extremely weak and limited. If other more full-featured shells (like ConEmu or Cmder) do not work, that seems to imply a rather crippling limitation on conda itself as well. If there is such a limitation, why isn't it stated in big red letters all over the place in the documentation?

Pete Jemian

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Jan 18, 2018, 10:43:59 PM1/18/18

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I, too, do not understand this remark.

On 1/18/2018 7:07 PM, Will Warner wrote:
> Conda doesn't support other shells such as the default Windows command
> prompt or PowerShell.

The conda environment commands (such as "activate my_env") work for me
in the Windows (Win10) cmd.exe shell. Is the observed "works in the
shell" different than the stated "support for the shell"?

Thanks,
Pete

Will Warner

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Jan 19, 2018, 1:59:11 PM1/19/18

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The Anaconda Prompt makes sure that the PATH is set correctly without interfering with other software, and makes sure that any activation scripts for each conda environment are run correctly. Many environments don't have any activation scripts, but some do. It may be possible to use other shells with conda, but it may require some custom configuration work. It's similar to the situation with csh and other shells such as xonsh on Linux and macOS; some users may be able to make it work with some custom configuration, and adding support for them in the future is possible, but currently the only shells supported are bash on Linux and macOS and the Anaconda Prompt on Windows. You can read more information here:

https://github.com/ContinuumIO/anaconda-issues/issues/311

https://github.com/conda/conda/issues/626

https://github.com/ContinuumIO/anaconda-issues/issues/2533

You can find more threads on Stack Overflow and GitHub with a web search for something like [anaconda powershell].

The intended meaning of "Use the Terminal or an Anaconda Prompt" in the docs is "On macOS or Linux use the Terminal which will open a bash shell, or on Windows use an Anaconda Prompt." We didn't realize that Windows users would understand "use the Terminal" to mean "use any shell". I agree that this should be rewritten and spelled out in a clear and unambiguous way, so I've made an issue to track that: https://github.com/conda/conda-docs/issues/530

Will Warner

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Jan 19, 2018, 3:10:18 PM1/19/18

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Lead conda developer Kale Franz gave me some more information that's relevant here: conda 4.4 has recently added shell wrappers for bash, zsh, ash, fish, cmd.exe, csh, tcsh, and xonsh, and the team's hoping to add a PowerShell wrapper soon. Any conda user who also uses PowerShell is welcome to take a swing at it, and being able to use the other shell wrappers as a model should make it somewhat easier.

Pete Jemian

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Jan 19, 2018, 4:31:35 PM1/19/18

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Will:

Thanks for the detailed answer and also thanks for the clarity of the
background research for this answer.

Pete

Will Warner

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Jan 19, 2018, 4:35:12 PM1/19/18

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Certainly! Here's hoping soon there will be a good PowerShell wrapper and better news to report for everyone.

ksre...@gmail.com

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Jan 22, 2018, 10:48:07 AM1/22/18

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Hi Will,

I have a similar problem sort of; when I create a new environment like this:

(base) C:\Users\krwin>conda create -n aws27 python=2.7 anaconda

Solving environment: done

## Package Plan ##

environment location: C:\Users\krwin\Anaconda3\envs\aws27

added / updated specs:

- anaconda

- python=2.7

The following NEW packages will be INSTALLED:

anaconda: custom-py27h689e5c3_0

intelpython: 2018.0.0-3 intel

openssl: 1.0.2l-vc9_intel_0 intel [vc9,intel]

pip: 9.0.1-py27_intel_0 intel [intel ]

python: 2.7.14-intel_1 intel [intel ]

setuptools: 27.2.0-py27_intel_0 intel [intel ]

tcl: 8.6.4-vc9_intel_17 intel [vc9,intel]

tk: 8.6.4-vc9_intel_26 intel [vc9,intel]

vc: 9.0-2 intel

vs2008_runtime: 9.00.30729.6161-intel_0 intel [intel ]

wheel: 0.29.0-py27_intel_5 intel [intel ]

Proceed ([y]/n)? y

My first question is, why only those few packages? I thought you get the standard set of packages. But then I got the following so I am confused and don't know why I am getting this.

Proceed ([y]/n)? y

Preparing transaction: done

Verifying transaction: \

SafetyError: The package for vs2008_runtime located at C:\Users\krwin\Anaconda3\pkgs\vs2008_runtime-9.00.30729.6161-intel_0

appears to be corrupted. The path 'Library/bin/msvcm90.dll'

has a sha256 mismatch.

reported sha256: 47b4e80f1173532365fceedaeeb495bdaefac4d362eb62bb92f4fea589d2c104

actual sha256: d0997ef46d16b261b80ae4b56f2e95ce1cebb2e41685884422c73836120e6406

SafetyError: The package for vs2008_runtime located at C:\Users\krwin\Anaconda3\pkgs\vs2008_runtime-9.00.30729.6161-intel_0

appears to be corrupted. The path 'msvcm90.dll'

has a sha256 mismatch.

reported sha256: 47b4e80f1173532365fceedaeeb495bdaefac4d362eb62bb92f4fea589d2c104

actual sha256: d0997ef46d16b261b80ae4b56f2e95ce1cebb2e41685884422c73836120e6406

SafetyError: The package for openssl located at C:\Users\krwin\Anaconda3\pkgs\openssl-1.0.2l-vc9_intel_0

appears to be corrupted. The path 'Library/bin/libeay32.dll'

has a sha256 mismatch.

reported sha256: 66e20a695ade83b56ed4b445758c10f4cb008a815683003e27a653e813a1af76

actual sha256: 40d2a813e2dc9fd05c084b6c45bcdce13c36e45869dbfeff38c23a733c4bae2e

SafetyError: The package for openssl located at C:\Users\krwin\Anaconda3\pkgs\openssl-1.0.2l-vc9_intel_0

appears to be corrupted. The path 'Library/bin/ssleay32.dll'

has a sha256 mismatch.

reported sha256: 6334045751a04960985ba538d5da15dd37d2f35c8f1021cc7de321069b5dd7e8

actual sha256: 6c174e87be1ed123c7aefa8ebcb3678774281fcabf4dedf0f2a6e9e4e42c8705

SafetyError: The package for tcl located at C:\Users\krwin\Anaconda3\pkgs\tcl-8.6.4-vc9_intel_17

appears to be corrupted. The path 'Library/bin/tcl86t.dll'

has a sha256 mismatch.

reported sha256: c4d58ac96754ceaf0cf6bddfe3aa54989e2d6919448c081cbabc34d5d93cf352

actual sha256: 4bfe59ac20d947bbab5f5747c3e074c19bf23117061daae31a721a6480da1e91

SafetyError: The package for tcl located at C:\Users\krwin\Anaconda3\pkgs\tcl-8.6.4-vc9_intel_17

appears to be corrupted. The path 'Library/lib/dde1.4/tcldde14.dll'

has a sha256 mismatch.

reported sha256: 71570dbaafdac4fbeb444f3bb83ee562d8bdaba14d6b538239cab5f9b6c23c44

actual sha256: 681145904219d204ae85b512c64fe1cb63289a1bf10ad0928a3eb9a001e57c36

SafetyError: The package for tcl located at C:\Users\krwin\Anaconda3\pkgs\tcl-8.6.4-vc9_intel_17

appears to be corrupted. The path 'Library/lib/reg1.3/tclreg13.dll'

has a sha256 mismatch.

reported sha256: d8a1c1a0eb795cb622829c7849a4594285c1b88d4c240b553beece560b385bd9

actual sha256: 200ff5b496df3c3bce855a894c55a3e30b3c3b482832ca8b1c86365db33df9ef

SafetyError: The package for tk located at C:\Users\krwin\Anaconda3\pkgs\tk-8.6.4-vc9_intel_26

appears to be corrupted. The path 'Library/bin/tk86t.dll'

has a sha256 mismatch.

reported sha256: 8c5cd3a460f931c3392ec3560d80be4eda8ea3d421f6515662f89f75d8f8e999

actual sha256: c9c5686b237349c7fd0bd0013a71608ed35a8966acc566efa7b1b0fe1c491cae

SafetyError: The package for tk located at C:\Users\krwin\Anaconda3\pkgs\tk-8.6.4-vc9_intel_26

appears to be corrupted. The path 'Library/bin/wish86t.exe'

has a sha256 mismatch.

reported sha256: d27fd6d04fd42559c33f342099011fec1a3f7c5c51bf6dd6e9f38b3861a1dd8a

actual sha256: eff7c29f61d19522f06b98ce5a25a685f7584e27a6bf400f9a75ce9632862e7a