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pythonanacondacondaanaconda3

Conda very slow and downloading only from Conda-Forge

The issue

I have recently installed Anaconda3 (as downloaded on 31-Mar-2023) onto a Windows PC. I chose the installation for my username only, which doesn't require admin rights. It's my private PC, so no corporate firewalls.

Quite simply, Conda doesn't work. Even a banal command like conda update pandas will result in:

Collecting package metadata (current_repodata.json): done
Solving environment: failed with repodata from current_repodata.json, will retry with next repodata source.
Solving environment: failed with repodata from current_repodata.json, will retry with next repodata source.
Collecting package metadata (repodata.json): |

and, even if I leave it an hour, it remains stuck at collecting package metadata. To be clear, Pandas doesn't need updating, mine was just a test to see if Conda works properly, and it doesn't.

What I have tried

Beyond uninstalling and reinstalling multiple times, I have disabled my firewall (Eset on Windows) thinking that maybe it was blocking access to the remote repositories.

I now get the message that loads of packages will be downloaded from Conda-Forge - but these are all packages which I already have, and the version is the same, too. I did not go ahead with this.

    The following packages will be downloaded:
    
        package                    |            build
        ---------------------------|-----------------
   [...]
        numpy-1.24.2               |  py310hd02465a_0         5.6 MB  conda-forge
        openjpeg-2.5.0             |       ha2aaf27_2         232 KB  conda-forge
        openssl-1.1.1t             |       hcfcfb64_0         5.0 MB  conda-forge
        packaging-23.0             |     pyhd8ed1ab_0          40 KB  conda-forge
        pandas-1.5.3               |  py310h1c4a608_1        10.2 MB  conda-forge
        pathlib-1.0.1              |  py310h5588dad_7           5 KB  conda-forge

My interpretation

  1. It seems I have two problems: the ESET firewall blocks Conda
  2. if I disable the firewall, Conda searches the conda-forge repository first, and wants to replace the pandas 1.5.3 I already have with the Pandas 1.5.3 from conda-forge, and the same for a number of other packages

What I have researched

I have found many, many posts on this matter, but they mostly seem to focus on how to use additional repository sources (e.g. conda-forge) and how to configure them correctly. Stuck at Solving Environment on Anaconda I think my case is different - we're not talking about struggling to install an obscure package from an obscure repository, we're saying Conda cannot even update Pandas!

I have found other discussions at https://github.com/conda/conda/issues/11919 and https://github.com/conda/conda/issues/8051 but they don't seem particularly relevant to my case.

Solution

  • Sounds like you have conda-forge included in your channel configuration.

    Run conda config --show-sources to see your configuration files and it will likely look something like this:

    ==> C:\Users\root\.condarc <==
channels:
  - conda-forge

    If so, either manually open and edit the config file or run:

    conda config --remove-key channels