RemoveError: 'setuptools' is a dependency of conda and cannot be removed from conda's operating environment

Question

I have Win 10

When running:

conda update conda

I encountered this error:

RemoveError: 'setuptools' is a dependency of conda and cannot be removed from
conda's operating environment.

Nothing seems to help

I tried to uninstall anaconda and got a successful message but it seems there are some traces of older version that still persist

How can I completely erase all traces of Anaconda installation?

Is that the entire error output? Where did you run that, in what context? — AMC, Aug 18 '20 at 23:29
just use he file explore and search for 'anaconda' then delete everything that comes up — Matthew Watson, Dec 12 '20 at 22:27

score 76 · Answer 1 · edited Nov 02 '19 at 13:38

76

While I still did not find how to cleanly uninstall anaconda, I was able to resolve the error by using the following:

conda update --force conda
conda update anaconda

and again

conda update conda

As a result, I got a stable environment with no dependency conflicts. Seems like something within latest conda is too restrictive and update must be forced.

edited Nov 02 '19 at 13:38

Asclepius

49,954
14
144
128

answered Aug 21 '19 at 02:42

Toly

2,473
7
22
32

I didn't need the `--force`. It worked by just doing `conda update conda` and then `conda update anaconda`. Upvote cause it helped me figure it out though. – Glrs Feb 20 '20 at 16:55
4

The [Anaconda docs](https://www.anaconda.com/blog/keeping-anaconda-date) say updating the anaconda package is not advised, so try `conda update -all` instead. – s2t2 Jul 09 '20 at 00:50
I am having a ```ERROR conda.core.link:_execute(700):``` – BND Dec 05 '20 at 08:48
3

Why does conda break every 2 months? – Eduardo Pignatelli May 17 '21 at 10:37
I only had to run the first command but I did need the --force – Greg Harley Apr 18 '22 at 21:40

score 7 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 30 '19 at 17:46

7

I am on a Mac rather than Windows but I was getting the same message. I was able to update by running conda update setuptools. It brought conda up-to-date in the process.

answered Oct 30 '19 at 17:46

jvaugha

113
3
7

1

Worked like a charm, and I prefer this over the forced-update option. Cheers! – jrinker Nov 28 '19 at 11:38

Val · Answer 3 · 2020-05-11T02:16:32.790

4

I'm on Linux Ubuntu 16.04, and it works for me by:

conda uninstall setuptools
# This is a must to make it work
conda install setuptools
conda update --force conda

edited May 11 '20 at 02:16

answered Oct 16 '19 at 10:01

Val

20,060
10
64
83

Asclepius · Answer 4 · 2019-11-02T13:37:33.147

1

I ran into this issue in a Dockerfile using continuumio/miniconda3:latest in which I had the line:

RUN conda update -n base -c defaults conda

To fix it, I simply appended the setuptools requirement:

RUN conda update -n base -c defaults conda setuptools

There was no need for any other heroics.

edited Nov 02 '19 at 13:37

answered Nov 01 '19 at 20:17

Asclepius

49,954
14
144
128

I am dealing apparently with similar circumstances, you would add this line just before activate the env, right? – ReinholdN May 13 '20 at 19:41
'''FROM continuumio/miniconda:latest WORKDIR /home/reinhold/Documents/webapps/house_market_app/ihm_condaenv COPY environment.yml ./ COPY app.py ./ COPY boot.sh ./ RUN chmod +x boot.sh RUN conda update -n base -c defaults RUN conda env create -f environment.yml RUN echo "source activate ihm_condaenv" > ~/.bashrc ENV PATH /home/reinhold/anaconda3/envs/ihm_condaenv/bin:$PATH EXPOSE 8080 CMD ["./boot.sh"]''' – ReinholdN May 13 '20 at 19:50
@ReinholdN Yes. [This](https://stackoverflow.com/a/57595180/) is how I activate the environment prior to defining an `ENTRYPOINT` which runs `python`. – Asclepius May 13 '20 at 23:21

score 1 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 18 '20 at 21:58

I was having trouble installing scrapy with anaconda using ' conda install -c conda-forge scrapy'

I kept getting the

'Verifying transaction: failed' ' RemoveError: 'setuptools' is a dependency of conda and cannot be removed from conda's operating environment.'

error so I tried the mentioned above force install of setup "conda update --force conda" and once that was successful I was able to reapply the scrapy install successfully.

RemoveError: 'setuptools' is a dependency of conda and cannot be removed from conda's operating environment

5 Answers5

Linked