python - After Anaconda installation, conda command fails with "ImportError: no module named conda.cli"

Question

I installed 64 bit Linux version of Anaconda recently (1.8.0-Linux-x86_64). The installation seemed to work fine:

$ python 
Python 2.7.5 |Continuum Analytics, Inc.| (default, Nov  4 2013, 15:30:26)
[GCC 4.1.2 20080704 (Red Hat 4.1.2-54)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import numpy
>>>
##No issues here 

However if I try any of the conda commands, I get an error:

$ conda info
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "~/anaconda/bin/conda", line 3, in <module>
    from conda.cli import main
ImportError: No module named conda.cli

Installation is under my user directory (~/anaconda). I have verified that $PATH contains ~/anaconda/bin. $PYTHONPATH is also set to ~/anaconda/lib.

Any thoughts on what is wrong with the 'conda' command? My searches do not appear to show any one else reporting this error.

Answer 1

Note

If the accepted answer doesn't work, then this answer might help.

The Cause

According to the official thread on GitHub, this problem happens when there is a change in the python version. In my case, the original anaconda installation is anaconda 3 with python3.6. And I installed a new package which updated python topython3.7 along with some other packages. And this corrupts the anaconda base environment.

The solution

The solution that works for me is pretty simple... reinstall anaconda. I don't know if this is the optimal solution, but this what works for me.

• First we need to delete the old installation:

  rm -rf ~/anaconda3
  rm -rf ~/.condarc ~/.conda ~/.continuum
  

• Then, reinstall Anaconda.

• Finally, update all packages (including conda itself) using:

  conda update --all
  

Now, your anaconda is up-to-date.