Errno 13 Permission denied when updating conda

Question

I'm trying to update Anaconda using conda update --all .

I receive the following warning:

Warning: 2 possible package resolutions (only showing differing packages):
  - anaconda::navigator-updater-0.2.1-py36_0
  - defaults::navigator-updater-0.2.1-py36done

Then it begins:

## Package Plan ##

  environment location: /Users/me/anaconda3

...Followed by all sorts of good things. The transaction is then prepared, verified and executed, after which I get the following errors:

ERROR conda.core.link:_execute(700): An error occurred while uninstalling package 'https://repo.continuum.io/pkgs/main/osx-64/xlrd-1.1.0-py36h336f4a2_1.tar.bz2::xlrd-1.1.0-py36h336f4a2_1'.
Rolling back transaction: done

[Errno 13] Permission denied: '/Users/me/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/xlrd/__init__.py' -> '/Users/me/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/site-packages/xlrd/__init__.py.c~'
()

Being the newer coder that I am, I have no idea about the environment or what it takes to update this beyond monkey-typing in what I've been told to do. What the heck do these mean and how do I solve them? I would imagine that updating would be simple, as it is going back to the folder that it came from, so why is it saying there there is an Error 13 which, as my research seems to indicate, is an admin privileges issue? (I am admin on my machine, using a Mac with interactive shell zsh .)

Answer 1

So it seems like the version of conda that you are using was prone to these errors. Searching it up brings up a multitude of similar errors and the common solution is to always update conda , just like you tried.

From @soapy1 comment from here , states that:

Looks like this is fixed on master, it should be resolved in the next release of conda

My advice would be, if possible, uninstall and install anaconda. This will install with the latest packages and the error shouldn't persist. You should follow the documentation on doing this safely.