conda warns me I should update conda, but the update keeps failing

Question

The issue

I have an Anaconda distribution installed on a Windows PC about 18 months ago. I updated the whole package with conda update --all but conda remains stuck at version 4.12.0 When using conda, I often get the message that

==> WARNING: A newer version of conda exists. <==
  current version: xyz1
  latest version: xyz2

Please update conda by running

    $ conda update -n base conda

What I have tried

conda update conda tells me that all requested packages are already installed

conda update -n base conda tells me all requested packages are already installed

conda install conda=23.3.1 doesn't work: it fails with the current repodata, it tries the next (what does this mean - I only have 'default' as channel in my .condarc file) but after 2 hours it is still stuck at "solving environment"

What I have researched

I have found many posts on how to use conda in general, e.g. How to use "conda update -n base conda" properly but they are not about what would prevent you from updating conda itself

My interpretation

Maybe there is some package which is incompatible with conda > 4.12.0 ? Is there a way to find out which package it is? Or maybe it is just some bug in conda?

Answer 1

I had the same problem and it was solved with the following command:

conda update -n base -c defaults conda --repodata-fn=repodata.json

I hope I have helped you