More trouble on OSX

[mikaem]

Hi

I'm getting into some trouble with icu-56.1-4 that seems similar to issue #9. I install a fresh Anaconda 4.2.0 on OSX 10.11 and the first thing I do is

conda install -c conda-forge icu

This leads to

Fetching package metadata .............
Solving package specifications: ..........

Package plan for installation in environment /Users/mikaelmortensen/anaconda2:

The following packages will be downloaded:

package                    |            build
---------------------------|-----------------
icu-56.1                   |                4        22.0 MB  conda-forge
conda-env-2.5.2            |           py27_0          26 KB  conda-forge
conda-4.1.11               |           py27_1         204 KB  conda-forge
------------------------------------------------------------
                                       Total:        22.3 MB

The following NEW packages will be INSTALLED:

conda-env: 2.5.2-py27_0 conda-forge
icu:       56.1-4       conda-forge

The following packages will be SUPERCEDED by a higher-priority channel:

conda:     4.2.9-py27_0             --> 4.1.11-py27_1 conda-forge

Proceed ([y]/n)? 

Fetching packages ...
icu-56.1-4.tar 100%           |####################################################################################################################################################      #| Time: 0:00:03   6.41 MB/s
conda-env-2.5. 100% |#####################################################################################################################################################| Time: 0:00:00 240.89 kB/s
conda-4.1.11-p 100% |#####################################################################################################################################################| Time: 0:00:00 467.87 kB/s
Extracting packages ...
[      COMPLETE      ]|########################################################################################################################################################################| 100%
Unlinking packages ...
[      COMPLETE      ]|########################################################################################################################################################################| 100%
Linking packages ...
CondaOSError: OS error: failed to link (src=u'/Users/mikaelmortensen/anaconda2/pkgs/icu-56.1-  4/lib/icu/current', dst='/Users/mikaelmortensen/anaconda2/lib/icu/current', type=3, error=OSError(17, 'File exists')) 

And after this my entire conda package is broken

 conda
-bash: /Users/mikaelmortensen/anaconda2/bin/conda: No such file or directory

Looks like the old ~/anaconda2/lib/icu/current cannot be overwritten by a new link. And it turns out that the /anaconda2/lib/icu folder is not removed when doing

conda uninstall icu

So whos fault is that? The original package I suppose?

[ccordoba12]

Why don't you create a new environment to install conda-forge's icu there?

[mikaem]

@ccordoba12 Naturally, in that case there's no issue because the original icu will not be replaced. The issue only applies to an attempt to upgrade icu in the main environment.

[ccordoba12]

The problem is defaults and conda-forge are not compatible. Basically, you need to create a new environment to install conda-forge packages.

Please see this (long) discussion to understand the reasons for this:

https://github.com/conda-forge/boost-feedstock/pull/15

[mikaem]

I see. I understand many of the issues raised in that link. It gets complicated. I'm building Fenics that depends on boost+vtk+mpi+hdf5+++. And conda-forges hdf5 is built without mpi, vtk is built against serial hdf5 etc. Bottom line, the conda-forge recipes are nice, but they always (for me) needs tweaking. Or new features.

Current issue is not really a conda-forge/icu issue or a compatibility thing. Uninstalling icu from defaults does not clean up properly, leading to issues with upgrading. Easily avoided using environments.

[ocefpaf]

Closing this. Most of the points here are in https://conda-forge.org/docs/conda-forge_gotchas.html#using-multiple-channels