Installing tensorflow in cloned conda environment breaks conda environment it was cloned from

Question

I just cloned a working miniconda environment carnd-term1-gpu that had tensorflow with gpu working using tensorflow version \'0.12.1\'. The environment had a lo

Answer 1

I just got the following from continuum; "To keep this from happening, you'll have to use the --copy flag with your clone operation. Core to conda's design is extensive use of hard links. This exact issue is one of the biggest pitfalls."

So if I would have done the following when I first cloned the environment, I could have avoided corrupting the old one:

conda create --name tflow --copy --clone carnd-term1-gpu

The option --copy Install all packages using copies instead of hard- or soft-link‐ing will prevent pip from being able to overwrite files.

Some ongoing discussion about this and how it might get addressed in the future is here: conda pip breaks

The only option I have for recovering is to reinstall each damaged package. Beware when using pip with conda...