Error when attempting to install R with Conda

Question

I get an error when trying to install R base package in my conda environment, just like the following:

[user@host ~]$ conda install r r-essentials
Collecting package metadata (current_repodata.json): done
Solving environment: failed with current_repodata.json, will retry with next repodata source.
Initial quick solve with frozen env failed.  Unfreezing env and trying again.
Solving environment: failed with current_repodata.json, will retry with next repodata source.
Collecting package metadata (repodata.json): done
Solving environment: - failed

Here is the output of my conda info:

active environment : None
       user config file : /home/user/.condarc
 populated config files : /home/user/.condarc
          conda version : 4.7.10
    conda-build version : not installed
         python version : 3.7.3.final.0
       virtual packages : 
       base environment : /opt/miniconda  (writable)
           channel URLs : https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/linux-64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/main/noarch
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/linux-64
                          https://repo.anaconda.com/pkgs/r/noarch
          package cache : /opt/miniconda/pkgs
                          /home/user/.conda/pkgs
       envs directories : /opt/miniconda/envs
                          /home/user/.conda/envs
               platform : linux-64
             user-agent : conda/4.7.10 requests/2.22.0 CPython/3.7.3 Linux/5.2.2-arch1-1-ARCH arch/rolling glibc/2.29
                UID:GID : 1000:985
             netrc file : None
           offline mode : False

The channel urls seem to be healthy, they lead to correct repos with packages. I have no problem installing python-related packages in conda, only see this issue with R. What can possibly be causing this?

Thank you.

Answer 1

This was likely an error in the conda package manager itself. The above behaviour ceased immediately after updating conda to v. 4.7.11.