metachannel is not accessible or is invalid

[allefeld]

I'm trying to create a new environment with a metachannel made from defaults and conda-forge:

$ conda create --override-channels -c https://metachannel.conda-forge.org/defaults,conda-forge --name std
Collecting package metadata (current_repodata.json): done
Solving environment: done

UnavailableInvalidChannel: The channel is not accessible or is invalid.
  channel name: defaults,conda-forge
  channel url: https://metachannel.conda-forge.org/defaults,conda-forge
  error code: 404

You will need to adjust your conda configuration to proceed.
Use `conda config --show channels` to view your configuration's current state,
and use `conda config --show-sources` to view config file locations.

Manually visiting the https://metachannel.conda-forge.org/defaults,conda-forge confirms that there appears to be something wrong with the server:

conda 4.8.1 on Debian 10.2

[scopatz]

CC @mariusvniekerk

[mivade]

Any update on this? I'm also getting 404.

[mariusvniekerk]

Visiting that url is not how you use conda-metachannel. Checking a simple url like

https://metachannel.conda-forge.org/conda-forge/python/noarch/repodata.json

suggests it is working okay?

[mivade]

Try the example in the original comment. That and similar commands are not working:

$ conda create -c https://metachannel.conda-forge.org/defaults,conda-forge --name example python
Collecting package metadata (current_repodata.json): failed

UnavailableInvalidChannel: The channel is not accessible or is invalid.
  channel name: defaults,conda-forge
  channel url: https://metachannel.conda-forge.org/defaults,conda-forge
  error code: 404

You will need to adjust your conda configuration to proceed.
Use `conda config --show channels` to view your configuration's current state,
and use `conda config --show-sources` to view config file locations.

Is there something wrong with the URL construction? I'm fairly sure that this sort of thing worked for me in the past.

[GeorgianaElena]

Hi there 👋

I'm getting a 522 Origin Connection Time-out when accessing
https://metachannel.conda-forge.org/conda-forge/jupyterhub,sphinx,recommonmark/noarch/repodata.json (or https://metachannel.conda-forge.org). This started happening only a few days ago.

Does anybody have any info about this? Thanks!

[scopatz]

Hi there, yeah. I took down the metachannel service because it was costing me personally a bunch of money to run per month to run on google cloud. Any help in standing up a cheaper instance ( possibly on digital ocean), or in funding it would be very appreciated! Sorry for the inconvience. Anyone is should feel free to reach out to me if they want to chat about this individually too.

[choldgraf]

@scopatz - that's a bummer :-/ how costly is it to run the channel, if I may ask?

we have had a bit of success with OVH, who seems interested in supporting open source projects / infrastructure at the moment (https://blog.jupyter.org/nbviewer-has-a-new-host-ovhcloud-28bcab6a7ab4)

[scopatz]

@choldgraf - it was costing me about $60 / month to run on google cloud, which is just too much for the long haul. It is relatively low requirements, so if there is an option for keeping it running, I'd love to hear it!

[choldgraf]

@scopatz do you have an idea for its utilization and usage numbers? Maybe something that could be used to justify a comp'ed set of credits elsewhere?

[scopatz]

CC @mariusvniekerk - I think it wasn't being used that much. Maybe 3 requests/minute maybe?

[mariusvniekerk]

Just mostly needs a decentish bit of ram since repodata.json is large and it makes some local caches

[choldgraf]

Hmm, I wonder what @SylvainCorlay thinks about this...do you think OVH would be interested in helping host this infrastructure for the pydata community?

[jqueguiner]

@choldgraf : Interested <3

[SylvainCorlay]

@choldgraf : Interested <3

☝️ @scopatz @choldgraf it seems that OVH may be interested in hosting this infrastructure. How should we proceed?

[SylvainCorlay]

Ping @scopatz @mariusvniekerk !

By the way there was some interest on OVH's side in hosting other conda-forge related things.

[mariusvniekerk]

Currently this just runs as a docker container so should be easy to run on any platform. I guess we need some credentials to an ovh account to set up the terraform to provision infrastructure.
Resource wise it's about 2/3 GB of ram.
Additionally we'd need to configure dns to point to it.

[scopatz]

Yeah. I think the ovh creds are the blocking piece right now

[rgommers]

Would it make sense to officially end-of-life conda-metachannel?

This package was featured quite prominently in Anaconda's blogs on performance,

• https://www.anaconda.com/blog/understanding-and-improving-condas-performance
• https://www.anaconda.com/blog/how-we-made-conda-faster-4-7

and is mentioned in the conda-forge FAQ under "Installing and updating takes a long time, what can I do?".

But now the package is going unmaintained (last commit was 14 months ago) and the metachannel service has been down for months.

I'd suggest this is doing users a disservice. Conda still has a lot of performance problems, so users will be looking for those blogs and that FAQ entry. I'd rather they see "try using Mamba instead of Conda" as the answer in the FAQ instead.

[astrojuanlu]

There is kind of a bootstrapping problem: one discovers that conda is slow, wants to install mamba, and conda install mamba -c conda-forge takes ages because... conda is slow and conda-forge is huge.

I came from https://github.com/readthedocs/readthedocs.org/pull/6815/files/c0ad8095d9395e18054fd32868b5288be411b28a#r535450723 (cc @humitos) looking for a solution for this because in my mind conda-metachannel was exactly what miniconda users need. It's a bummer that the service no longer works, perhaps there's the chance to bring it back to life?

Otherwise, I concur with @rgommers, there should be more clear expectations about the current way forward.

[scopatz]

Metachannel as code should still work. You should still be able to stand-up a metachannel yourself. The service was just too expensive for individual volunteers to foot the bill for the world. If there are donated hosting that we could use and volunteers to stand it up, I think metachannel could make a come back as a service. I understand that is a high bar to clear though.

[rgommers]

There is kind of a bootstrapping problem: one discovers that conda is slow, wants to install mamba, and conda install mamba -c conda-forge takes ages because... conda is slow and conda-forge is huge.

https://github.com/conda-forge/miniforge#mambaforge

The service was just too expensive for individual volunteers to foot the bill for the world. If there are donated hosting that we could use and volunteers to stand it up, I think metachannel could make a come back as a service. I understand that is a high bar to clear though.

That makes sense, thanks @scopatz.