[BUG] When I copy a conda env with copy -r old_env_dir new_env_dir, they are not independent

[chansonzhang]

cp -r old_env new_env
conda activate old_env
pip install transformers==4.38.1
conda activate new_env
pip install transformers==4.45.2
conda activate old_env
pip list|grep transformer
here I expect transformers in old_env is still 4.38.1, but it appears to influenced by the installation in new_env and got version 4.45.2

[chansonzhang]

conda version is 24.5.0

[jbednar]

I'm not an expert on the conda internals, but as I understand it, conda has to hard-code the path to the environment within various files that are in that environment. So environments are not relocatable once installed. So whenever you use an environment, you need to make sure it's in the same location on the filesystem as when it was created. I.e., if you do want to make copies and move things around, fine, but then just make sure that the environment is back in its original location before you install or use anything on it!