Hey there, let's get to the bottom of this error you're seeing. First off, this isn't a temporary intermittent issue—the error clearly points to an SSL certificate verification failure when connecting to the rsignell channel. Your Conda version (4.3.30) is also quite outdated (released back in 2017), which might be contributing to compatibility issues with modern SSL certificates.

Here's how to resolve this step by step:

• Remove the problematic channel first
  The error originates from https://conda.binstar.org/rsignell, which likely has an expired or untrusted SSL certificate. Run this command to remove it from your Conda config:

  conda config --remove channels rsignell
  

  This eliminates the source of the SSL handshake failure.

• Update Conda using default channels
  Since your Conda version is very old, a standard conda update conda might still hit issues. Force the update to use only Conda's official default channels with:

  conda update conda --override-channels -c defaults
  

  This bypasses any third-party channels that might be causing problems and ensures you're pulling updates from a trusted source.

• Temporarily disable SSL verification (if needed)
  If you still run into SSL issues during the update, you can temporarily turn off SSL verification (note: this is a quick fix, not a long-term solution for security reasons):

  conda config --set ssl_verify false
  

  Once you've successfully updated Conda, make sure to re-enable SSL verification:

  conda config --set ssl_verify true
  

• Re-add trusted channels (if necessary)
  If you actually need packages from the rsignell channel, check if it's been moved to a new, trusted URL (like a conda-forge-hosted channel or an updated binstar address) before re-adding it. Old, unmaintained channels often have broken certificates.

After following these steps, you should be able to update Conda and your Python packages without hitting the SSL error.

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者PeterW