Mamba falsely shows base as active with auto_activate_base: false #813
Description
Solution to issue cannot be found in the documentation.
- I checked the documentation.
Issue
Mamba falsely shows that the base environment is active when no environment is active:
$ mamba config set auto_activate_base false
$ cat $HOME/.condarc
channels:
- conda-forge
auto_activate_base: false
# Start a new terminal session, and run the following:
$ mamba config get auto_activate_base
auto_activate_base: false
$ mamba env list
Name Active Path
────────────────────────────────────────────────────
base * /usr/local/Caskroom/miniforge/base
$ conda env list
# conda environments:
#
base /usr/local/Caskroom/miniforge/base
$ which python3
/usr/local/bin/python3Installed packages
# packages in environment at /usr/local/Caskroom/miniforge/base:
#
# Name Version Build Channel
archspec 0.2.5 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge
boltons 25.0.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge
brotli-python 1.1.0 py312haafddd8_3 conda-forge
bzip2 1.0.8 hfdf4475_7 conda-forge
c-ares 1.34.5 hf13058a_0 conda-forge
ca-certificates 2025.7.14 hbd8a1cb_0 conda-forge
certifi 2025.7.14 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge
cffi 1.17.1 py312hf857d28_0 conda-forge
charset-normalizer 3.4.2 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge
colorama 0.4.6 pyhd8ed1ab_1 conda-forge
conda 25.3.1 py312hb401068_1 conda-forge
conda-libmamba-solver 25.3.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge
conda-package-handling 2.4.0 pyh7900ff3_2 conda-forge
conda-package-streaming 0.12.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge
cpp-expected 1.1.0 hd6aca1a_1 conda-forge
distro 1.9.0 pyhd8ed1ab_1 conda-forge
fmt 11.1.4 hbf61d64_1 conda-forge
frozendict 2.4.6 py312h3d0f464_0 conda-forge
h2 4.2.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge
hpack 4.1.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge
hyperframe 6.1.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge
icu 75.1 h120a0e1_0 conda-forge
idna 3.10 pyhd8ed1ab_1 conda-forge
jsonpatch 1.33 pyhd8ed1ab_1 conda-forge
jsonpointer 3.0.0 py312hb401068_1 conda-forge
krb5 1.21.3 h37d8d59_0 conda-forge
libarchive 3.7.7 h2c98640_4 conda-forge
libcurl 8.14.1 h5dec5d8_0 conda-forge
libcxx 20.1.8 h3d58e20_1 conda-forge
libedit 3.1.20250104 pl5321ha958ccf_0 conda-forge
libev 4.33 h10d778d_2 conda-forge
libexpat 2.7.1 h21dd04a_0 conda-forge
libffi 3.4.6 h281671d_1 conda-forge
libiconv 1.18 h4b5e92a_1 conda-forge
liblzma 5.8.1 hd471939_2 conda-forge
libmamba 2.1.1 h16a6c4c_0 conda-forge
libmambapy 2.1.1 py312hb852477_0 conda-forge
libnghttp2 1.64.0 hc7306c3_0 conda-forge
libsolv 0.7.34 h6fd32b5_0 conda-forge
libsqlite 3.50.3 h875aaf5_1 conda-forge
libssh2 1.11.1 hed3591d_0 conda-forge
libxml2 2.13.8 h93c44a6_0 conda-forge
libzlib 1.3.1 hd23fc13_2 conda-forge
lz4-c 1.10.0 h240833e_1 conda-forge
lzo 2.10 h10d778d_1001 conda-forge
mamba 2.1.1 h19c8969_0 conda-forge
menuinst 2.3.1 py312hb401068_0 conda-forge
ncurses 6.5 h0622a9a_3 conda-forge
nlohmann_json 3.11.3 hf036a51_1 conda-forge
openssl 3.5.1 hc426f3f_0 conda-forge
packaging 25.0 pyh29332c3_1 conda-forge
pip 25.1.1 pyh8b19718_0 conda-forge
platformdirs 4.3.8 pyhe01879c_0 conda-forge
pluggy 1.6.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge
pybind11-abi 4 hd8ed1ab_3 conda-forge
pycosat 0.6.6 py312h01d7ebd_2 conda-forge
pycparser 2.22 pyh29332c3_1 conda-forge
pysocks 1.7.1 pyha55dd90_7 conda-forge
python 3.12.11 h9ccd52b_0_cpython conda-forge
python_abi 3.12 8_cp312 conda-forge
readline 8.2 h7cca4af_2 conda-forge
reproc 14.2.5.post0 h6e16a3a_0 conda-forge
reproc-cpp 14.2.5.post0 h240833e_0 conda-forge
requests 2.32.4 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge
ruamel.yaml 0.18.14 py312h01d7ebd_0 conda-forge
ruamel.yaml.clib 0.2.8 py312h3d0f464_1 conda-forge
setuptools 80.9.0 pyhff2d567_0 conda-forge
simdjson 3.12.3 h9275861_0 conda-forge
tk 8.6.13 hf689a15_2 conda-forge
tqdm 4.67.1 pyhd8ed1ab_1 conda-forge
truststore 0.10.1 pyh29332c3_0 conda-forge
tzdata 2025b h78e105d_0 conda-forge
urllib3 2.5.0 pyhd8ed1ab_0 conda-forge
wheel 0.45.1 pyhd8ed1ab_1 conda-forge
yaml-cpp 0.8.0 h92383a6_0 conda-forge
zstandard 0.23.0 py312h01d7ebd_2 conda-forge
zstd 1.5.7 h8210216_2 conda-forgeEnvironment info
richard@ysmac adv-py % conda info
active environment : None
shell level : 0
user config file : /Users/richard/.condarc
populated config files : /usr/local/Caskroom/miniforge/base/.condarc
/Users/richard/.condarc
conda version : 25.3.1
conda-build version : not installed
python version : 3.12.11.final.0
solver : libmamba (default)
virtual packages : __archspec=1=cannonlake
__conda=25.3.1=0
__osx=14.3=0
__unix=0=0
base environment : /usr/local/Caskroom/miniforge/base (writable)
conda av data dir : /usr/local/Caskroom/miniforge/base/etc/conda
conda av metadata url : None
channel URLs : https://conda.anaconda.org/conda-forge/osx-64
https://conda.anaconda.org/conda-forge/noarch
package cache : /usr/local/Caskroom/miniforge/base/pkgs
/Users/richard/.conda/pkgs
envs directories : /usr/local/Caskroom/miniforge/base/envs
/Users/richard/.conda/envs
platform : osx-64
user-agent : conda/25.3.1 requests/2.32.4 CPython/3.12.11 Darwin/23.3.0 OSX/14.3 solver/libmamba conda-libmamba-solver/25.3.0 libmambapy/2.1.1
UID:GID : 501:20
netrc file : None
offline mode : False