title: ValueError: failed to parse CPython sys.version after using conda command
body: <p>I'm running into an error that I can't solve despite others having reported the same error.</p>
  
  <p>I am connecting remotely to a Linux machine. I have installed the latest version of anaconda:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ bash Anaconda2-2.4.0-Linux-x86_64.sh
  
  // A lot of python libraries get installed
  
  installing: _cache-0.0-py27_x0 ...
  Python 2.7.10 :: Continuum Analytics, Inc.
  creating default environment...
  installation finished. 
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I updated the corresponding paths and it seems like it works:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ python
  Python 2.7.10 |Anaconda 2.4.0 (64-bit)| (default, Oct 19 2015, 18:04:42) 
  [GCC 4.4.7 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-1)] on linux2
  Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
  Anaconda is brought to you by Continuum Analytics.
  Please check out: http://continuum.io/thanks and https://anaconda.org
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Great, so now I want to use <code>conda</code>, which is pre-installed with Anaconda. It looks like Anaconda gave me 3.18.3:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ conda --version
  conda 3.18.3
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Following the <a href="http://conda.pydata.org/docs/test-drive.html" rel="noreferrer">test drive instructions</a>, I update conda:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$ conda update conda
  Fetching package metadata: An unexpected error has occurred, please consider sending the
  following traceback to the conda GitHub issue tracker at:
  
      https://github.com/conda/conda/issues
  
  Include the output of the command 'conda info' in your report.
  
  
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "/code/anaconda2-4-0/bin/conda", line 5, in &lt;module&gt;
      sys.exit(main())
    File "/code/anaconda2-4-0/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/cli/main.py", line 195, in main
      args_func(args, p)
    File "/code/anaconda2-4-0/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/cli/main.py", line 202, in args_func
      args.func(args, p)
    File "/code/anaconda2-4-0/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/cli/main_update.py", line 48, in execute
      install.install(args, parser, 'update')
    File "/code/anaconda2-4-0/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/cli/install.py", line 239, in install
      offline=args.offline)
    File "/code/anaconda2-4-0/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/cli/common.py", line 598, in get_index_trap
      return get_index(*args, **kwargs)
    File "/code/anaconda2-4-0/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/api.py", line 42, in get_index
      unknown=unknown)
    File "/code/anaconda2-4-0/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/utils.py", line 119, in __call__
      value = self.func(*args, **kw)
    File "/code/anaconda2-4-0/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/fetch.py", line 237, in fetch_index
      session = CondaSession()
    File "/code/anaconda2-4-0/lib/python2.7/site-packages/conda/connection.py", line 61, in __init__
      super(CondaSession, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
    File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/sessions.py", line 272, in __init__
      self.headers = default_headers()
    File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/utils.py", line 555, in default_headers
      'User-Agent': default_user_agent(),
    File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/utils.py", line 524, in default_user_agent
      _implementation = platform.python_implementation()
    File "/usr/lib/python2.7/platform.py", line 1521, in python_implementation
      return _sys_version()[0]
    File "/usr/lib/python2.7/platform.py", line 1486, in _sys_version
      repr(sys_version))
  ValueError: failed to parse CPython sys.version: '2.7.10 |Anaconda 2.4.0 (64-bit)| (default, Oct 19 2015, 18:04:42) \n[GCC 4.4.7 20120313 (Red Hat 4.4.7-1)]'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to avoid this error.</p>
  
  <p>I found a few other StackOverflow posts. <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30448687/pycharm-valueerror-failed-to-parse-cpython-sys-version">This one</a> suggests reinstalling python and pycharm from scratch (but I just installed Anaconda and I don't use pycharm). <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/31304636/installing-modules-with-pip-failed-to-parse-cpython-sys-version">Another suggests</a> reinstalling canopy, but I'm not using that here. Finally, <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19105255/praw-failed-to-parse-cpython-sys-version-when-creating-reddit-object">a third suggests</a> that it's actually a bug, and proposes a fix. Unfortunately, re-naming <code>sys.version</code> fails to resolve the error. This isn't even my computer so I don't want to get deep into the code and risk messing something up.</p>
  
  <p>I would appreciate some thoughts or advice.</p>