CondaHTTPError / SSL error

conda cannot reach the channel — network, proxy or certificate, not the package

why

An HTTP or SSL failure while fetching repodata.json means the request never got a valid answer. On institutional networks this is very often a proxy or TLS-inspecting firewall presenting its own certificate, which conda correctly refuses.

what to do

Test plain connectivity first (curl -I https://conda.anaconda.org/bioconda/). If your institution intercepts TLS, add its CA certificate to conda's trust store rather than disabling SSL verification — turning verification off makes every future install silently unverifiable.

conda network behaviour
This is one entry from BioErrors, a catalogue of bioinformatics error messages that point at the wrong thing. Every entry was traced to its real cause before it was written down.
If your error is not in it, paste it there and it gets traced and added.