One of my smaller internet traces is a comment in a Conda issue from 2020. The entire contribution fits comfortably on a screen. The English could have used a patch too.

Issue #9957 was opened on May 27, 2020. Its author reported that updating Conda from 4.7.12 to 4.8.3 left it unable to run: Python could not find libffi.so.6.

On June 1, I added a comment saying I had encountered the same problem after an update. I described a symbolic-link workaround that got it working in my setup, and linked to a similar solution in another issue. I also noted that package installation was working for me.

On June 24, another participant reported success and thanked me for the hint. A July 9 reply said the suggestions helped restore Conda, though a later update still reported an inconsistent environment. Fixed enough to carry on; not quite the end of the dependency trouble.

The workaround belongs to that old setup and discussion, not a current Conda repair recipe. A short comment, followed by someone saying it helped. A nice thing to find in an old issue.