odd error message from conda regarding `activateroot`

[PeterDSteinberg]

This error message is a real puzzle to me (all osx and linux workers have it):

[Upload Build Targets]
No build targets specified
Exit BINSTAR_BUILD_RESULT=success
Skipping channels: r, item already exists
usage: conda [-h] [-V] [--debug] command ...
conda: error: argument command: invalid choice: '..activateroot' (choose from 'info', 'help', 'list', 'search', 'create', 'install', 'update', 'upgrade', 'remove', 'uninstall', 'run', 'config', 'init', 'clean', 'package', 'bundle')

https://anaconda.org/conda-team/conda-recipes/builds/188/0#L432