Unfortunately it seems conda commands are no longer supported in the Spyder console. The developers recommend you launch Anaconda prompt and install/update packages through that interface instead. This workaround worked for me.

https://github.com/spyder-ide/spyder/issues/21933

Hey @seamuswade, thanks for reporting. I think the problem in this case is that you're trying to run the conda commands you posted above in Spyder's IPython console.

Conda is expected to be run in a system terminal (i.e. cmd.exe). So, to update Spyder please close it first, open the Anaconda prompt and then run the update commands on it again.

Let us know if that works for you.