gnome-terminal fails to launch after install of xenial

[pseudonomous]

After a fresh install (using the netboot install) of the 32-bit xenial distribution, gnome-terminal fails to launch from the unity launcher, or from an xterm.

If I try to launch gnome-terminal from an xterm I can read an error message:

Error constructing proxy for org.gnome.Terminal:/org/gnome/Terminal/Factory0: Error calling StartServiceByName for org.gnome.Terminal: GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Process org.gnome.Terminal exited with status 8

Some googling suggests this is because the locale is not properly set. I have re-generated my locales:

Generating locales (this might take a while)...
  en_AG.UTF-8... done
  en_AU.UTF-8... done
  en_BW.UTF-8... done
  en_CA.UTF-8... done
  en_DK.UTF-8... done
  en_GB.UTF-8... done
  en_HK.UTF-8... done
  en_IE.UTF-8... done
  en_IN.UTF-8... done
  en_NG.UTF-8... done
  en_NZ.UTF-8... done
  en_PH.UTF-8... done
  en_SG.UTF-8... done
  en_US.ISO-8859-1... done
  en_US.UTF-8... done
  en_ZA.UTF-8... done
  en_ZM.UTF-8... done
  en_ZW.UTF-8... done
Generation complete.

but the error persists.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: gnome-terminal 3.18.3-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-21.37-generic 4.4.6
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-21-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2
Architecture: i386
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Thu May 5 16:16:49 2016
SourcePackage: gnome-terminal
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[pseudonomous (fdruec1)]

I tried using localectl to set the local to en_US.UTF-8 before
rebooting, this did not fix the problem.

After rebooting, though, the problem seems to have cleared up.

I don't know if the issue is that the locales were not propely
generated (though I suspect not, becuase I didn't notice any issues
with firefox, uxterm, or sakura) or if they weren't properly set for
the gnome-terminals environment (seems more plausible).

But the issue does seem to be resolved.

I will probably be doing some more ubuntu installs in the near future,
I will report if I encounter this bug with subsequent installs.

-Fred

[Mason Loring Bliss (y-mason)]

Note: 1474927, 1578830, and 1652451 all seem to refer to the same issue. The
error code noted is documented here:

    https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Terminal/FAQ#Exit_status_8

This followed by a reboot or logging back in ought to resolve the issue:

    sudo localectl set-locale LANG=en_US.utf8

If you've done something invasive with locales, you might need to do something
more invasive to resolve the issue, as noted here:

    https://askubuntu.com/questions/608330/problem-with-gnome-terminal-on-gnome-3-12-2/651169#651169

Thanks to timeless on Freenode for the link to the exit status.