Comment 2 for bug 1610134

I have as yet been unable to find the path through. My path is:

    user@user-pc ~ $ echo $PATH
    /usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games

I upgraded to mint 18, but I don't know if the problem existed before I upgraded python as I was in the middle of dev.

    user@user-pc /usr/bin $ python --version
    Python 2.7.12

Attempted to reinstall:

    user@user-pc ~ $ sudo apt-get install --reinstall python-gi
    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information... Done
    The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
      fonts-noto fonts-noto-hinted g++-4.8 grilo-plugins-0.2-base language-selector-common libctemplate2 libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libglew1.10 libgom-1.0-0
      libgom-1.0-common libmediaart-2.0-0 libmkv0 libmusicbrainz5-0 libmysqlclient20 libpeas-1.0-0-python3loader libsctp1 libstdc++-4.8-dev libsvga1
      libterm-readkey-perl libtinyxml2.6.2 libtracker-sparql-1.0-0 libwireshark3 libwiretap3 libwsutil3 libwxbase2.8-0 libwxgtk2.8-0 libxerces2-java
      libxml-commons-external-java mint-backgrounds-rosa mint-kernel-info phonon-backend-gstreamer1.0 xchat-common
    Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 27 not upgraded.
    Need to get 0 B/194 kB of archives.
    After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... 274625 files and directories currently installed.)
    Preparing to unpack .../python-gi_3.20.0-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb ...
    Unpacking python-gi (3.20.0-0ubuntu1) over (3.20.0-0ubuntu1) ...
    Setting up python-gi (3.20.0-0ubuntu1) ...

Check...

    user@user-pc ~ $ apt policy python python-gi
    python:
      Installed: 2.7.11-1
      Candidate: 2.7.11-1
      Version table:
     *** 2.7.11-1 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
    python-gi:
      Installed: 3.20.0-0ubuntu1
      Candidate: 3.20.0-0ubuntu1
      Version table:
     *** 3.20.0-0ubuntu1 500
            500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages
            100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Test...

    user@user-pc ~ $ cinnamon-settings
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "/usr/share/cinnamon/cinnamon-settings/cinnamon-settings.py", line 12, in <module>
        import gi
    ImportError: No module named gi

su Test...

    user@user-pc ~ $ sudo cinnamon-settings
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "/usr/share/cinnamon/cinnamon-settings/cinnamon-settings.py", line 12, in <module>
        import gi
    ImportError: No module named gi

No luck. I continue to search...