gnome-control-center refuses to open on fresh install

[CorQB]

On my fresh install of Ubuntu 18 (minimal install last night) the control center will not open; it shows a loading notification on the top panel briefly, then does nothing. I have attempted to restore functionality by re-installing to no avail. The system does not recognise control center's failure to open as a bug to report.

This is the second install I've produced this bug on, the first being a fresh install on an HP xw8400 workstation, "solved" finally by switching to MATE. As I recall I was able to finagle it to appear once or twice then, but ultimately with no success - I've seen a few threads with similar problems, so something's gotta give cause this is totally ridiculous for an LTS release.

Machine: HP Compaq dc7800p
Release: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS

gnome-control-center:
  Installed: 1:3.28.2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2
  Candidate: 1:3.28.2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2
  Version table:
 *** 1:3.28.2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2 500
         500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main amd64 Packages
         100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     1:3.28.1-0ubuntu1 500
         500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main amd64 Packages

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: gnome-control-center 1:3.28.2-0ubuntu0.18.04.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-29.31-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-29-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.5
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Jan 2 21:34:29 2019
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-01-02 (0 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20180725)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_CA:en
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-control-center
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[CorQB (corqb)]

Some further information: As I'm intending to switch to MATE for preference anyway, I went ahead and installed the ubuntu-mate-desktop package and set gdm3 to default in the process (I believe it is already default for Bionic?); now on boot I see the MATE loading screen, am taken to the Gnome login screen, gnome-control-center opens. The halt-on-shutdown bug, another bug I've seen a few threads on with fresh installs, and had with my last install as well as this, was also fixed. So now I'm wondering, what has MATE changed during it's install to fix these bugs? Interesting.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Please try to obtain a backtrace following the instructions at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingProgramCrash and upload the backtrace (as an attachment) to the bug report. This will greatly help us in tracking down your problem.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Do you have the launcher placed at the bottom? we got some reports about this creating issues probably because by lack of vertical space to fit the settings dialog

[CorQB (corqb)]

I'll see about getting a backtrace when I have some time again to mess around.
No, I left the launcher on the side.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

Please report your findings, thank you.