No HOME environment var, USER, SHELL, others not set

[WaltSullivan]

Shortly after I logged in, I started a gnome-terminal with Ctrl-Alt-T. I was surprised to see the message:

To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

I was further surprised to see that /usr/bin/script started /bin/sh, not /bin/bash.

So far, I've noticed (after moving my .profile and .bashrc aside) that the environment provided is only:

DISPLAY=:0
PWD=/home/w3
SHLVL=1
TERM=xterm-256color
VTE_VERSION=4205
WINDOWID=67108874

No HOME, SHELL, USER, ...

A gnome-terminal started later gets no sudo complaints, and these environment variables:
CLUTTER_IM_MODULE=xim
COMPIZ_BIN_PATH=/usr/bin/
COMPIZ_CONFIG_PROFILE=ubuntu
DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:abstract=/tmp/dbus-nolgZHSUSP
DEFAULTS_PATH=/usr/share/gconf/ubuntu.default.path
DESKTOP_SESSION=ubuntu
DISPLAY=:0
GDM_LANG=en_CA
GDMSESSION=ubuntu
GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID=this-is-deprecated
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=
GNOME_KEYRING_PID=
GPG_AGENT_INFO=/home/w3/.gnupg/S.gpg-agent:0:1
GTK2_MODULES=overlay-scrollbar
GTK_IM_MODULE=ibus
GTK_MODULES=gail:atk-bridge:unity-gtk-module
HOME=/home/w3
IM_CONFIG_PHASE=1
INSTANCE=
JOB=unity-settings-daemon
LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=en_CA:en
LIBVIRT_DEFAULT_URI=qemu:///system
LOGNAME=w3
MANDATORY_PATH=/usr/share/gconf/ubuntu.mandatory.path
PAM_KWALLET5_LOGIN=/tmp/kwallet5_w3.socket
PATH=/home/w3/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin
PWD=/home/w3
QT4_IM_MODULE=ibus
QT_ACCESSIBILITY=1
QT_IM_MODULE=ibus
QT_LINUX_ACCESSIBILITY_ALWAYS_ON=1
QT_QPA_PLATFORMTHEME=appmenu-qt5
SESSION_MANAGER=local/aardvark:@/tmp/.ICE-unix/21072,unix/aardvark:/tmp/.ICE-unix/21072
SESSIONTYPE=gnome-session
SESSION=ubuntu
SHELL=/bin/bash
SHLVL=1
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/run/user/1003/keyring/ssh
TERM=xterm-256color
UPSTART_EVENTS=xsession started
UPSTART_INSTANCE=
UPSTART_JOB=unity7
UPSTART_SESSION=unix:abstract=/com/ubuntu/upstart-session/1003/20854
USER=w3

Why isn't gnome-terminal startup deterministic?

I still have the malfunctioning gnome-terminal open if further diagnosis is possible or needed.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: gnome-terminal 3.18.3-1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-78.99-generic 4.4.62
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-78-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.6
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Thu May 25 16:05:52 2017
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-01-23 (1583 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20120425)
SourcePackage: gnome-terminal
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)