gnome-terminal fails to start

[Jerry Quinn]

My system has something strange going on. I'm unable to start gnome-terminal. In journalctl, I see the following cryptic message:

May 29 13:08:38 cerberus org.gnome.Shell.desktop[3960]: # Error constructing proxy for org.gnome.Terminal:/org/gnome/Terminal/Factory0: Could not connect: Connection refused

If I then try to start it from an existing terminal, I get:

jlquinn@cerberus:~/work/lt-language-pairs$ gnome-terminal
# Error constructing proxy for :1.89:/org/gnome/Terminal/Factory0: Could not connect: Connection refused
# Failed to use specified server: Could not connect: Connection refused
# Falling back to default server.
# Error constructing proxy for org.gnome.Terminal:/org/gnome/Terminal/Factory0: Could not connect: Connection refused

This is a somewhat important issue because it will force me to reboot my machine (or at least GUI) due to the inability to create new terminals.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: gnome-terminal 3.28.2-1ubuntu1~18.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-102.103-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-102-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.15
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Fri May 29 13:03:43 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-05-30 (1459 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 15.04 "Vivid Vervet" - Release amd64 (20150422)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-terminal
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to bionic on 2018-09-17 (620 days ago)