Ubuntu – Cannot open Visual Studio Code

I've installed VS Code on my laptop with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. I've tried multiple installation methods with identical results; most recently, I followed the "new" instructions from Cactux here. I've tried opening the application two ways to no effect.

• When I open the program from 'Applications', the icon shows in the launcher for approximately 15 seconds and then disappears. No error pops up.
• When I open a terminal and type code, the command does nothing and I get a new prompt in less than a second.

I'm struggling with what to try since I'm relatively new to Linux.
which code yields /usr/bin/code, which is a bash script. This is where I get outside my depth.

Contents of script

/usr/bin$ cat code
#!/usr/bin/env bash
#
# Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
# Licensed under the MIT License. See License.txt in the project root for license information.

# If root, ensure that --user-data-dir or --file-write is specified
if [ "$(id -u)" = "0" ]; then
    for i in $@
    do
        if [[ $i == --user-data-dir || $i == --user-data-dir=* || $i == --file-write ]]; then
            CAN_LAUNCH_AS_ROOT=1
        fi
    done
    if [ -z $CAN_LAUNCH_AS_ROOT ]; then
        echo "You are trying to start vscode as a super user which is not recommended. If you really want to, you must specify an alternate user data directory using the --user-data-dir argument." 1>&2
        exit 1
    fi
fi

if [ ! -L $0 ]; then
    # if path is not a symlink, find relatively
    VSCODE_PATH="$(dirname $0)/.."
else
    if which readlink >/dev/null; then
        # if readlink exists, follow the symlink and find relatively
        VSCODE_PATH="$(dirname $(readlink -f $0))/.."
    else
        # else use the standard install location
        VSCODE_PATH="/usr/share/code"
    fi
fi

ELECTRON="$VSCODE_PATH/code"
CLI="$VSCODE_PATH/resources/app/out/cli.js"
ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1 "$ELECTRON" "$CLI" "$@"
exit $?

Debug output (from different directories)

~$ bash -x code
++ id -u
+ '[' 1000 = 0 ']'
+ '[' '!' -L code ']'
++ dirname code
+ VSCODE_PATH=./..
+ ELECTRON=./../code
+ CLI=./../resources/app/out/cli.js
+ ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1
+ ./../code ./../resources/app/out/cli.js
/usr/bin/code: line 35: ./../code: No such file or directory
+ exit 127

/usr/bin$ bash -x code
++ id -u
+ '[' 1000 = 0 ']'
+ '[' '!' -L code ']'
+ which readlink
+++ readlink -f code
++ dirname /usr/share/code/bin/code
+ VSCODE_PATH=/usr/share/code/bin/..
+ ELECTRON=/usr/share/code/bin/../code
+ CLI=/usr/share/code/bin/../resources/app/out/cli.js
+ ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1
+ /usr/share/code/bin/../code /usr/share/code/bin/../resources/app/out/cli.js
+ exit 0

Contents of PATH

~$ $PATH
bash: /home/adam/anaconda3/bin:/home/adam/anaconda3/bin:/home/adam/bin:/home/adam/.local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/usr/local/games:/snap/bin: No such file or directory

Any help or suggestions are appreciated.