I suddenly cannot open a gnome-terminal window in Linux Mint. I installed xterm and guake too now looking for a replacement, but none of them will open either.
When I do try to open gnome-terminal by any method, the window will flash on the screen, but then it instantly closes before I can really see anything. My .xsession-error file is completely full of different messages, but the following is an example of what seems to be triggered directly when I try to open gnome-terminal.
Window manager warning: Log level 16: /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.36.0/./gobject/gsignal.c:2593: instance `0xacf1710' has no handler with id `17056'
Window manager warning: Log level 16: /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.36.0/./gobject/gsignal.c:2593: instance `0xacf1710' has no handler with id `17057'
Window manager warning: Log level 16: /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.36.0/./gobject/gsignal.c:2593: instance `0xaa1ae80' has no handler with id `17102'
Window manager warning: Log level 16: /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.36.0/./gobject/gsignal.c:2593: instance `0xaa1ae80' has no handler with id `17103'
JS ERROR: !!! Exception was: Error: got a _calcWindowNumber callback but this._appButton is undefined
JS ERROR: !!! Exception was a String
JS LOG: AppTrackerError: get_window_app returned null and there was no record of metaWindow in internal database
Guake behaves similarly. With xterm, I see nothing at all… no window and no new error messages. The eshell inside emacs and the command executer associated with Alt+F2 both seem to be working fine.
Best Answer
I eventually found the answer on my own. I had done something to my
/etc/passwd/file, without really understanding what I was doing. Restoring that seems to have fixed the problem.