37

I have Ubuntu-Gnome 14.04 (Gnome 3.12.2).

When I try to run gnome-terminal by following command :

$ gnome-terminal
Error constructing proxy for org.gnome.Terminal: /org/gnome/Terminal/Factory0: 
Error calling StartServiceByName for org.gnome.Terminal:
GDBus.Error:org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: 
Process /usr/lib/gnome-terminal/gnome-terminal-server exited with status 8
dessert
  • 40,956
Hamed Kamrava
  • 2,345

12 Answers12

28

You have to add LANG=en_US.UTF-8 to /etc/default/locale and reboot your system. (Solution from this Arch Linux forum post.)

muru
  • 207,228
Hamed Kamrava
  • 2,345
23

Here is the list of commands which helps me:

sudo apt install dconf-cli

Reinstalling terminal


dconf reset -f /org/gnome/terminal
sudo apt-get remove gnome-terminal
sudo apt-get install gnome-terminal


Reconfiguring locale


sudo locale-gen --purge
sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales


reboot

As you can see I just reconfigured the locale and reinstall gnome-terminal

Ishrak M
  • 39
Eugen Konkov
  • 878
14

This is a winner for me:

/usr/bin/dbus-launch /usr/bin/gnome-terminal &

as learned here

BarryPye
  • 241
7

I had this problem when I created a new Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS Desktop. The fix was to edit the /etc/default/locale file by adding the following line to the end of the file:

LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"

Then reboot and the problem was gone.

dessert
  • 40,956
TomH
  • 71
  • 1
  • 1
6

This might be an issue with your locales. Either add LANG=en_US.UTF-8 to /etc/locale.conf and reboot or delete that file altogether (sudo rm /etc/locale.conf && sudo locale-gen en_US.UTF-8 && sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales) and reboot.

xjcl
  • 653
  • 9
  • 11
3

I had to combine answers from @TomH and @BarryPye. To get a gnome-terminal window:

LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 /usr/bin/dbus-launch gnome-terminal

In my case, the issue was occuring in a VNC session. I fixed it in my ~/.vnc/xstartup by changing the window manager invocation to:

LC_ALL=en_US.UTF-8 /usr/bin/dbus-launch /bin/gnome-session

Then gnome-terminal starts directly from command or the gnome graphical launcher, without the need to extra dbus-launch commands.

Digital Trauma
  • 2,495
2

I was at work today and desperate to get things moving. I found this

dbus-launch gnome-terminal
N Jedidiah
  • 356
2

Execute sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales in an alternative terminal emulator and select en_US.UTF-8 UTF-8 , choose it as the default locale. gnome-terminal should work.

1

Another cause of the problem is that new preferences have been activated at the start of the session, check "Applications at startup" Preferences

jorge Leiva
  • 11
1

If anyone hits this error using waypipe, the answer above by BarryPye shows the way.

e.g. waypipe --compress lz4 ssh user@host "/usr/bin/dbus-launch /usr/bin/gnome-terminal &"

satmandu
  • 41
0

If none of the above works for you, it could be that DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS environment variable is not set.

See if it's set with echo $DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS.

If it's empty, set it with export DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/$UID/bus. You could also put this in your ~/.bashrc.

Resourcese: Dconf, can read value but not write it (given address is empty)

kaixqu
  • 1
0

I received this error on wsl, and apparently dbus-launch wasn't installed on the system. apt-get install dbus-launch will fix it in that case. Note that I also updated my /etc/defaults/locale as described by others, but it won't work if you don't have dbus-launch, obviously.

AlbusMPiroglu
  • 144