Bug#847007: gnome-terminal: "Error calling StartServiceByName for org.gnome.Terminal: Timeout was reached"

[Ilario Gelmetti]

Package: gnome-terminal
Version: 3.22.1-1
Severity: normal

Using AwesomeWM on top of Debian testing, can't open gnome-terminal.
Issuing gnome-terminal from urxvt I get:

    ** (gnome-terminal:7852): WARNING **: Couldn't register with
    accessibility bus: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include:
    the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus
    security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the
    network connection was broken.

    Error constructing proxy for
    org.gnome.Terminal:/org/gnome/Terminal/Factory0: Error calling
    StartServiceByName for org.gnome.Terminal: Timeout was reached

The first error line shouldn't be related.
The locale looks ok:

$ locale
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=
LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

Doing the same as root didn't show the problem.

Checking in /var/log/syslog I can find these lines:

    dbus-daemon[888]: Activating via systemd: service
name='org.gnome.Terminal' unit='gnome-terminal-server.service'
    systemd[793]: Starting GNOME Terminal Server...
    gnome-terminal-server[1715]: Unable to init server: Could not
connect: Connection refused
    systemd[793]: gnome-terminal-server.service: Main process exited,
code=killed, status=11/SEGV
    systemd[793]: Failed to start GNOME Terminal Server.
    systemd[793]: gnome-terminal-server.service: Unit entered failed state.
    systemd[793]: gnome-terminal-server.service: Failed with result
'signal'.
    kernel: [  499.413022] gnome-terminal-[1715]: segfault at 8 ip
800bc68d sp bfc21ab8 error 4 in gnome-terminal-server[800af000+52000]

Surprisingly trying what suggested in a similar bug report, #819510,
managed to solve the problem until next reboot:

$ dbus-update-activation-environment --all



-- System Information:
Debian Release: stretch/sid
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (980, 'testing'), (900, 'stable'), (200, 'unstable'),
(100, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 4.2.0-1-686-pae (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages gnome-terminal depends on:
ii  dconf-gsettings-backend [gsettings-backend]  0.26.0-2
ii  gconf-service                                3.2.6-4
ii  gnome-terminal-data                          3.22.1-1
ii  gsettings-desktop-schemas                    3.22.0-1
ii  libatk1.0-0                                  2.22.0-1
ii  libc6                                        2.24-7
ii  libdconf1                                    0.26.0-2
ii  libgconf-2-4                                 3.2.6-4
ii  libglib2.0-0                                 2.50.2-2
ii  libgtk-3-0                                   3.22.4-1
ii  libnautilus-extension1a                      3.22.1-2
ii  libpango-1.0-0                               1.40.3-3
ii  libuuid1                                     2.29-1
ii  libvte-2.91-0                                0.46.1-1
ii  libx11-6                                     2:1.6.3-1

Versions of packages gnome-terminal recommends:
ii  dbus-user-session [default-dbus-session-bus]  1.10.14-1
ii  dbus-x11 [dbus-session-bus]                   1.10.14-1
ii  gvfs                                          1.30.2-2
ii  yelp                                          3.22.0-1

gnome-terminal suggests no packages.