Based on what I've researched I've installed something which is causing this problem: Ubuntu 16.04 boots fine and goes to my desktop but I can't open a terminal session no matter what I try. When I Ctrl-Alt-F1 - F6 to log in, it loops back to login.
If I need a terminal to fix this I'm unsure how I can do that.
gnome-terminal -e shthere? That should open a terminal with theshshell instead ofbash. If that works, open the.bashrcfile in your home directory and share its content here, otherwise check the.profilefile. – Byte Commander Aug 27 '17 at 21:11.bashrcand.profilefiles in the file browser. Open it and press ctrl+H to see hidden files, then you can see if those files are responsible by renaming them eg.bashrc.bak.profile.bak, then navigating to the top level directory and going into etc, then skel, copying the clean versions of the files and pasting them into your home directory in place of the old ones. If this helps but you want to find the exact issue, open the broken file(s) and do as @ByteCommander suggested (add the content here by [edit]ing your question) – Zanna Aug 28 '17 at 09:43