When I try to start the Terminal by clicking the menu item Applications > Accessories > Terminal, it does not start. I get a Starting Terminal entry in the taskbar. After a few seconds, it goes away. No terminal appears. Other applications launch correctly.

I'm running Ubuntu 11.04, and connecting via Remote Desktop. On the client, I'm using Microsoft's Remote Desktop Connection for Mac; on the server, sesman.

I've checked the following log files, but no messages appear: debug, messages, sesman.log, syslog, and user.log.

ps ax | grep -i term does not list the terminal -- not even when the taskbar shows Starting Terminal. I can still get a command line by sssh'ing in.

When I launch gnome-terminal from xterm, I get the error below:

gnome-terminal: /build/buildd/cairo-1.10.2/src/cairo-image-surface.c:1320: _pixel_to_solid: Assertion `!"reached"' failed.

As for other terminals, I get the same error message when I run Byobu Terminal. And guake didn't install properly from the Software Centre (fixing guake seems beyond the scope of this question). However, xterm runs OK.

Also, I checked my .bashrc file, and it seems fine.

What should I do now? I'd rather not use xterm as my primary terminal.

Update

This is apparently a known bug. The solution is to turn on a desktop background.