Ubuntu 16.04 Live USB Gnome Terminal not opening by any means

I had the same problem after upgrading from Ubuntu 15.10. I needed to reconfigure my locales.

Before you do this: Remember that you get back to the GUI ("normal screen") by pressing Ctrl + Alt + F7

Open Text-and-Terminal Emulator (without GUI)

Press: Ctrl + Alt + F1

Reconfigure Locales

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
$ sudo locale-gen "en_US.UTF-8"
$ sudo localectl set-locale LANG="en_US.UTF-8"

Confirm result

$ locale
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=en_US:en
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=

and

$ locale -a
C
C.UTF-8
en_US.utf8
POSIX

Switch back to GUI

Press: Ctrl + Alt + F7

Terminal should now work again. You might have to reboot.

Many programs that exist for creating a bootable Linux installer on a USB stick don't work very well with Ubuntu. UUI is one of the wordt, and LiLi isn't much better.

Using Rufus has fixed a lot of issues for those trying to install Ubuntu from a flash drive. Use that instead.