Recently, I had an issue where I had no loopback device in Linux Mint 18.2 MATE, which occurred after upgrading from 18.1 MATE.
ping localhost fails, nc -v -l -p 1234 followed by nc localhost 1234 does not connect, etc. Running ifconfig does not show a loopback device present.
Running sudo service network-manager restart and sudo service networking restart doesn't fix the issue, nor does restarting.
The only clue shows up when inspecting /var/log/syslog: