Problems with shutdown

[Siegfried]

Hallo!

Since I have updated to KUBUNTU 13.10, my computer doesn't shutdown anymore.
It seems to hang and the power is not turned off.
Never had this problem with older versions of KUBUNTU.
Any sugestions what I could do?

Cheers,
Siegfried

[GreyGeek]

Sounds like your upgrade didn't finish properly.

The first thing I'd try is

sudo apt-get -f install

followed by
sudo dpkg --configure -a

You may have to repeat both several times.
There are other things you can do as well, if those suggestions don't help. Report back with any error msgs they generate.

[Siegfried]

Thanks, tried both commands several times, both run without problems and without installing anything new. The system still hangs during shutdow.

Then I tried the standard shutdown at the console:
sudo shutdown -P now
Still, the system tries to go down but then it hangs and doesn't turn off the power.

The hardware didn't change since the last update.
There must be something in KUBUNTU 13.10, which has problems with turning off the power.

There is another minor problem, I noticed, which came together with 13.10, but I will post that in a different thread: USB drives doesn't spin down after being chosen for removing safely.

Please note that the fact, that the power is not turned off, is not a minor problem, because you never know, if the content of all caches are flushed to harddisk already when turning off the power manually. In fact, when the system reboots and a browser is opened, it opens the old sessions although the config of the browser is told to start with a new session at each startup.

[Siegfried]

After a few shutdowns and reboots later, now the problem disappeared: the system turns off the power without hanging.
It seems that some configurations have been changed, which doesn't work at once but need some reboots to become active.
Anyways, thanks for the help.

[Siegfried]

Sorry, but I have to add something: Unfortunalty, the system still hangs sometimes when shutting down, id est sometimes the system shuts down and turns of the power, sometime it still hangs and doesn't turn off.
It seems to me that some process are ignoring the signals, which are send during shutdown.
The problem is that when the system hangs and I try to switch by control-alt-F1/F6 to a virtual terminal, the terminal already hangs and ignores any key input, so I can't login and look, which process is still running.

Any suggestion, how to force a shutdown with power off?

[Teunis]

First of, have you tried shutting down via a Konsole with the command:

sudo shutdown -h now

It's only a little different to what you've done but hey!
This way you might get some insight in where the system hangs.

Second,
Have you tried the 'Magic Keys'?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key

ALT+Sysrq+R E I S U B

Press simultaneously Alt + SysRq and the five letters, one after the other, give it at least one second between the letters.

This will only work where the kernel is still running but X is locked.

[Siegfried]

The system still hangs after
sudo shutdown -h now .

But the magic keys really works like a charm; it hit the system like a steel hammer, not even half a second after pressing the last key ("B"), the system rebooted without any stumbling.
Thanks for this information, which was a real help, now I can stop all processes and unmount all devices even if a process is blocked.

[Siegfried]

It still bothers that the system is not normaly shutting down.
Are there any configurations or files in KUBUNTU which I can check for turning off the power at shutdown?

[Snowhog]

Laptop or Desktop PC?

[Siegfried]

Desktop PC

[Snowhog]

Check System Settings > Login Screen > Shutdown and ensure that Allow Shutdown > Local: is set to Everybody.

[Siegfried]

Can't find a shutdown register in Login screen (Anmeldebildschirm/LightDM), only Design and Allgemein.
Also, the shutdown command is accepted by using sudo shutdown -P now, the problem is that the command seems to hang at a point, before the power is turn off.

[Snowhog]

LightDM. Ahh.

Reboot and do a console login and then install kdm (LightDM will be kept). When asked which DM to use as default, select KDM. Login and then try a normal shutdown via K Menu.

[Siegfried]

Since I had problems before with other display managers, I am afraid to change it and I would like to stay with LightDM.
Also KDM was replaced bei LightDM in KUBUNTU 12.10.
Please note, that in my K-Menue, all entrys for finishing like shutdown and reboot are present, all functions are selectable and all of them have been working in KUBUNTU 12.04, 12.10 and 13.04.
Just with the update to 13.10, the shutdown sometimes turns of the power and sometimes doesn't turn of the power and hangs at the end, leaving the KUBUNTU logo on the screen...