Linux Mint 20.2 Uma Cinnamon. Dell Inspiron 531.

When I click the shutdown button, usually the computer shuts down quite quickly and turns itself off.

But often it goes through the usual sequence, but does not turn itself off, instead having a black screen for several minutes until I press the computer power button to force it to power off.

What can I do to fix this?

Is here a log file I need to look at? Where would I find it?

Thanks.

There should a log you could check in /var/log. I'm not sure what Mint calls it, but it's likely "messages," "system," or "syslog."

For testing purposes, you might try sending the shutdown command from a terminal to see if that also fails to poweroff the machine. You will need to run this command with sudo.

Watch closely for any helpful messages.

See man shutdown for more.

1 members found this post helpful.

forcing a shutdown:( edit\add: holding power) could cause problems?Is the BIOS up to date? E.g:Post-script, don't post sensitive data.

When you're at the blank screen, does the [Esc] key show anything?

+
[Ctrl]+[Alt]+[F3] or so, may still help with a proper shutdown:then?

It has not misbehaved recently. When it does I shall look at the log as suggested, thanks.

I've seen this on a Lenovo P15s and Mint 20.1 and Cinnamon 4.8.6. I have noticed that shows the journal flooded with pulseaudio errors. I don't know if this is coincidence or not, but I'll try the next time it happens.

My previous post about pulseaudio turns out to be a false lead. However, take a look at the journald log for errors like this:
. The log is flooded with msgs like this at times when shutdown or suspend misbehaves. Alas, I have no clue how to fix it.

I have now re-instated the 60 second timer shutdown, where the computer shuts itself off after counting down 60 seconds. Now it powers down nearly all the time. Maybe I should alter it to 90 seconds to be on the safe side. Previously I had turned off the countdown and it would begin to shut-down immediately without waiting.

The last time I told it to restart, which does not include a countdown, it got as far as having a black screen with a white "-" or maybe a "_" at the top left corner.

The Escape key has no effect. Nothing is shown when typing on the keyboard.

Typing dmidecode into the console while it is running normally gives:

If I remember I shall try [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[F3] next time I have a problem.

As using the countdown means it powers off most of the time, I suppose this is solved.

Thanks.

That's really strange. You nead superuser privileges to shut down your machine, but why do you also need superuser privileges to get information about your hardware?

No idea.

I have found that it does not always shut-down even when using a 90 second count-down.

For the first 89 seconds it says "This system will be shut down in XX seconds" but for the last second it says ""This system will be automatically shut down in 1 second".

Take another look at posts #2 & #4, and also #7: " I shall try [Ctrl]+[Alt]+[F3] next time I have a problem."

We need more information.

1 members found this post helpful.

When the computer freezes during shutdown, this can occur either with a black screen with a "-" at the top left, or with the round Mint logo.

The latter happened this afternoon. As an experiment I left it for over an hour - when I returned the screen was exactly the same.

Sometimes before shutdown I see for a fraction of a second a quite large squarish pop-up window which lists three or four things, one of which may be darkly highlighted. I'd be interested to know what this is. It occurred this afternoon. It is too quick to see any more details.

I have tried CTRL-ALT-F3 on two or three occasions including this afternoon. Nothing happens, nothing appears on screen, there is no response. Pressing the escape key, or any other key or keys, gives the same result.

A few minutes ago I tried typing "shutdown now -h" in the console. It did not require sudo, and shut down amazingly quickly. It did not give any messages.

And you still didn't look at the logs...

The computer now shuts down without any problem, and quickly. Nearly all the time.

I increased the RAM memory from 3GB to 4GB, and at the same time in the BIOS changed the default fast boot to a slow boot. Do not know which of these made the difference.

Before doing the above, my guess was that Firefox was the problem, as the computer would not shut down if I had recently used Firefox; and if I tried to restart Firefox immediately after shutting it down the computer would tell me that it was already running. After making the changes, neither of these things happen.

And you still didn't look at the logs...

2 members found this post helpful.