Does anyone how how I can diagnose and fix this problem:

Sometimes, but not always, when shutting down the process does not actually complete and the computer does not turn off.

The screen turns off but the keyboard backlight is still responsive, the fan is still going and the power-on LED is lit. Because the screen is turned off I can’t interact graphically with the computer and have to just hold down the power button and do a hard reboot.

I haven’t tested it properly but I get the feeling it happens more often if I have been doing audio work.

Debian 13 GNOME 48 Intel Core Ultra 7 Laptop

  • SteveTech@programming.devEnglish
    3·
    8 hours ago

    When it happens, try pressing Alt + SysRq(/PrtSc) + o. If that turns off your computer, then the kernel is still running and something is preventing shutdown; if it doesn’t, either SysRq is disabled, or ACPI is broken.

  • artiman@piefed.socialEnglish
    6·
    23 hours ago

    I have had this issue with Hyprland in arch I could not for the life of me get it to shut down I had to just unplug It although It didn’t fix It when I halted (halt is what pressing power button by default does), I get power outages every week in Iran, so the chance of corruption is not astronomically higher

  • muhyb@programming.dev
    7·
    1 day ago

    Switch to a TTY and do “sudo poweroff”. See what happens. I feel like this is more likely a systemd issue.

      • muhyb@programming.dev
        4·
        24 hours ago

        I mean, give the shutdown command like this, not after already choosing it via menu. This way you may catch what’s wrong. Also, you can check the logs when you boot next time via journalctl -b -1 but to make it easier maybe this one should be more helpful journalctl -b -1 | grep -i shutdown

      • HakunaHafada@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        2·
        22 hours ago

        I was also experiencing your same issue, just tried @muhyb@programming.dev’s recommendation, and my computer shut off completely as desired.

        Edit: I also opened a terminal and “sudo poweroff” and “sudo shutdown now” both work, so for me, I didn’t need to switch to a TTY console.

        • oeuf@slrpnk.netOP
          2·
          14 hours ago

          I was also experiencing your same issue, just tried @muhyb@programming.dev’s recommendation, and my computer shut off completely as desired.

          Which recommendation?

          • HakunaHafada@lemmy.dbzer0.com
            1·
            3 hours ago

            Switching to a TTY screen and doing the sudo poweroff command. In my testing, I also found that opening a terminal in the regular desktop environment also worked.

  • rozodru@piefed.socialEnglish
    5·
    1 day ago

    something with the DE I suspect. KDE will do the same thing. never had the issue with another compositor/WM but with KDE Plasma every now and again the exact same thing you’re experiencing would happen. shut down, something in Plasma is still going and same results as you.

  • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
    3·
    1 day ago

    Does it shutdown if you wait ten minutes? Maybe it’s a stuck process. After a timeout (don’t know what the default is) it should be killed.

    • oeuf@slrpnk.netOP
      5·
      1 day ago

      Unfortunately not. A couple of times I’ve shut down and closed the lid and come back a couple of hours later to find the fan still going…

    • oeuf@slrpnk.netOP
      1·
      1 day ago

      I’m not familiar with using logs but looking at them now and filtering for the word ‘failed’, most of the entries around shutdown contain “dbus-daemon[1248]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit ‘dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatcher.service’: Refusing activation, D-Bus is shutting down.”

      There are also a couple of “fwupd[2375]: 17:22:25.596 FuPluginUpower failed to query lid state”

      And one of these: “NetworkManager[1332]: <warn> [1757956947.0782] dispatcher: (51) failed (after 0.004 sec): Refusing activation, D-Bus is shutting down.”

      Does any of that shed light on the problem?

      • SayCyberOnceMore@feddit.ukEnglish
        2·
        24 hours ago

        That’s just saying that things are tripping each other up whilst trying to shutdown.

        Try sudo journalctl -b-1 --reverse

        That will show the last system log in reverse order, and might help see what’s going on.

        There’s an old bug report (notice I say report, as it’s locked and not solved - & I don’t have the link to hand) with several people saying that systemd causes this, but, it might be applications or services that have user accounts open, etc, etc…

        but… try shutting down services and unmounting any shares / filesystems that might be causing this to see if you can isolate something.

        As mentioned in the other thread, try shutting down from the command line on a new TTY (text-only screen) and see if that shows anything else.