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
What’s in the log?
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?
That’s just saying that things are tripping each other up whilst trying to shutdown.
Try
sudo journalctl -b-1 --reverseThat 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.