Linux problem

[T.T.]

I know that there are a lot of knowledgeable linux users on this forum, and I thought that you may know the answer.


when ever I try to shutdown, my system says

* Killing all remaining processes...			 [fail]

* will now switch to single-user mode

give root password for maintenance

(or type control-D to continue):

I've looked all over for a solution but found none that worked.


my system:


linuxmint 14


AMD FX 8120


2x nvidia 9800 geforce GT


16 GB DDR3 1600Mhz


ps: I have also install the nvidia drivers as well, if that makes a difference.


if there is anything else you need just tell me

 

[monstercameron]

what are you trying to do /what is happening?

 

[DaMummy]

when ever I try to shutdown

 

[mcobit]

Well, there seems to be a process hanging...

 

[lomaxx]

Hard to find a solution with so little information. The more you can give the better.


Which services are you running in the background that you know of? Anything special you set up yourself like NFS-mounts (NetFileSystem) or anything else that might be waiting for a client (or similar) to quit?


Try looking at /var/log/messages as root with some texteditor. For me process-messages are being stored there and thus it's a helpful source of information for things going on while booting or shutting down the system.


If you are using a display-manager (graphical login-manager), then you could try to boot the computer and directly shut it down from there to see if it then already hangs too. That might be of help to determine wether the process that hangs is started from the system or the user.


On my own system I also would try to switch to a console (CTRL+ALT+F1) without being logged in from the display-manager and start closing services running one by one (like the display-manager, alsa, ...). If this all works, then I would look at the the output of "ps ax" to see the remaining processes and hopefully get a hint. At some point I would also try to shutdown the computer to see if it works now. Maybe it works then and on that way gives a hint. If not, then I would do the same again and try to kill remaining process manually by running "kill <process_id>". Get the process id from "ps ax". If it's gone afterwards then it didn't hang. If you need "kill -9 <process_id>" instead, then it did hang. And if it's still there afterwards then the process is totally screwed.


Alas I can't tell you exactly how you do such things on Linux Mint. On my Gentoo-system I can see the running services with "rc-status" and end them with "/etc/init.d/<startscript_name> stop". But you can of course just blindly stop all init-scripts in the /etc/init.d/-directory one by one no matter if they are running or not.


In any way the goal is to get more information and tighten the circle of possible error-sources.

 

[klapse]

A bit daft that there is no direct way to see which process failed to stop.


As Lomaxx said, you need to narrow down the list of possible culprits. Think of it as an exercise in getting to know your linux system better. Try shutting down a freshly booted system first. If that hangs then reboot and go through your /etc/rc0.d directory (I think this contains the scripts called at shutdown). Shut down the services one by one with "/etc/init.d/$SERVICENAME stop". Maybe I am misremembering though and you are better advised to try the /etc/rc5.d directory (this contains the services started at runlevel 5)...


Learning some of the basics about init scripts and runlevels is very good for any debian/mint/ubuntu user or administrator. Some info here: http://wiki.debian.org/RunLevel

 

[T.T.]

Sorry I haven't replied, I've been internet impaired for a while.


So I ended up doing a fresh install of mint 14, but this time, I did things one at a time to figure what happened.


I discovered that the hanging problem started right after I installed the "crunchbang-multi-session" package from this repository


deb http://packages.crunchbanglinux.org/statler/ statler main


now I realize that this package just gathers a bunch of packages and installs them, so I have no idea which packages to remove/disable.


Also, I looked at all the log files I could think of, and nothing jumped out at me as a problem. If you need a log file, just tell me which one, and I'll see if I can find it.


Thanks