Can't shut down my computer from the application launcher

[jpc2769]

I recently upgraded to 12.10 from 12.04, and now I can't shutdown the computer except by using the terminal ("sudo shutdown -h now"). When I click the application launcher>leave>shutdown, nothing happens whatsoever; no dialog box asking me if I want to shutdown or restart etc., no shut down, nothing. It's like the button doesn't even exist.

Regards,
Jason

[vinnywright]

how about if you right click the desktop and then leave ? same behavior.

VINNY

[jpc2769]

how about if you right click the desktop and then leave ? same behavior.

VINNY

Thanks for the suggestion, I hadn't thought to try it. Unfortunately it doesn't do anything.

Jason

[james147]

Does it do the same for a newly created user?

[vinnywright]

next Q. ... how did you upgrade , a net-upgrade , or reinstall and if reinstall do you have a separate /home partition that did not get formated ?

I ask because some times there will be incompatible configs between 1 version and the next and this may be the problem .

VINNY

OOPS @james147 got a post in wile I was typing ......and it is a good test , do it

[jpc2769]

I can restart, shutdown just fine as a new user or if I log on as a guest.

Vinny, I had to do a reinstall with formatting because I had to also resize my partitions.

Jason

[vinnywright]

I can restart, shutdown just fine as a new user or if I log on as a guest.

Vinny, I had to do a reinstall with formatting because I had to also resize my partitions.

Jason

sounds like theres a prob with your user configs ,,,,,,,log out at the log in screen press ctrl+alt+F6 you should get a TTY log in as you and do

mv ~/.kde ~/.kde.old

type exit and hit enter now press ctrl+alt+F7 you should be back at the log in screen , log in and see if your better .

VINNY

[jpc2769]

That worked, thanks!

Can you explain to me what that command did?

Jason

[vinnywright]

allmost all of the users KDE configurations are in that hidden folder in your user directory the ~/ is a shorthand for /home/you and the .kde is the hidden folder, all folders with a preceding . are hidden ,,,,, we renamed it with the move comand "mv" so when you reloged in and the system could not find it it re created you a fresh default one
now any customizing you may have done is gone but now you can start from scratch .

VINNY

[vinnywright]

O and you can delete the .kde.old now unless you had some customizations in their you would like to try and retrieve....... the .kde.old is about 200+MiB in size.

VINNY

[james147]

allmost all of the users KDE configurations are in that hidden folder in your user directory the ~/ is a shorthand for /home/you and the .kde is the hidden folder, all folders with a preceding . are hidden ,,,,, we renamed it with the move comand "mv" so when you reloged in and the system could not find it it re created you a fresh default one
now any customizing you may have done is gone but now you can start from scratch .

VINNY

You shouldn't start with renaming the ~/.kde folder as it also contains application data as well as configs which the user might still want, it is better to rename ~/.kde/share/config instead as that is where all the configs are actually stored and what generally creates the problems. It is even better to just rename the config inside that directory that is causing the problem if you can find which one it is. My guess would have been the kwin settings, or session settings that caused the problem. That way you don't have to reconfigure everything, but it can talk a little bit more effort to find the right file.

[jpc2769]

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

Jason

[jpc2769]

You shouldn't start with renaming the ~/.kde folder as it also contains application data as well as configs which the user might still want, it is better to rename ~/.kde/share/config instead as that is where all the configs are actually stored and what generally creates the problems. It is even better to just rename the config inside that directory that is causing the problem if you can find which one it is. My guess would have been the kwin settings, or session settings that caused the problem. That way you don't have to reconfigure everything, but it can talk a little bit more effort to find the right file.

Well the problem is back, what should I be looking for as I go through these files?

Jason

[james147]

I tend to rename them one by one (or at least all related ones together) until I find the problem one starting with the most likely ones (kwin or plasma-desktop generally). It might take a bit longer but means you don't have to reset all your settings (and is quicker to fix if it happens again).

You can delete the newly created configs and copy back the old configs to restore the settings again (you might want to copy them back rather the moving so you have a backup in case it restores wrong, if it does restore wrong then try doing it when you are not logged in via a virtual terminal).