Shutdown dialog does not appear sometimes.

[Dave Rove]

Sometimes, when I click on: Menu -> Leave -> Shutdown
then the shutdown dialog refuses to appear, and I have to resort to sudo halt which does work OK.

It is a bit annoying, so is there a more forcible way to make the shutdown dialog appear?

Or is there an alternative shutdown dialog that I can try to see if that works?

(Kubuntu 14.10 64-bit)

[gnomek]

Go to /home/user_name/.kde/share/config folder and delete ksmserverrc file. (You may create a copy of this file first or just move it to another folder).
Then press Ctrl+Alt+F1 and execute

sudo shutdown -h now

The next time you log in, shutdown, logout dialog will function properly.

[Dave Rove]

Go to /home/user_name/.kde/share/config folder and delete ksmserverrc file.
...

OK, thanks. I'll try that and see how it goes. The bug only happens on some days.

[Dave Rove]

Well, I'm afraid it hasn't worked.

I renamed ksmserverrc, then selected the option of starting with an empty session:
Systemsettings -> startup -> session -> login -> empty session
And I found that a new ksmserverrc file was created containing just the following:

[General]
confirmLogout=true
excludeApps=
loginMode=default
offerShutdown=true
shutdownType=0

But I'm still getting the shutdown-dialog failing to appear about one boot in four.

[gnomek]

I don't know what is the cause of the problem. What I gave you was just a workarund. It worked for me.

But after removing this file you need to restart without making any changes, because it will create a new file. When you restart a new file will be created automatically with default settings. Only after this you can introduce new changes in system settings.

There are a few bug reports on this problem

https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=328571
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...e/+bug/1000690
https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=327543

Not much hope they will solve it anytime soon.

[SecretCode]

Pressing the computer's power button should present a shutdown dialogue too (depending on settings, in Power Management). But if the Leave menu doesn't work, there's a good chance this won't either...

[Dave Rove]

But after removing this file you need to restart without making any changes, because it will create a new file. When you restart a new file will be created automatically with default settings. Only after this you can introduce new changes in system settings.

OK, I did that, then used systemsettings to select starting with an empty session. I got identical settings in the [General] section, but I also got a mass of stuff included in a [LegacySession: saved at previous logout] section, which hopefully would be ignored and not be responsible for upsetting anything due to the empty-session setting. So I don't think it will make any difference.

Thanks for the list of relevant bug reports. I guess I can put up with this for now and do a fresh install of 15.04 when it's ready later next month, and see how that goes.

In the meantime, I've enabled the ctrl-alt-backspace X-server shutdown, and can then shutdown from the LightDM menu, which might be a bit safer than "sudo halt" from KDE.

[Dave Rove]

Had another Google for this issue today and found a command that would shutdown KDE from the command line and capture the debug output:

QDBUS_DEBUG=1 qdbus org.kde.ksmserver /KSMServer logout 0 2 2 >shutdown.log 2>&1

So I compared the output of the above when the shutdown dialog was refusing to appear (and the above command didn't trigger a shutdown either) with the output of the same command when the shutdown dialog could appear (and the command did trigger a shutdown). In fact, the output was identical in both cases, so no clue there. I won't include it in full since it doesn't seem to help:

QDBusConnectionPrivate(0x8251f0) : connected successfully
QDBusConnectionPrivate(0x8251f0) sending message (blocking): QDBusMess...
QDBusConnectionPrivate(0x8251f0) got message reply (blocking): QDBusMe...
[ about 70 lines of stuff including an XML file ]
Adding rule: type='signal',sender='org.freedesktop.DBus',interf ace='or...
QDBusConnectionPrivate(0x8251f0) sending message (blocking): QDBusMess...
QDBusConnectionPrivate(0x8251f0) got message reply (blocking): QDBusMe...
Removing rule: type='signal',sender='org.freedesktop.DBus',interf ace='...

Seems there's no easy way to debug the problem, unless anybody knows differently?