Kubuntu not shutting down after upgrade to 18.04

[Huibc]

After upgrading to 18.04 TLS from 16.04 TLS the shutdown halts before the computer is really shut down. The same happens with the command shutdown -h now. All contact with input devices is lost, but the screen stays on and there is no further disc activity.

Hubert

[GreyGeek]

e.c. Field reports that after updating to 18.04 his Dolphin "Find" command doesn't work. Now you report this.

IMO, updating from a prior release generally works only when your system is vanilla. That is, you didn't do anything fancy during the install of the older version, you haven't added any PPA's, installed deb packages from sources external to the repository, or created/destroyed links, etc.

Experience has taught us over and over that the best way to install a new release is to backup your data and then do a FRESH install. For both you and e.c. Field that is what I recommend. Those that do fresh installs have fewer cavities.

[jglen490]

I would agree with GreyGeek on this, download/buy your next Linux version and burn it to a DVD or USB drive. Then, backup all your important stuff ( -> DVD, USB drive, etc.). Then, and only then, do a fresh install.

In my opinion the day when it was possible to 100% successfully upgrade a distro, is gone. Not to say that some distro upgrades have worked well, but they are the exception. Regardless, backup your stuff first and always ...

[Huibc]

In my opinion the day when it was possible to 100% successfully upgrade a distro, is gone. Not to say that some distro upgrades have worked well, but they are the exception. Regardless, backup your stuff first and always ...

Not very encouraging! One can backup his data, but not the applications and that's the big work for restoring.

I suppose that somewhere a logging is kept of the logout procedure. Where can I find it and how to read it?

[GreyGeek]

You could try this:
sudo apt update
sudo apt install --reinstall plasma-desktop
sudo apt install --reinstall plasma-desktop-data
sudo apt install --reinstall plasma-look-and-feel-org-kde-breezedark-desktop

but I'm not guaranteeing anything will be fixed doing that.

[Snowhog]

One could also try creating a new user, logging in with that user and seeing if the problem persists. If it doesn't; the PC properly shuts down as expected; then there is a configuration file problem with your user account.

[Huibc]

Thanks for the suggestions, but I will be away from home for the next 2 weeks. So it will take some time before I can try it out.

[claydoh]

Why are we so quick to blame it on the upgrade? There are about 3707460.6 search result hits on the topic, and it is , at least to my eyes, not anywhere near an upgrade specific issue.
Unfortunately, there is no one fix, but may lean toward a video card/driver/optimus problem as a more common possible culprit.

[papakanush]

Newbie here, but in process of doing some updates this morning, mine got hung up at the blinking "kubuntu" after entering reboot from Konsole while I still had Chrome open. I found that "sudo reboot" is perhaps better than just "reboot" as there is a chance some process is running in the background that could cause an issue.

It it possible you had something open when you shutdown that might have had an inhibiting process running?

[GreyGeek]

Not very encouraging! One can backup his data, but not the applications and that's the big work for restoring.

I suppose that somewhere a logging is kept of the logout procedure. Where can I find it and how to read it?

IF you use AppImages of your applications you can save them with your data.

[przxqgl]

AppImages

sounds interesting...what are AppImages?

[Thomas00]

I suppose that somewhere a logging is kept of the logout procedure. Where can I find it and how to read it?

The kernel log may give you some idea what's going on. There will be lots of unrelated stuff but maybe the entries towards the very end provide some hints as to what blocked the shutdown.
Restart your machine, open a terminal window and type:

nano /var/log/kern.log

Now scroll all the way down until you find the time of your shutdown attempt. Anything which looks like an error there? What's the last entry before the restart?