Kubuntu not shutting down

Question

I just built a workstation that is running Kubuntu 23.10 (Kubuntu is basically Ubuntu + KDE Plasma desktop) with the 6.5.0-14-generic kernel. Specs: ASUS Pro WS WRX80e-sage SE Wifi ii motherboard; Threadripper Pro 5955WX, Nvidia RTX A6000 Ada GPU.

Neither power-off nor sleep works; nor does shutdown -P now. The screen goes dark but the fan speed increases and the machine is clearly still on (or could be rebooting -- I can't tell). The only way to shut it off is to hold down the physical power button. Boot is also flaky -- sometimes takes 4 or 5 tries to get it running -- but adding nosplash nouveau.modeset=0 has helped, and for now, the shutdown problems are a bigger concern. I had the same problems on Ubuntu 22.04 and on Linux Mint.

I have the latest, correct Nvidia drivers installed (535-server) and I've tried many tweaks to grub, without success. Looking at journalctl, I see a lot of errors relating to sddm and sddm-helper, including "sddm.service: Processes still around after final SIGKILL". Do any of you Linux wizards know if that could be causing the shutdown problem, or what could be causing sddm.service to hang around?

UPDATE 1: The REISUO shutdown method shuts down correctly, but then runs into problems on restart (black screen, hanging, etc).

UPDATE 2: It will suspend correctly using the pm-utils package, but hibernation with the same package fails.

sudo apt install pm-utils
sudo pm-suspend #works
sudo pm-hibernate #fails (screen goes black but machine stays on)

Here is a sample of the output that refers to sddm:

journalctl -u sddm

Sep 27 22:53:55 mlbox1 sddm-helper[2103]: Starting: "/etc/sddm/Xsession \"/usr/bin/startplasma-x11\""
Sep 27 22:53:55 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Session started
Sep 27 23:04:35 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Authentication error: "Process crashed"
Sep 27 23:04:35 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Auth: sddm-helper crashed (exit code 15)
Sep 27 23:04:35 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Authentication error: "Process crashed"
Sep 27 23:04:35 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 15
Sep 27 23:04:35 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Socket server stopping...
Sep 27 23:04:35 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Socket server stopped.
Sep 27 23:04:35 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Display server stopping...
Sep 27 23:04:35 mlbox1 systemd[1]: Stopping sddm.service - Simple Desktop Display Manager...
Sep 27 23:04:35 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Display server stopped.
Sep 27 23:04:35 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Running display stop script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xstop"
Sep 27 23:04:37 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Removing display ":0" ...
Sep 27 23:04:37 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Adding new display on vt 1 ...
Sep 27 23:04:37 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Loading theme configuration from ""
Sep 27 23:04:37 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Display server starting...
Sep 27 23:04:37 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Adding cookie to "/var/run/sddm/{364427b8-4ed0-4b37-89a2-b6fb0d38af9d}"
Sep 27 23:04:37 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Running: /usr/bin/X -nolisten tcp -auth /var/run/sddm/{364427b8-4ed0-4b37-89a2-b6fb0d38af9d} -background none -noreset -displayfd 18 -seat seat0 vt1
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Setting default cursor
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Running display setup script  "/usr/share/sddm/scripts/Xsetup"
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Display server started.
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Socket server starting...
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Socket server started.
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Loading theme configuration from "/usr/share/sddm/themes/ubuntu-theme/theme.conf"
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Greeter starting...
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Signal received: SIGTERM
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Socket server stopping...
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Socket server stopped.
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Display server stopping...
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm-helper[29413]: [PAM] Starting...
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm-helper[29413]: [PAM] Authenticating...
Sep 27 23:04:38 mlbox1 sddm-helper[29413]: [PAM] returning.
Sep 27 23:04:43 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: Display server stopping...
Sep 27 23:04:48 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: QProcess: Destroyed while process ("/usr/bin/X") is still running.
Sep 27 23:05:18 mlbox1 sddm[1939]: QProcess: Destroyed while process ("/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/sddm/sddm-helper") is still running.
Sep 27 23:06:48 mlbox1 systemd[1]: sddm.service: State 'final-sigterm' timed out. Killing.
Sep 27 23:06:48 mlbox1 systemd[1]: sddm.service: Killing process 29379 (Xorg) with signal SIGKILL.
Sep 27 23:08:18 mlbox1 systemd[1]: sddm.service: Processes still around after final SIGKILL. Entering failed mode.
Sep 27 23:08:18 mlbox1 systemd[1]: sddm.service: Failed with result 'timeout'.
Sep 27 23:08:18 mlbox1 systemd[1]: sddm.service: Unit process 29379 (Xorg) remains running after unit stopped.
Sep 27 23:08:18 mlbox1 systemd[1]: Stopped sddm.service - Simple Desktop Display Manager.
Sep 27 23:08:18 mlbox1 systemd[1]: sddm.service: Triggering OnFailure= dependencies.
Sep 27 23:08:18 mlbox1 systemd[1]: sddm.service: Failed to enqueue OnFailure= job, ignoring: Transaction for plymouth-quit.service/start is destructive (local-fs.target has 'stop' job queued, but 'start' i>
Sep 27 23:08:18 mlbox1 systemd[1]: sddm.service: Consumed 3min 55.135s CPU time.
-- Boot a540e2f3bc6147c686be543095c0fd9b --
Sep 27 23:09:58 mlbox1 systemd[1]: Starting sddm.service - Simple Desktop Display Manager...
Sep 27 23:09:58 mlbox1 systemd[1]: Started sddm.service - Simple Desktop Display Manager.

Answer 1

This may or may not be related but I have been dealing with a similar issue for months. My PC would always hang on the shutdown screen. I finally got around to digging into it a little more after just dealing with it this whole time. It turns out wpa_supplicant was what was preventing it from shutting down so I tried unplugging my usb wifi dongle and it immediately fixed it. My PC now shuts down almost instantly like it did in the past. So if you have a wifi dongle maybe give that a try. If this isn't the same issue maybe at least this answer can help someone else that is having similar issues.

Answer 2

Well ironically, I fixed the problem the way so many similar serious problems seem to end -- with a software update. In this case, the key was a BIOS update posted by the manufacturer of the motherboard, dated Jan 19 2024, available at the support page for the ASUS Pro WS WRX80e-sage SE Wifi ii motherboard. It claimed to "Improve system stability," which is a major understatement.

The update caused havoc at first: the computer became unresponsive and wouldn't boot, then after much head-banging it began to boot but I could only get to the BIOS menu after which the screen would go black; then it wouldn't connect to Wifi, claimed to have no bluetooth adapters, and other nonsense. If you try it, I recommend having a wired mouse and keyboard handy, plus an ethernet connection to the internet if possible. Those can save you a lot of headache when wifi or bluetooth don't work.

In the end, I did the following:

1. Updated the motherboard firmware (available on the same support site) -- a process that is done remotely from a second machine;
2. Updated the BIOS a second time (you plug a USB stick into a special slot), and
3. When it finally began to work properly, then I updated Kubuntu.

Now it all works perfectly.