GUI hangs on shutdown

[sh00der]

Hey there, I need your help again. Sometimes when shutting down out of RH8 the system hangs. I can access the command prompt by pressing ctrl-alt-bksp but I checked /var/log/messages and there is nothing to indicate any problem. It happened again last night so at the command prompt I 'su'ed to root and typed 'shutdown now', it sent the term signal to things but returned me to a (different) command prompt. As a guess I typed 'exit' that took me back to the GUI and I was able to shut down normally from there.
It seems to me like there may be a process hung up in the background but everything seemed to be working fine until I logged out and tried to shut down. Any ideas? Thanks.

[X11]

Please post a copy of your /etc/XF86Config

[sh00der]

Sadly, I don't have a /etc/XF86Config to post, is there something else I can give you? Thanks

[Void Main]

Actually in Red Hat it's /etc/X11/XF86Config but I suspect that the problem may not be related to the X configuration. I wonder if it's not having trouble shutting some other service down.

[sh00der]

I think your'e right Void Main, how can I find out what it is? If it locks up again and I hit ctrl-alt-bksp is it worth doing a 'ps' and then posting what is running?

[Void Main]

I think your'e right Void Main, how can I find out what it is? If it locks up again and I hit ctrl-alt-bksp is it worth doing a 'ps' and then posting what is running?

I guess I don't understand your situation fully. First I assume you are doing a CTRL+ALT+BKSP because when you clicked "shutdown" on KDM or GDM the system appeared to do nothing? And if you are using a graphical login manager (runlevel 5) then you should not be placed at a command prompt when you press CTRL+ALT+BKSP, you would at most be at a virtual terminal where you would be required to log in. Or are you starting your machine in runlevel 3 and using "startx" to get into X?

[sh00der]

That's right, when I log out of KDE I get back to the log in screen where I click on system then shutdown. The screen then goes blue and hangs there. Then I hit ctrl-alt-bksp and I get the virtual terminal where I need to log in (what I was calling the command prompt). From there I can log in and issue the shutdown command.
Sorry for being confusing, I am still trying to get familiar with the terminology.

[Void Main]

I seem to recall having a similar issue in RH8 but I can't remember for sure since I never shut my systems down. On a side note did you know that instead of logging in to that virtual terminal you can just press CTRL+ALT+DEL and it will so a shutdown/reboot? If I do want to shut down from a virtual terminal login prompt that's what I usually do, then when it get's to the point where the OS is down and you see the system BIOS then just power off. I know that doesn't solve your problem but I no longer have any RH8 systems. I have upgraded them all to RH9 and I don't believe I have seen the problem in RH9.

[sh00der]

Thanks for the tip Void.
It seems that my timing was bad buying RH8 just before RH9 came out. I don't want to shell out another £40 for RH9 and I only have a dial up connection so I guess I'm stuck with RH8 for now. I'll just use the ctrl-alt-del if I need to until I can upgrade. Thanks for the help and the great site.

[Void Main]

Maybe if you are nice and post publicly roughly (not specifically) what part of the world you live in someone might send you a Private Message where you can trade info and they can ship you the RH9 CDs for the cost of shipping or less. I can't garantee that will happen as this is a small board and certainly not all of them use RH9 but we do have people from lots of places.

[Calum]

you could probably get RH9 for less from one of those services that downloads the iso and burns it for you, then sends you it through the mail, but then i think you would lose the support et c that you paid for from red hat.