Ubuntu 17.04 - can't reboot from terminal within GUI

**bikergeek2** · August 13th, 2017

I have a brand-new HP ProBook 450 G3. I wiped Windows off of it and installed plain-vanilla Ubuntu 17.04, which is now the only OS on it. I have an unusual problem. Typing "sudo shutdown -r now" inside a terminal window causes the system to hang: no mouse cursor, nothing. Can't flip over to a text console to see what's going on. I tried turning off splash screens but the machine doesn't even get far enough into the reboot process as to show me the text screens where it's shutting down various things--it just freezes at the desktop.

I found something that suggested that the "cups-browsed" service had a habit of hanging on the way down, so I disabled it. Didn't help.

Rebooting from the "cogwheel" menu works. Flipping over to a text console with ctl-alt-F1, logging in, and typing "sudo shutdown -r now" works there. So why doesn't it work from within a terminal window, inside the GUI?

Yeah, yeah, I know: "Doc, it hurts when I go like that." "Well, don't go like that."

But I've gotten used to doing much of my work within a terminal window after 25+ years of working on Linux and Un*x systems. This whole thing has me very much scratching my head, and I'd like to fix it.

Thanks in advance for any help, it's very much appreciated.

**ajgreeny** · August 13th, 2017

Try the command without sudo which has not been required for several Ubuntu versions now to shutdown or reboot. You might also like to try command reboot in place of shutdown -r now

I am not sure why using sudo should make the command fail, but it is just me thinking out loud, so must be worth a try.

**bikergeek2** · August 13th, 2017

Originally Posted by ajgreeny

Try the command without sudo which has not been required for several Ubuntu versions now to shutdown or reboot. You might also like to try command reboot in place of shutdown -r now

I am not sure why using sudo should make the command fail, but it is just me thinking out loud, so must be worth a try.

Hi, thanks for the quick follow-up. "shutdown -r now" without "sudo" doesn't work any better--the machine still hangs pretty much immediately. "reboot", however, works. No clue what's going on.

**ajgreeny** · August 13th, 2017

Originally Posted by bikergeek2

Hi, thanks for the quick follow-up. "shutdown -r now" without "sudo" doesn't work any better--the machine still hangs pretty much immediately. "reboot", however, works. No clue what's going on.

Well that's half-way to success, but I am not sure what you can do to make shutdown work properly.
What happens if you simply use the command shutdown with no extra options or arguments?

**bikergeek2** · August 13th, 2017

Originally Posted by ajgreeny

What happens if you simply use the command shutdown with no extra options or arguments?

That works--the system schedules a shutdown for 1 minute in the future, and then it shuts down as scheduled and powers off. "shutdown -h now" also works. Plain "shutdown -r" also works. "shutdown -r now", for some unaccountable reason, has now also started working. I'm baffled.

**ajgreeny** · August 14th, 2017

So am I!!

That's technology for you.

**bikergeek2** · August 15th, 2017

Regardless, thank you for the help, ajgreeny. I guess we can mark this "Closed" at this point.

**ajgreeny** · August 15th, 2017

Great news! By all means, please mark as SOLVED from the Thread Tools menu up-top if this is now solved to your satisfaction. It is a great help to users searching the forum.

We do not mark threads as closed normally until they have been unused for a year and the system closes it automatically.