Shutdown command from UI restarts system in Ubuntu 14.04

Question

I have Ubuntu 14.04.2 installed on Lenovo Flex 2 laptop. My problem is that whenever I select shutdown from the menu, the laptop restarts instead of completely shutting down. Any idea why this might be happening?

Answer 1

The shutdown from the UI rarely works for me. It has been very iffy in versions for the last 4 years.

Someone might be able to place insight on directly why. But for a resolution you can install cairo-dock and use that UI shutdown problem free.

You can install it with:

$ sudo apt-get install cairo-dock

Now run it from the Launch button. Use this alternate shutdown option. It'll work every time.

I didn't include this in my original answer because it appeared that you were trying to use the GUI.

This will also work every time:

$ sudo shutdown -h now

You can also reboot the computer by issuing:

$ sudo shutdown -r now

Check other cli shutdown options with:

$ man shutdown

Of course you can put this in a script and create a myshutdown.desktop icon to execute the shutdown script with a click.

Answer 2

You may create script for shutdown by executing following commands :

sudo gedit shutdown_system

and write sudo poweroff in the file and save it.

then change permission by chmod +x shutdown_system

Execute the file for shutting down the system.

./shutdown_system

Hope it helps!