I've been trying to work through the issues I encountered installing Ubuntu 14.04 on an Acer Aspire ES1-512 laptop. It came with Windows 8.1 and I learned a lot from the process of installing Linux alongside Windows.

Windows boots and shuts down normally. Ubuntu boots OK and runs OK, but has issues shutting down normally (tapping the main menu icon in the upper right hand corner and selecting either shutdown or restart).

I've done much reading and tried most of the suggestions, however nothing has solved the problem. I tried adding different lines to the grub menu, etc.

Using the terminal and commanding shutdown with whatever switches always results in the same way: the system hangs at the gui shutdown screen with the Ubuntu icon and the dots that change color as the system goes through its shutdown routine. I always freeze after two dots and the system has to be shut down by holding the power button.

I read one opinion that recommended using sudo poweroff in the terminal. The results were the same but at least I was able to read some of the powerdown messages before the machine froze:

wait-for-state stop/waiting
* Stopping rsync daemon rsync
* speech-dispatcher disabled: edit /etc/default/speech-dispatcher
* Asking all remaining processes to terminate...
* All processes ended within 1 seconds...
nm-dispatcher.action: Caught signal 15, shutting down...
ModemManager[972]: <warn> Could not acquire the 'org.freedesktop.ModemManager1' service name

ModemManager[972]: <info> ModemManager is shut down

* Deactivating swap...
* Unmounting local filesystems...
* Will now halt

Here is the output of the syslog file at the time of shutdown:

Jan 21 03:50:24 tracy-Aspire-ES1-512 colord: device removed: xrandr-eDP1
Jan 21 03:50:24 tracy-Aspire-ES1-512 colord: Profile removed: icc-a2b91d520911fc0fba6f107d558cbb9a
Jan 21 03:50:24 tracy-Aspire-ES1-512 dbus[685]: [system] Activating service name='org.freedesktop.systemd1' (using servicehelper)
Jan 21 03:50:24 tracy-Aspire-ES1-512 dbus[685]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.systemd1'
Jan 21 03:50:25 tracy-Aspire-ES1-512 dbus[685]: [system] Activating service name='org.freedesktop.locale1' (using servicehelper)
Jan 21 03:50:25 tracy-Aspire-ES1-512 dbus[685]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.locale1'
Jan 21 03:50:25 tracy-Aspire-ES1-512 colord: Device added: xrandr-eDP1
Jan 21 03:50:25 tracy-Aspire-ES1-512 colord: Automatic metadata add icc-a2b91d520911fc0fba6f107d558cbb9a to xrandr-eDP1
Jan 21 03:50:25 tracy-Aspire-ES1-512 colord: Profile added: icc-a2b91d520911fc0fba6f107d558cbb9a
Jan 21 03:50:25 tracy-Aspire-ES1-512 rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="7.4.4" x-pid="740" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] exiting on signal 15.

If anyone can see an issue here that could cause my problem, I'd love to read your advice.

Thanks much,
tracy

What happens when you invoke

in a terminal (that's the command I normally use)? Is it the same thing or something different?

Same thing. The shutdown screen freezes after a couple of the dots change color and I have to hold the power button down to turn the laptop off.

It should instead be

Linux kernel has two ways of shutting down.

One which justs stops every running program and puts cpu in halt but system is running unless you manually press reset or shutdown button.

Other which invokes APM (old) or ACPI to put system to power down. Some motherboards have bad ACPI support in BIOS.

Web search to find similar Power down problems.

This command has the same outcome. The system freezes on the shutdown screen.

I've tried editing the grub file (/etc/default/grub) to add acpi=force and other suggested lines since some online sources seemed to blame acpi for the problem but none of them has solved the issue. I've tried using different kernels to see if there was any better support using one of them. The latest kernel has helped with the start up routine which was also troublesome, but now seems to boot sucessfully everytime. The only remaining problem is with the shutdown routine. I have combed the web for similar issues, but have not yet found the answer. I posted here hoping that there was something that I'd missed.

By the way, this laptop uses an EFI partition to boot the grub menu from.

This is puzzling.

Try this for testing purposes: Boot to a Live CD of something and see whether that shuts down properly from the command line. If it doesn't, that would lead me to think that you might have some kind of hardware problem in the offing, but I have no idea what it might be. If it does shut down properly, then it's definitely something to do with the install, but I don't have a hint as to what it might be.

Try running the dmesg command and read through the log.
Look for Warnings and Errors.

Generally there is a shutdown script that halts the system. I don't have much experience with initializations scripts
but finding out if the shutdown script was misconfigured or corrupt (might) be a place to start.

Did you check the integrity of the .iso file before you installed Ubuntu?

Is this your machine?
http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/model/NX.MRWAA.001

Evidently others have had this same issue-
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2217602
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2220591

dmesg | grep -a error gives me the following:

[ 23.202126] EXT4-fs (sda6): re-mounted. Opts: errors=remount-ro

dmesg | grep -a warn gives me this:

[ 7.399039] rts5139: module is from the staging directory, the quality is unknown, you have been warned.

I'd like to know the name of the shutdown log. I've searched for all things "shutdown". The search kicks up a lot of things but nothing I saw looked like a log file. If anyone knows, please post.

I did verify the integrity of the .iso file. Since this computer has no disk drive, it has to be written to a flash drive for live cd use or for install. On the boot menu for the flash drive are entries for try ubuntu, install ubuntu and verify integrity of the media (or something like that). I tested the integrity of the media and it got a clean bill of health.

Is this your machine?
http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/model/NX.MRWAA.001
Yes, that url points to the machine I'm wrestling with.

I tried booting from the live cd (flash drive) to test the problem in that mode.
Results? The same. The machine won't shut down. Two dots and it stops.

I'm wondering if this problem might have something to do with the suite of hardware by Intel called Valleyview that populates this machine. Valleyview handles the display, the wireless, the SMBus, and the Power Control Unit to name a few. Some of these are listed as UNCLAIMED in the lshw command. I'm thinking Ubuntu might be having problems with the Intel hardware.

Any ideas?

Does the ubuntu syslog process normally exit on a signal of 15 on shutdown?
If not...is there anything juicy in the /var/log/ directory ?
Messages perhaps?
Did sda6 come back up rw on it's mount point?

I'm not sure where Ubuntu keeps it's shutdown script.
The shutdown script on my Slackware machine is kept in /etc/rc.d.

Valleyview sounds like it might be a proprietary issue possibly in control of the hardware.
Because it handles the display that could be the culprit right there.
It's possible that Ubuntu may not be playing nice with the hardware.
Check in your BIOS and see if you have control over the display/monitor.

I could be wrong but I'll share with you what I learned from a gentlemen in Debian Testing.
It could also be something in the init sys (sysvinit, startup and systemd) but in testing it's Xorg related.
You could also try "Recovery Mode" as it runs a few more corrective tools and may fix it on it's own.

I wonder if modprobe is loading the right driver? (not sure)
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=1144378

Answer dijetlo's questions when you get a chance. (He helped me in the past and is good with Linux)-
Check in the log he suggest's that could help us too.

One last thought:
-::- Something may not have installed correctly.-::-

Aside from Ubuntu; have you tried other distributions on your Acer?

Thanks ZT, but I think Franks idea would resolve this faster, if the problem is hardware related.

Your Welcome-

Mr. frankbell is right:-
As he said: The more I think on what he said I think there is a good chance that it's the install.
Something didn't install correctly.
Since it's not shutting down properly it has to be a hardware issue.

I don't think it's the 802.11 WiFi card. So that leaves the Intel Celeron and the Intel HD Graphics card.

In the past I had to install Debian twice.
The first install would only give me the black log in screen but would direct me to another black screen upon signing in.
After performing the install a second time; log in was successful and took me right to the GUI.

I shut down the laptop a few hours ago. I restarted it and this was the last entry in syslog from the shutdown:

Jan 25 08:38:08 tracy-Aspire-ES1-512 rsyslogd: [origin software="rsyslogd" swVersion="7.4.4" x-pid="759" x-info="http://www.rsyslog.com"] exiting on signal 15.



Here is the contents of the /var/log directory:

alternatives.log
apport.log
apport.log.1
apt
auth.log
auth.log.1
auth.log.2.gz
auth.log.3.gz
boot.log
bootstrap.log
btmp
cups
dist-upgrade
dmesg
dmesg.0
dmesg.1.gz
dmesg.2.gz
dmesg.3.gz
dmesg.4.gz
dpkg.log
faillog
fontconfig.log
fsck
gpu-manager.log
hp
installer
kern.log
kern.log.1
kern.log.2.gz
kern.log.3.gz
lastlog
lightdm
pm-powersave.log
samba
speech-dispatcher
syslog
syslog~
syslog.1
syslog.2.gz
syslog.3.gz
syslog.4.gz
syslog.5.gz
udev
unattended-upgrades
upstart
wtmp
Xorg.0.log
Xorg.0.log.old


I was able to make a new directory on the / directory (sda6), so it must be rw.

I'm not sure how to check if modprobe is loading the correct driver. I'm not even sure what driver that is...

I have tried booting in recovery mode. Outside of the verbose listing of what's going on during the process, the outcome is the same.

I'm not sure if I mentioned that I also have booted to a live cd of LinuxMint. I also installed Mint alongside Ubuntu and Windows and in both cases, it refuses to shut down properly, too.

Since Mint won't shut down properly either that leads me to thinking and being suspicious of something prorietary in the way.
It may be a hidden partition that Windows has that is preventing things.

A lot of folks here were not able to install Linux on their Windows machines until they disabled the "secure boot"

All of the drivers are listed in the output of lsmod. I'm not the best member for interpreting that output and if the modules are loading or not. I'll have to ask another members advice on that.

What mobo do you have? If you don't know; run:
If I can find the PDF online to your mobo it might help.

Did you install Ubuntu and Mint in EFI mode?

I looked up your laptop specification on several different searches and could find what BIOS your machine has.
What BIOS do you have? Is it the new click BIOS?


I'm starting to lean more towards that too now.
The problem is that I don't know which piece of hardware is the problem or if it's Windows is causing the problem.

Can you give us more information on 'Valleyview'? Or a website?

Generally when people have performance and hardware troubles installing a higher version of the kernel solves that.
But you already tried that right?

Even more intresting, different kernels may use different drivers to control the same hardware.