How to see what's going on during shutdown

Since a few weeks, Ubuntu freezes almost everytime when I shut it down.

I know it because the shutdown animation stops and nothing is responsive: Ctrl+Alt+Del or AltGr+Syst+reisub don't make any difference.

I have tried to look at various log files in /var/log but only INFO level message are logged.

My hope to solve this problem would be to do a verbose shutdown, one where I could see what's going on, and so what's causing the problem, so I could start solving it.

Therefore, as the title suggest it. Is there a way to see what's going on during shutdown? I could even go to the extreme of doing a step-by-step shutdown if this is the only way.

Thanks for any tips.

Solution 1:

Temporarily disable the slash screen

You can temporarily disable the splash screen and "quiet" mode by editing the boot command in GRUB:

1. Reboot and hold Shift as the computer turns on. The GRUB menu should appear:

   

2. Press e to edit the command for the first entry, then use the keyboard to delete the words quiet splash:

   

3. Press Ctrl+x to boot.

This setting will last until the next reboot.

Permanently disable the slash screen

You can make the change permanent by modifying /etc/default/grub. Comment out this line:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

and add this one:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""

Run sudo update-grub and then reboot to make the changes take effect.

Warning: If you mess up this file your computer may not be able to boot up again. Let someone here know if you're not sure how to make the modification.