Ubuntu 11.10 logs off when clicking shutdown

Question

As the title says: when I click Shutdown from the menu it logs off. When I click shutdown from the log-in menu it does nothing. I'm using a fresh install of Ubuntu 11.10. I can force it to shutdown by the command below, but I don't want to keep typing that whenever I want to shutdown my laptop.

sudo shutdown -h now

So it's probably processes which arn't closing. I'm a novice linux user, so I have no idea how to rule out the software causing this. I think it's either Gwibber/Empathy, perhaps Mozilla Thunderbird, because this is happening since I started using this.

So a few questions:

1. How do I rule out what software is causing this?
2. How do I stop it from not closing on shutdown?
3. If 1. and 2. don't work is it possible to add top command to the shutdown process?

Edit: Rourke here. Somehow I cannot accept the below comment from mech-e as the solution. Thank you this was indeed the answer I was looking for!

Solution 1

Is your account set to autologin and is your home folder encrypted? Had same problem and fixed it by turning 'autologin' for user off. Need to do sudo reboot or shutdown -h now from terminal, then either use GUI via User Account settings and turn off autologin or follow these steps from https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-session/+bug/838792 :

raggar (mbaart) wrote on 2011-11-04: #24

I found a possible solution to this bug. It has something to do with the auto login >function in the user management from Unity. When activated it cannot shutdown anymore. >Also disable the auto login is not possible anymore.

What I did: gksudo gedit /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

remove the line: autologin-user= YOUR USERNAME

Restart your computer with: sudo shutdown -h now

After that I had a system that worked normally again.

Solution 2

Had the same issue and tracked it down to having another account/profile logged in at the same time.

Logged into Account A Switched to Account B (testing a new user) Forgot about A, User B couldn't shutdown and would drop back to the login screen.

Fix : Logout of Account A, B can now shutdown.

Comments

[ultrajohn]

this solution did not solve my problem.

[nilsonneto]

Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference

[Eliah Kagan]

@ultrajohn Since it did solve the OP's problem and didn't solve yours, your probably probably differs from the OP's in some important (but possibly subtle) way. I recommend posting a new question about your problem. You can include a link to this question in your new question.