system - 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.

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.