Laptop "reboots" instead of powering off. Cannot shut it down.

[Mr_Furry_Tail]

Hi Everyone!
I am running Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya and 4.10.0-32-generic kernel.
My problem is that sometimes, when I want to turn off my laptop, it goes dark as usual, but than immediately turns back on to the login screen. It does not matter how I do it, from the menu or doing "poweroff". Poweroff command gives no result, but error message that reads something like "cannot ...do-not-remember-what... operation is destructive" It happens randomly, maybe once a week or two. One I catch that glitch the only way I can power off the machine is holding the power button. After hard power off, the glitch disappears.
I looked into the log and see lines like that:

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Oct 16 22:24:24 Nitro-G kernel: [  828.503993] ACPI Warning: \_SB.PCI0.PEG0.PEGP._DSM: Argument #4 type mismatch - Found [Buffer], ACPI requires [Package] (20160930/nsarguments-95)

But google says it is harmless warning and has nothing to do with my problem.
I have attached pieces of my /var/log/syslog that might have some clues, please help me figure out what causes such behaviour and how to stop it.
Feel free to ask any additional details / log files.
Thanks.

syslog syslog1

[deepakdeshp]

Please give following commands before you switch off .

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sync;sync

As an emergency mode , you can keep the on off switch pressed till it powers off. If it doesnt power off with this method, you may have an on off switch problem.

[Mr_Furry_Tail]

Please give following commands before you switch off .

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sync;sync

As an emergency mode , you can keep the on off switch pressed till it powers off. If it doesnt power off with this method, you may have an on off switch problem.

Thanks! I'll try doing that and see if it still happens.
The on off switch always worked so far.

[BG405]

Try holding CTRL + ALT & then pressing SysRQ then, leaving a few seconds between each keypress, R E I S U O & see if that powers the machine off successfully. There are apparently a few variants (which I will research) if this doesn't work.

This is a temporary measure; will need to look into a proper fix.

[Mr_Furry_Tail]

Try holding CTRL + ALT & then pressing SysRQ then, leaving a few seconds between each keypress, R E I S U O & see if that powers the machine off successfully. There are apparently a few variants (which I will research) if this doesn't work. ...

Thank you very much for your response, I'll try your temporary solution next time!

Actually I had another episode of this today.
It happened after closing the lid and opening it back several times, and executing "sync" command as suggested in previous reply did not help. I'll post the logs after lunch.

I am starting to think that I might screw the OS installation in a some way and this is a consequence. As I remember, I tried to do full disc encryption installation and it did not work in some way, and than re installed OS with just home folder encrypted. Now, when I power on the machine, first it asks me for a password to decrypt some partition (crypt something, I believe it is swap), and then I see actual login screen and need to enter my password once again. But even if I enter invalid password for the first time, everything seems to work fine. And it also asks for a password during installation of some updates (like new kennels).

UPD:

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goog@Nitro-G ~ $ sync
goog@Nitro-G ~ $ poweroff
Failed to power off system via logind: Transaction is destructive.
Failed to start poweroff.target: Interactive authentication required.
See system logs and 'systemctl status poweroff.target' for details.
Failed to open /dev/initctl: Permission denied
Failed to talk to init daemon.
goog@Nitro-G ~ $ sync;sync
goog@Nitro-G ~ $ poweroff
Failed to power off system via logind: Transaction is destructive.
Failed to start poweroff.target: Interactive authentication required.
See system logs and 'systemctl status poweroff.target' for details.
Failed to open /dev/initctl: Permission denied
Failed to talk to init daemon.
goog@Nitro-G ~ $ ssudo poweroff
No command 'ssudo' found, did you mean:
 Command 'sudo' from package 'sudo-ldap' (universe)
 Command 'sudo' from package 'sudo' (main)
ssudo: command not found
goog@Nitro-G ~ $ sudo poweroff
[sudo] password for goog: 
Failed to start poweroff.target: Transaction is destructive.
See system logs and 'systemctl status poweroff.target' for details.
goog@Nitro-G ~ $ 

Log for today Tried to power off about 8 am.