My first ever total crash using LM.

[farkas]

The above statement is not quite true. I've crashed LM before by doing/trying dumb things that I shouldn't have before more research or advice before trying them. Not a problem, just some dumb moves on my part. Recovered by using Timeshift, Foxclone or a reinstall as a last resort.
This crash is a total mystery. Just doing usual things like checking email, reading stuff on the interweb. The only apps open were Firefox, Thunderbird and KeePassXC to log in to sites that required a password.
Total screen freeze. Unable to use mouse, keyboard or touch screen. I disable my touch pad 99% of the time because for me it's a pain in my butt to use. I use a wireless usb mouse to navigate. I use the touch screen to occasionally just to make it sure it still works and on two occasions when my mouse or mouse battery died.
This time LM was totally frozen. No keyboard, touch pad, touch screen or mouse actions did anything. Forced power off with the power button. Rebooted and everything seems to operating normally. Checked System Reports on reboot, No Problems detected, Crash reports, nothing there either.
My machine may be unique, one of a kind. I have to use

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pinxi -Fxxxz

instead of

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inxi -Fxxxz

for info about my machine.
For info about this command see my post
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=356425

The output of

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pinxi -Fxxxz

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steve@steve:~$ pinxi -Fxxxz
System:
  Kernel: 5.4.0-88-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0
  Desktop: Cinnamon 5.0.5 tk: GTK 3.24.20 wm: muffin 5.0.1 vt: 7
  dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Linux Mint 20.2 Uma base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Inspiron 5567 v: N/A serial: <filter>
  Chassis: type: 10 serial: <filter>
  Mobo: Dell model: 05VRRG v: A00 serial: <filter> UEFI: Dell v: 1.5.0
  date: 06/11/2021
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 17.1 Wh (100.0%) condition: 17.1/42.0 Wh (40.6%)
  volts: 12.4 min: 11.4 model: Samsung SDI DELL C4HCW6C type: Li-ion
  serial: <filter> status: Full
CPU:
  Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i7-7500U bits: 64 type: MT MCP
  arch: Amber/Kaby Lake note: check rev: 9 cache: L2: 4 MiB
  flags: avx avx2 lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx
  bogomips: 23199
  Speed: 900 MHz min/max: 400/3500 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 900 2: 900
  3: 900 4: 900
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel HD Graphics 620 vendor: Dell driver: i915 v: kernel
  bus-ID: 00:02.0 chip-ID: 8086:5916 class-ID: 0300
  Device-2: AMD Topaz XT [Radeon R7 M260/M265 / M340/M360 / M440/M445 /
  530/535 / 620/625 Mobile]
  vendor: Dell driver: amdgpu v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:6900
  class-ID: 0380
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.11 driver: loaded: amdgpu,ati,modesetting
  unloaded: fbdev,vesa resolution: 1600x900~60Hz s-dpi: 96
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 620 (KBL GT2) v: 4.6 Mesa 21.0.3
  direct render: Yes
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Sunrise Point-LP HD Audio vendor: Dell
  driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1f.3 chip-ID: 8086:9d71
  class-ID: 0403
  Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.4.0-88-generic running: yes
  Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 13.99.1 running: yes
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless 3165 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel bus-ID: 02:00.0
  chip-ID: 8086:3165 class-ID: 0280
  IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter>
  Device-2: Realtek RTL810xE PCI Express Fast Ethernet vendor: Dell
  driver: r8169 v: kernel port: d000 bus-ID: 03:00.0 chip-ID: 10ec:8136
  class-ID: 0200
  IF: enp3s0 state: down mac: <filter>
Bluetooth:
  Device-1: Intel type: USB driver: btusb v: 0.8 bus-ID: 1-8:5
  chip-ID: 8087:0a2a class-ID: e001
  Report: hciconfig ID: hci0 rfk-id: 1 state: down
  bt-service: enabled,running rfk-block: hardware: no software: yes
  address: <filter>
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 931.51 GiB used: 400.47 GiB (43.0%)
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Western Digital model: WDS100T2B0A-00SM50
  size: 931.51 GiB speed: 6.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 00WD
  scheme: GPT
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 24.12 GiB used: 19.26 GiB (79.9%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda2
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 196.9 MiB used: 10.9 MiB (5.5%) fs: vfat
  dev: /dev/sda1
  ID-3: /home size: 891.09 GiB used: 381.2 GiB (42.8%) fs: ext4
  dev: /dev/sda3
Swap:
  ID-1: swap-1 type: file size: 2 GiB used: 0 KiB (0.0%) priority: -2
  file: /swapfile
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 34.0 C mobo: 31.0 C sodimm: SODIMM C gpu: amdgpu
  temp: 36.0 C
  Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0
Info:
  Processes: 222 Uptime: 2h 5m wakeups: 1 Memory: 15.54 GiB
  used: 2.4 GiB (15.5%) Init: systemd v: 245 runlevel: 5 Compilers:
  gcc: 9.3.0 alt: 7/9 Packages: apt: 2708 Shell: Bash v: 5.0.17
  running-in: gnome-terminal pinxi: 3.3.06-7
steve@steve:~$ 

The

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pinxi -Fxxxz 

gives the real info about my graphics devices.

[Larry78723]

With a machine that new, I recommend that you use the 5.11 kernel. Open Update Manager -> View -> Linux Kernels and select 5.11 in the left column then the top kernel in the right column. An install box will appear, click it. When install is done, REBOOT.

[JoeFootball]

Forced power off with the power button.

Doing that can corrupt the file system.

Should you find yourself in a scenario where you cannot shutdown Linux normally, try this first. Holding down the Alt key, press SysRq (often shared with the PrtSc key), then separately r e i s u, and then o to Shutdown (or b to Reboot). This sequence should close your system cleanly.

[Venus Flytrap]

Re: Failsafe shutdown sequence. That's a heck of a lot of keystrokes! Mint/Ubuntu etc should simplify this if at all possible.

[JoeFootball]

Re: Failsafe shutdown sequence. That's a heck of a lot of keystrokes! Mint/Ubuntu etc should simplify this if at all possible.

These commands aren't based on Linux Mint or Ubuntu. They're Linux kernel low-level commands, and each has a specific purpose to help ensure a proper shutdown.

[Hoser Rob]

Re: Failsafe shutdown sequence. ....

It's not failsafe, I've had it fail.

Best one was due to an innocuous looking setting in smplayer to tell it to try and reindex all video files. This was with the old mplayer backend, it may not be a problem with mpv which they use now. But it'd put mplayer into something I'd not seen or heard of before called disk sleep. Had to use the power button. Nevertheless I'd suggest to never enable that 'feature'.

[Venus Flytrap]

These commands aren't based on Linux Mint or Ubuntu. They're Linux kernel low-level commands, and each has a specific purpose to help ensure a proper shutdown.

My point still being, ideally it should be simplified...

[JoeFootball]

My point still being, ideally it should be simplified...

Understood. My point still being that it's the Linux kernel developers who govern that, not Linux Mint (or Ubuntu or otherwise), and each one of those commands does something separate from the others.

There are also other low-level kernel commands that can be invoked this same way, but they don't have anything to do with trying to get to proper shutdown.

[rickNS]

This time LM was totally frozen. No keyboard, touch pad, touch screen or mouse actions did anything. Forced power off with the power button.

You say no keyboard, did you try Ctrl + Alt + T, or if that failed, Ctrl + Alt + F2 ?
I have never had a freeze where I could not get to a tty console terminal.

[farkas]

Thanks to all who replied!

Larry78723 » Wed Oct 13, 2021 4:45 am
With a machine that new, I recommend that you use the 5.11 kernel. Open Update Manager -> View -> Linux Kernels and select 5.11 in the left column then the top kernel in the right column. An install box will appear, click it. When install is done, REBOOT.

I was running the 5.11 kernel but for some reason it was causing long shutdowns.
viewtopic.php?f=47&t=356239&p=2061655#p2061655
I tried the 5.11 kernel again. The slow shutdown problem reappeared.

I'm using Pjotr's, Making the Grub boot menu permanently visible, to select which kernel to boot with.
https://easylinuxtipsproject.blogspot.c ... .html#ID10

I'll make a hard copy of JoeFootball's suggestion

Should you find yourself in a scenario where you cannot shutdown Linux normally, try this first. Holding down the Alt key, press SysRq (often shared with the PrtSc key), then separately r e i s u, and then o to Shutdown (or b to Reboot). This sequence should close your system cleanly.

Same for rickNS's

You say no keyboard, did you try Ctrl + Alt + T, or if that failed, Ctrl + Alt + F2 ?
I have never had a freeze where I could not get to a tty console terminal.

Just in case the problem reappears.