I'm not that experienced with updating Linux kernels, but after reading that 4.10 had firmware improvements for my new laptop (intel Kaby Lake processor) I thought i'd give sparkys 4.11.2 kernel a try. The upgrade itself went well however programmes become unresponsive when trying to run them and the system fails to shutdown/reboot. For now i've gone back to the standard current kernel, but would like to get this one working, if possible.
Have you looked at your systemd logs? Digital ocean has some good pages about using journalctl. journalctl -b -1 | tail will give some info about the shutdown/reboot process of the last log.
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-use-journalctl-to-view-and-manipulate-systemd-logs
Thanks paxmark1, thats a great article and i've now setup persistent journal logging. I reinstalled the sparky-kernel and this is the journal output:
#8:01 - 8:02 seem to be only with this kernel?
-- Logs begin at Wed 2017-05-24 07:56:37 AEST, end at Wed 2017-05-24 08:10:48 AEST. --
May 24 07:56:37 metadog kernel: ACPI Error: [_UPC] Namespace lookup failure, AE_ALREADY_EXISTS (20170119/dswload-378)
May 24 07:56:37 metadog kernel: ACPI Exception: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, During name lookup/catalog (20170119/psobject-227)
May 24 07:56:37 metadog kernel: ACPI Exception: AE_ALREADY_EXISTS, (SSDT:xh_rvp11) while loading table (20170119/tbxfload-228)
May 24 07:56:37 metadog kernel: ACPI Error: 1 table load failures, 9 successful (20170119/tbxfload-246)
May 24 07:56:37 metadog kernel: nouveau 0000:01:00.0: priv: HUB0: 00d054 00000007 (19408216)
May 24 07:56:37 metadog kernel: nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DRM: Pointer to flat panel table invalid
May 24 07:56:37 metadog kernel: nouveau 0000:01:00.0: DRM: failed to create kernel channel, -22
May 24 07:56:37 metadog kernel: Error: Driver 'pcspkr' is already registered, aborting...
May 24 07:56:37 metadog avahi-daemon[585]: chroot.c: open() failed: No such file or directory
May 24 07:56:37 metadog bluetoothd[589]: Failed to obtain handles for "Service Changed" characteristic
May 24 07:56:37 metadog bluetoothd[589]: Sap driver initialization failed.
May 24 07:56:37 metadog bluetoothd[589]: sap-server: Operation not permitted (1)
May 24 07:56:39 metadog pulseaudio[1223]: [pulseaudio] pid.c: Daemon already running.
May 24 08:01:40 metadog console-kit-daemon[2098]: GLib-CRITICAL: Source ID 25 was not found when attempting to remove it
May 24 08:01:42 metadog console-kit-daemon[2098]: GLib-CRITICAL: Source ID 40 was not found when attempting to remove it
May 24 08:01:47 metadog console-kit-daemon[2098]: GLib-CRITICAL: Source ID 55 was not found when attempting to remove it
May 24 08:02:35 metadog kernel: INFO: task kworker/4:1:121 blocked for more than 120 seconds.
May 24 08:02:35 metadog kernel: Tainted: G E 4.11.2-sparky-amd64 #1
May 24 08:02:35 metadog kernel: "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message.
May 24 08:02:35 metadog kernel: INFO: task kworker/4:2:318 blocked for more than 120 seconds.
May 24 08:02:35 metadog kernel: Tainted: G E 4.11.2-sparky-amd64 #1
May 24 08:02:35 metadog kernel: "echo 0 > /proc/sys/kernel/hung_task_timeout_secs" disables this message.
May 24 08:03:40 metadog kernel: iwlwifi 0000:04:00.0: Failed to find station
May 24 08:03:40 metadog kernel: wlan0: failed to remove key (2, ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff) from hardware (-22)
I am not a kernel guru, I'm on 4.09. What was the specific journalctl command for your output? Beginning or end? For showing the last lines for a stalled or frozen shutdown also "journalctl -b -1 -r" will allow you more than the ten lines of "journaltctl -b -1 tail" - it scrolls. I am not sure what kworker does, oh it is a kernel function. Good Luck. I look at my logs a lot less after my not having a sid machine around.
# ok, it took a few days of tinkering but I can now run the latest sparky kernel (4.11.3).
Apart from fixing a few firmware issues, I found an entry in my syslog "nouveau 0000:01:00.0: unknown chipset (136000a1)". After a bit of research I tried adding "nouveau.modeset=0" to the GRUB options and voila! Hope this helps someone else in the same trouble..