[ubuntu-uk] Does a hard shutdown actually damage anything?

[Rowan Berkeley]

On Fri, 2010-09-03 at 10:01:28 +0100, John Matthews <jakewc2 at sky.com>
wrote:
>   On 03/09/10 09:50, Rowan Berkeley wrote:
> > Hi,
> > Once again I lost my shutdown function; not only did shutdown vanish
> > from my main menu, but when I added the Session Indicator Applet to
> > the panel, the shutdown option on this did not work either; only the
> > user switcher option worked. Therefore, I had to shutdown by 
> > pressing and holding the power button. This being the second time 
> > this has happened, I should like to know, what are the dangers of 
> > doing a hard shutdown? Thanks, Rowan
>  
> This has happened to me on a couple of occasions, and not sure why.
> But I got around a hard shut down, by clicking on switching user, and
> on the sign in page, you have the option there in the right hand
> corner of restart, or shutting down and other options. At least mine
> does. As for the loss of the button, I did sudo aptitude update then
> sudo aptitude upgrade, and it seemed to bring the button and options
> back. Have no idea if it was the right thing to do, but that worked
> for me. John. 

On this last occasion I got to the sign in page (what I referred to as
the 'user switcher' above) and the shutdown from there didn't work
either. This suggests to me that it isn't just a matter of some
particular menu item, link, launcher or button pointing to the shutdown
sequence vanishing, it is the ability to shutdown itself, from anywhere
in the GUI, that vanishes. I shall certainly use "sudo shutdown -h now"
if/when it happens in future. Thanks to all.