Shutdown timer no longer appears

[emarkay]

Binary package hint: gshutdown

The former 60 second timeout to autoshutdown Ubuntu has apparently been removed.
I do not recall this noted as an upcoming change to the OS.

If this is intended, please confirm, and if not please investigate.

This is in an updated Lucid Beta 1 Intel 32bit as of today.

May also be related to the "About" of thew shutdown button, which is:
Indicator Applet Session 0.3.4

Ubuntu Forum post:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1438847

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

I'm not confirming the issue here, it works fine for me. Does it work on a guest session?

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Oh, I think I misunderstood you. I thought you meant that you no longer see the confirmation at all, but that's not the case. Yes, the timer is gone, but I'm not sure if that's a design decision or not

[lavinog (lavinog)]

Looking at the source of gtk-logout-helper.c from indicator-session-0.2.7:
in session_action():
--------------------------------
if (action == LOGOUT_DIALOG_TYPE_LOG_OUT) {
  res = dbus_g_proxy_call_with_timeout (sm_proxy, "Logout", INT_MAX, &error,
             G_TYPE_UINT, 1, G_TYPE_INVALID, G_TYPE_INVALID);
 } else if (action == LOGOUT_DIALOG_TYPE_SHUTDOWN) {
  res = dbus_g_proxy_call_with_timeout (sm_proxy, "RequestShutdown", INT_MAX, &error,
             G_TYPE_INVALID, G_TYPE_INVALID);
 } else if (action == LOGOUT_DIALOG_TYPE_RESTART) {
  res = dbus_g_proxy_call_with_timeout (sm_proxy, "RequestReboot", INT_MAX, &error,
             G_TYPE_INVALID, G_TYPE_INVALID);
-----------------------------------
why use dbus_g_proxy_call_with_timeout () if there isn't supposed to be a timeout?

I did notice that there was a switch to use dialog.c instead of logout-dialog.c where logout-dialog.c sets the timeout value and dialog.c doesn't.

The only thing in the changelog is for 0.2.5:
    * New logout dialogs.

What was this change for?

[dino99 (9d9)]

if i remember, sometimes ago there was a lot of people begging for a faster start and stop, and crying about these so long timers, so now it's perfect.

[Ted Gould (ted)]

Yes, this is by design. Basically, if the dialogs come up fast enough
it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to have them count down as
well. People will see and respond to them. Thanks for noticing.

  status wontfix

[Dylan McCall (dylanmccall)]

Ted, I don't really follow that rationale. Did adding the timer have a significant hit on the time it took for the dialog to appear that it justifies removing a subtle backup strategy (which is, in the case of turning off an enormous, power-hogging machine before going on a month long vacation, actually extremely useful) and diverging further from upstream?

I probably have some bias here, but I think appearing quickly is only half of the issue in a confirmation dialog like this being noticed. It also has to appear in the right place, which for this dialog is debatable. On a big HD screen, for example, the confirmation dialog is a world apart from the menu by which the user chose to shut down. For some users, that does make a significant difference.

If what Dino99 says was a major issue, I'm happier, but otherwise I think this fluctuation is a bit odd.

[Ted Gould (ted)]

The timer always posed a bunch of issues. One of which was with the
text in the dialog, which was in another bug. But, also with how the
behavior of dialog should be.

Should the dialog make the whole OS modal? That seems a bit heavy
handed, but the results of not clicking on it in time could be
disastrous. So then maybe it should always stay on top, but not be
universally modal? Well, how do we then convey that this dialog looks
like every other dialog except one really big difference?

Now, it's a normal dialog. It looks and behaves like every other dialog
you see in the system. If you want to quickly close Firefox or send
that last e-mail you can do that before clicking "Okay". No unsuspected
effects.

I don't think that this is perfect, but I don't think the other answers
are either. I seriously doubt someone clicks on the menu and gets so
far away from their computer that they don't notice that it's not
shutting down for vacation.

And yes, dino99 is correct there are bugs on the timers as well.
Though, I'm not sure that should be a measure of whether something is
usable or not -- we have bugs on lots of crazy things ;)

[Dylan McCall (dylanmccall)]

Got it. Thanks for the explanation, Ted. I'm happy with where it is now :)

(And indeed, we seem to have a lot of stuff just waiting for some kind of super window manager in order to become awesome. The day somebody cracks that nut will be a great one indeed).

[Bradly Wilson (mocoloco)]

Not trying to be facetious but I actually did go on vacation for 4 days only to come back and find the computer still on, due to this change :D That's what happens when using beta software, so no complaints.

I personally dislike the idea of a second dialog at all; it doesn't provide any additional options regarding shutting down (since those are already in the same drop-down). It seems reasonable that clicking "shut down" would cause the computer to do just that. My personal preference aside, I do understand the reasoning to allow for people to reverse effects of accidental clicks. The countdown was a good compromise to allow for both. That's how KDE still handles it.
As far as the dilemma of making the OS modal, I don't see that as an issue since the user has already clicked "shut down", so whether or not they see the dialog they should expect an action to occur, and in the case of accidental clicks, be on the lookout for the dialog to negate the action.

Please consider these points. Either way, at least for the time being I know it was an intentional change and not an oversight.

[Hellenion (hellenion)]

personally, I loved the countdown timer. It's very useful, I often shut down the computer before realizing I needed to send that last important e-mail or something similar, with the timer, I could walk away, and if necessary, come back before it had finished.

Since most users aren't as forgetful as me, allowing the countdown timer changed according to user preferences would save a lot of annoyed comments to revert it back once again. perhaps users could decide for themselves whether or not to force the dialog on top.

[lavinog (lavinog)]

A couple of my family members liked the timer for the same reason Hellenion mentioned.
It would seem that allowing the user to configure this behaviour would be the best way to go about this even if it is only configurable with gconf.

[MarcNagels (marcnagels)]

I agree with Hellion and lavinog. I actually found the timer thoughtful design. It was one the features that I liked the most since switching from windows. It would be great if users could themselves decide whether to countdown or not.

Please leave us the option to tweak this feature.

I don't think we ask for a 'fully modal OS'. The shutdown dialog has a particular status as it defines the future of the system as a whole and should not be generalized. Having a different recognizable dialog makes thus sense (for me)... with a countdown. :)

[Stefan Brozinski (stefan-brozinski)]

Why has this been set to "won't fix" so fast? The ongoing discussion about this issue clearly shows that different people have different preferences. So the most logical choice seems to make the behavior configurable:

- No confirmation dialog at all (i.e. shut down immediately)
- A confirmation dialog with an adjustable countdown
- A confirmation dialog without countdown (as it's today in Lucid)

[Stefan Brozinski (stefan-brozinski)]

I have just discovered that the dialog can already be switched off (option "apps/indicator-session/suppress_logout_restart_shutdown" in gconf-editor). So it's just the timer option that is missing.

[Kemel Zaidan aka Legendario (kemelzaidan)]

Please, open the bug again, at least as a enhancement suggestion. I also thought it was useful

[alcarola (alcarola)]

I would also like to configure the dialog to have a timer. Thanks!

[Ned Burgher (netburgher)]

I'd like to have this feature back. It worked the way I do. That is, when I click "shutdown," that's what I mean to do... 9 times out of 10. It was refreshing not being second-guessed with the "are you sure" dialog. And for that 1 time out of 10? The 60-second grace period was perfect.

I feel a bit uncomfortable putting it in these terms but, the 9.04 way of handling a shutdown was more... respectful of the user.

Regardless, thank you for the work you do on the desktop. Ubuntu is a much more pleasant computing experience than some other, more popular options and the desktop has a lot to do with it.

[cometdog (ericctharley)]

I also liked the timer -- it served a purpose that provided genuine usability advantages.

Choose shutdown once and then leave. If you realize within 60 sec that you really wanted to do something else on the computer, you can cancel the shutdown. This way you don't have to confirm the shutdown if you don't want to (having to confirm is just irritating -- I just told the computer to shut down, right?), but it gives you a grace period in case you forgot something.

The shutdown confirmation dialog does not accomplish this. It is actually a usability problem. Nobody sees the confirmation dialog and then sits and tries to figure out whether they really need to do something else before shutting down. It is just an box that one quickly gets trained to click on without thinking. And once one is trained to do so, then it serves absolutely no purpose and would be better if absent.

There could be a valid reason for this design decision, but the reason stated by Tim Gould (who changed to "won't fix") is not a valid reason.
>Basically, if the dialogs come up fast enough
>it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to have them count down as
>well. People will see and respond to them.
This is invalid because it doesn't indicate an understanding of genuine usability issues which support the countdown timer on the shutdown / logout confirmation dialog.

[Vendent (vendent)]

I also liked the timer. I found this thread looking for a way to have a delayed shutdown in Ubuntu. I liked it because it would give a minute for my video card to cool down after reaching high temps. If you are heading to bed after playing a game, most people aren't going to wait for the electronics to cool off. This break gave a short time for the temperature to drop before the fans quit. When the fans quit, the box gets hotter.

[barbablu (steven.barbaglia)]

+1 for re-instatement of timeout, even better if configurable

[handsofstone (bjdowd)]

I too really miss this feature. As already mentioned, the delayed shutdown was a really useful feature i.e you can cancel shutdown if you've just remembered to do something, not having to click to confirm (which is a backward step IMHO). Is there a way to port the code from 09.10?

[JD Evora (jdevora-saadian)]

I just upgraded to 10.4 and the count down is one of the things that I miss.

One click and it will eventually shut down.

Any chance to make it configurable?

[June Oh (me-juneoh)]

I too would be very grateful for the revival of this feature.
I lost my laptop's battery last night because I forgot to press 'Yes' on the shutdown prompt.. so it stayed running until it's battery became critically low.
My other OS, Windows 7 turns off automatically after I press shutdown, without any prompts.

I believe it would be more 'morally correct' to let users decide on this feature in the on the power options.

[matthewschellenberg (matthewschellenberg)]

Please please bring back the shutdown timer! I don't see how anyone can claim that the confirmation prompt is any better than the timer. With the timer you click once and walk away! And yes, that 1 out of 10 times I forget something, I really appreciate that I can cancel. I will never suppress logout_restart_shutdown! I love the timer! Bring it back!

[Olivier Godart (olivier-godart-oracle)]

Hello,
It happens that I ask my laptop to shutdown and then close the screen too fast so I don't see the shutdown confirmation dialog.
The problem is that it's very irritating when I wake up the morning after and see that my computer stayed awake all the night just because that timer feature has been disabled!
I happened also to take it from my backpack with the battery empty or having been switched off because of overheating!

Please, revert the shutdown timer feature, with a configuration option (the length of time in seconds, with 0 for "no confirmation" and -1 for "no timer").

Thanks

[Miku Laitinen (miku-laitinen-gmail)]

+1. I miss the timer for the same reason as Hellenion.

[Gurmeet (gurmeet1109)]

Can we do like this:

1. Default case :
           - Display and start timer and look for click events.
           - Proceed for shutdown if time elapsed < 30 seconds && user clicks on timer
           - Proceed for shutdown if time elapsed > 30 seconds

2. Alternate Case 1 :
          - User clicks on cancel and timer gets disabled. System returns to session.

3. Alternate Case 2 : Broadcast required. Case when no. of logged in users > 1
         - Another logged in user (through another X-Session or terminal (ssh) initiates shutdown.
         - Display message and proceed to shutdown after 30 s (or whatever interval was specified at shutdown command)

[Maurice Colon (maurice-colon)]

I remember the first time I saw this feature. I really thought it was God's way of showing us he loves us, like letting mankind have beer, snowboarding, Linux and sex. Now I'm running my eight year old Vaio on Ubuntu 10.10 and saw in the first shutdown that the 60 second countdown has disappeared. I wonder what I have done to make the Gods unhappy? Too much sex? Um, no. Too much beer? Nope. Too much Linux? I hope not. Too much snowboarding? Nooooooooooooooo Pleaaaaaaaaaaaase God! Why do you mock me?????!?

[ssfc72 (bill-hopkins)]

Please bring back an optional delayed shutdown.

Thanks

[sem (semitones)]

Hello,

Could you reconsider the -wontfix designation?

As people have said here more eloquently than I can, there is room for more than one way of shutting down. I for one really liked the timer because I'd often walk away without realizing my desktop was still on at the dialog screen. I found this bug report searching for a way to re-enable it.

Even as a switch in gconf that people could go in and enable.
Thanks.

[sem (semitones)]

Also think of all the electricity that could be saved if the timer were brought back. You are actually harming the planet with your 'wontfix'

[mujaheddin (mujaheddin)]

pinging this for our planet. And for saving our battery.