Comment 8 for bug 618786

The suggested workaround is effective, but just for that specific session.

During shutdown, the text console appears briefly, and then the Plymouth shutdown graphic screen stays on with the dots "counting" down until power off. This has always been the behaviour on shutdown since a fresh 10.04 install with the stock KDE 4.4.x coming with the Kubuntu CD ISO.

No
[..]
mount: / is busy
[..]
can be seen in the brief flash of the text console.
No trace of an unclean shutdown on reboot, ext3 loads clean immediately.

BUT a subsequent shutdown/restart cycle brings back to the same scenario.

No Plymouth graphic shutdown "countdown", only text console output, and the
[..]
mount: / is busy
[..]
is back, with an ext3 recovery on the next boot.

Does that help pinpointing where the problem lies?