Ubuntu 14.04 wont shutdown or reboot

Confirmed to be a bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/upstart/+bug/1174272 The solution using sudo shutdown -r 0 to reboot, and sudo shutdown -h now to shut down, worked around it. It seems to be getting some attention now.

For others with this problem, I was experiencing the same thing. I didn't even have to try this (which was my "okay, i'll deal with it this way" option).

After a Google search I found another solution, which is to go into /usr/share/dbus-1/system-services and rename the file org.freedesktop.ModemManager1.service to anything else. I called mine thisfilebreaksmycomputer.service. I had to sudo the mv command to do this.

Upon renaming I was able to successfully shut down and boot up without any issues!