[jbleisure]

Just as the title says. I select shut down , all the icons are cleared from the desktop and then it doesn't move from there. I just see the little 'waiting wheel' for hours if I'm patient enough.

Any ideas?

[onlyone-jc]

I've had it happen to me a few times on Tiger, but not repeatedly. I'm not sure what causes it. Try repairing permissions on the main volume using Disk Utility.

Good luck,
onlyone-jc.

[rem]

First, I'd check to see if any apps are not closing/responding. If so, close or if need be, force quit them. But normally if an app is not responding there is a timeout.

If that does not work, try "sudo shutdown -h now" from Terminal (making sure you save anything that needs saving first)

Or as a last resort, hold down the power button, which will force your Mac to power down without shutting down OS X.

If its still a persistent issue, here are some general things I would try:
. not starting up any 3rd party apps at login to test if some 3rd party app could be the culprit
. cleaning up user and system caches
. running fsck
. repairing permissions
. running hardware diagnostics

[jbleisure]

First, I'd check to see if any apps are not closing/responding. If so, close or if need be, force quit them. But normally if an app is not responding there is a timeout.
If that does not work, try "sudo shutdown -h now" from Terminal (making sure you save anything that needs saving first)
Or as a last resort, hold down the power button, which will force your Mac to power down without shutting down OS X.

If its still a persistent issue, here are some general things I would try:
. not starting up any 3rd party apps at login to test if some 3rd party app could be the culprit
. cleaning up user and system caches

. repairing permissions
. running hardware diagnostics

It's not apps not closing/responding

No 3rd party apps at login EXCEPT Quicksilver - am going to try that now.

I don't know terminal and any way I should be able to shut down the ***king computer without having to write in terminal
I have used the power button a few times for this
repaired multiple times
hardware fine