I cant restart or shut down

everytime i click shutdown, restart or log off it does nothing. i need to restart to update some applications??
are there any free programs that may help?

Is it just taking a while to shut down or is it completely frozen?

Worst case scenario, you can save all of your information, be sure anything important is backed up, then just cut the power by pulling the AC cord and/or battery out.

When it restarts, try running some of the troubleshooting steps in the Sticky Thread.

it does nothing, the computer just keeps running as if i hadnt clicked on it at all.

anyone?

First up reset the SMC as set out in this Apple link:-

Apple Portables: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)

Make sure you update your Macbook direct from the Apple web site using the X.5.6 combo updater:-

Mac OS X 10.5.6 Combo Update

i have tried the above but i still cant restart or shutdown
will repairing disk permissions help?

Looks like you are in for a trip to your Apple dealer. Be armed beforehand from the following links. Many Macbooks appear to be having this problem even if they act like they no nothing about this:-

Brand new macbook will not shut down - Mac Forums

Macworld: macbook won't shutdown or restart ...

Apple - Support - Discussions - Unable to Shut Down, Restart, Log Out ...


You can try setting up a new user account and see if there is any improvement. By chance as mentioned in the last link, did you transfer anything across from a PPC machine? There is some thought Intel machines handle things differently from PPC's, and there may well be a conflict in the preference files.

whats a ppc?
it still isnt restarting...
help?

PPC = Power PC (Pre-Intel Macs)

By chance did you install Parallels and VMware Fusion? I had Parallels for a while then switched to Fusion. After a Fusion update I started having the same problem. I needed to delete the Parallels start up items in order to get the shutdown and restart functions back.

It may also be related to other apps, but I can only speak of my experience.