With the testing package, I managed to reproduce the issue one more time and the journal had: Dec 07 18:59:39 linux-bzg2 systemd[1]: session-1.scope: Stopping timed out. Killing. Dec 07 18:59:39 linux-bzg2 systemd[1]: session-1.scope: ksmserver ignored TERM signal, killed. Dec 07 18:59:39 linux-bzg2 systemd[1]: session-1.scope changed stop-sigterm -> stop-sigkill Dec 07 18:59:39 linux-bzg2 systemd[1]: Received SIGCHLD from PID 1883 (ksmserver). Dec 07 18:59:39 linux-bzg2 systemd[1]: Child 1883 (ksmserver) died (code=killed, status=9/KILL) Dec 07 18:59:39 linux-bzg2 systemd[1]: session-1.scope: Child 1883 belongs to session-1.scope Dec 07 18:59:39 linux-bzg2 systemd[1]: session-1.scope: cgroup is empty Dec 07 18:59:39 linux-bzg2 systemd[1]: session-1.scope changed stop-sigkill -> failed Dec 07 18:59:39 linux-bzg2 systemd[1]: session-1.scope: Job session-1.scope/stop finished, result=done Dec 07 18:59:39 linux-bzg2 systemd[1]: Stopped Session 1 of user fbui. Dec 07 18:59:39 linux-bzg2 systemd[1]: session-1.scope: Unit entered failed state. This confirms that ksmserver is the hanging process that seems to fail to handle the TERM signal properly in my case.