There are stopped jobs. You have started a job by issuing a command and have then "stopped" the command from executing and placed it in the background using the key sequence Ctrl-z . Start the job again by typing fg and pressing the <Return> key. Quit the job or wait until it has finished. Try to logout again. Example . If you have several stopped jobs, you will have to go through this procedure for each one before you are able to logout. Not login shell. ...