Installation of Parallels 7 causes catastrophic failure.

J

JuiceD

Member
Downloading the trail install from the website and installing it onto my new Mac Pro causes OS X Lion to give a massive screen dump of kernel panics and then on reboot OS X Lion continues to boot into Kernel Panics and can not be booted into safe mode.

The only way to recover the machine is to format the hard drive and fresh install of OS X Lion.

After which you attempt to install Parallels 7 and it happens all over again.

Any one got any ideas on this? or what information I can provide to try and track down what its beef is with my new Mac Pro.
 
I have a MacBook Air as well (that runs parallels amazingly) so that shouldnt be a problem.

But I will state my Mac pro has 128gb of ram. Is that a problem for parallels?
 
JuiceD,

we are known to run successfully on Mac with host RAM = 64GB but I do not have results of 128GB. So your hypothesis looks quite natural. Please could you help us to check this?

1) Please, limit host RAM and try executing. sudo nvram boot-args="maxmem=64". sudo reboot. Try running a VM. Do not forget to reset this limitation after the check (sudo nvram boot-args="")

2) Please, limit the memory usage of Parallels on host. "prlsrvctl set --mem-limit 63". Try running a VM.

Your feedback is very helpful.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
 
I got to hand it to you, you guys are the masters of killing my Mac Pro.

So it really didn't like those commands, did not let me back into OS X, just sits there with a spin wheel. In fact, I can't do any thing now.

I cant get into recovery mode, I can't boot into safe mode and I can't boot into a Lion USB Installer I created.

I've taken the 3rd party ram out and put in the stock 6gb that it came with.

Still can't boot into any Apple Operating system of any sort.

Thanks.

Please advise next step.
 
JuiceD,

Sorry for inconvenience.

Unfortunately, it's not quite clear if the problem appears after 1st step or after the 2nd one.

I'd assume the first one is more likely.

maxmem boot-arg flag is an original Apple flag to limit the amount of host RAM visible to OS. Unfortunately we cannot influence on Mac interpreting of this flag, I have no ideas why OS hangs on start.

In order to remove flags and return your machine to the original state you should reset NVRAM (that stores boot-args, panic.logs and some other service startup information) as it is described in the article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379.
Please use the specified combination.

Let me know whether it helps.
 
From what I've read via google.

that command is in MEGAbytes, so it throttled the Mac Pro back to 64mb of RAM.

Understandable that 10.7 spins its tyres in the mud with 64mb of RAM.

So a ALT-CMD-P-R flashes those settings are I've made it back into OSX on the stock 6gb of RAM and Desktop 7 installs fine and is happy.

I am now going to reboot with 128GB of RAM, physically.
 
Ok back online in OS X and limited to 62.5 GB of ram and Mac Desktop 7 works fine.

I guess it really dosent like 128GB of RAM for whatever reason.
 
Thank you for your results!

Please could you submit us a report that contains more details regarding host configuration for us to investigate the issue in-house?

In order to do this: Help->Report a problem; send a report; post the report ID in this thread.

I'll update you with status
 
Done:

Support ID:12499075

Thank you for your assistance, I have to go sleep now as its about to hit midnight here in Australia.
 
Oh yeah and this is might be some helpful information

Parallels 6, works fine with 128GB
Parallels 7, No go with 128GB
 
JuiceD said:
Ok back online in OS X and limited to 62.5 GB of ram and Mac Desktop 7 works fine.

I guess it really dosent like 128GB of RAM for whatever reason.
Click to expand...

I would disagree with this statement. I have new MBA 11" (128GB SSD) that I bought about 6 weeks ago. On it I've installed Parallels 7 along with Win7 and I can state it runs great. Much better than earlier versions of Parallels that I've used in the past. Very snappy performance. After using it for the limited time, I've decided to sell my 15" MBP.

The only major program I've installed so far is MS Office. Along with a few other small programs, my MBA reports it still has 99GB free. Works for me.

Disclaimer: I haven't tried to print anything yet, but I assume that would work also.
 
Last edited:
We are talking about SYSTEM RAM not Hard Drive Space.

The install is currently sitting on a 480GB SSD from OWC.

My Macbook Air has a 340GB SSD from OWC.

This is about Parallels 7 crashing on machines with 128GB of System Ram.
 
Trefptyc said:
JuiceD,

we are known to run successfully on Mac with host RAM = 64GB but I do not have results of 128GB. So your hypothesis looks quite natural. Please could you help us to check this?

1) Please, limit host RAM and try executing. sudo nvram boot-args="maxmem=64". sudo reboot. Try running a VM. Do not forget to reset this limitation after the check (sudo nvram boot-args="")

2) Please, limit the memory usage of Parallels on host. "prlsrvctl set --mem-limit 63". Try running a VM.

Your feedback is very helpful.

Looking forward to hearing from you.
Click to expand...


I'm shocked and appalled that someone at Parallels made such stupid mistake by giving actual instructions to limit their RAM to 64 MB instead of 64 GB. When you give instructions for someone to follow you really have to be very, very thorough.
Trefptyc doesn't even apologize for the huge mistake.
This is not acceptable.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Core dump preparing

JuiceD said:
I can't see internal articles?
Click to expand...
JuiceD,

sorry for inconvenience.

please find below instructions regarding core dump collection

To collect core dump you will need one more Mac connected to the one that experiences Kernel Panics. Here are instructions on how to collect Core Dump and upload it to our FTP share.

To get core dumps from the Mac that experiences Kernel Panics, you will need to enable this Mac to send core-dumps to the Kernel Core Dump Server and use a second Mac as a Kernel Core Dump Server on the same network. Each Mac should be connected with the Ethernet cable.

1. Second Mac (Core Dump Server) should be configured this way:

Open Terminal application (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal ) and insert following commands one by one and after each one press Return.
NOTE: You will be asked for your password, but you will not see it while typing for security reasons.

sudo mkdir /PanicDumps
sudo chown root:wheel /PanicDumps
sudo chmod 1777 /PanicDumps
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.kdumpd.plist

2. The Mac which crashes should be configured this way:

2.1. Open Terminal application (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal )

2.2. Use the following command to enable kernel core dumps:
sudo nvram boot-args="debug=0xd44 _panicd_ip=your_kdump_server_ip_address"

NOTE2: 'your_kdump_server_ip_address' should be replaced with the IP address of the Mac configured as Kernel Core Dump Server For example, if your second Mac has the IP 192.168.0.10 the command will look like this:

sudo nvram boot-args="debug=0xd44 _panicd_ip=192.168.0.10"

NOTE3: You will be asked to enter your password as well.

2.3. Reboot the Mac which crashes to activate the previous command.

After reproducing panic on the crashing Mac, you will see a progress on sending dump to the server (white dots on black background). Please do not interrupt the process.

3. As soon as the crashed Mac reboots, the core dump could be found in the directory Macintosh HD -> PanicDumps on your second Mac serving as Kernel Core Dump Server.
It would be large enough, so you cannot send it via e-mail or attach to the support ticket.

Please follow instructions described in the below mentioned KB article to upload the dump to our server using below mentioned FTP share:
KB article: http://kb.parallels.com/en/9082
FTP share: http://fe.parallels.com/1433c3529cf87eae6d12fae4103077a4

After crash dump was uploaded and there is no need to use second Mac as Kernel Core Dump Server, you can disable crash dump service with the following command:
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.kdumpd.plist

Please kindly provide us with requested information if possible, we are looking forward to your reply.
 
Sorry for my long delay, I wanted to enjoy my mac a bit more before I crashed it again.

I have the dump, can you please create another ftp directory for me so I can upload it.

Thank you.

*edit*

Also how long am I ment to let this thing dump for? its been going for hours and the file size is up to 1.7gb
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top