Windows is very sluggish

Hello I have exactly the same problems and so far no help from Parallels. My system: Parallels 15.1.2 - iMac, MacOS Mojave, 3.1 GHz i5, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB Fusion Drive. For 4 months I have also started from an external SSD 1 TB.
My only "bad" solution: I have now a external Samsung SSD 1000 GB increased, Windows.pvm copied to it and see there Windows starts in 22 sec and the entire Windows system environment runs so much better. But that can not be the solution and I want to control everything from the internal hard drive. But the error is definitely not on the installed Windows system.
 
I think this has something to do with Parallels networking. I noticed that when I have issues with parallels some of my Mac OS applications that use network may freeze. I.e. - when Parallels freezes, Safari may also freeze, then both unfreeze after a timeout or cause the computer to crash, which happened only once thought. Also when I use applications that require network on Windows, like git, they also may freeze for a minute.
 
ArtistW said:
My only "bad" solution: I have now a external Samsung SSD 1000 GB increased, Windows.pvm copied to it and see there Windows starts in 22 sec and the entire Windows system environment runs so much better. But that can not be the solution and I want to control everything from the internal hard drive. But the error is definitely not on the installed Windows system.
Click to expand...
I think this is a different problem, because on my mac Windows starts quickly, I do not observer any delay in windows starting. It is when I try to use some applications, like git, Windows Explorer, or Visual Studio, it may freeze for a minute. Sometimes the entire VM stopps responding, sometimes, just that one window.
 
OK. I am done with Parallels. Installed Fusion. With two cores per VM my project compiles ~2:45 seconds on Parallels. On Fusion it takes just ~1:50 seconds. With 4 cores Fusion compiles it in ~1:25 seconds. Whoever said Parallels is faster is lying. Parallels is at least 1.5 times slower compared to Fusion.

But I must admit they have very good marketing. The only reason I choose Parallels without trying anything else is because it was sent to me free of charge with a new MacBook Pro that I purchased in 2015. Since then I paid them at least $200 in upgrade money hoping it will fix OS issues. Now I am done with tis. Enough is enough.
 
Hi, please check if proper permissions are provided for Parallels Desktop on Mac System Preferences.
Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Parallels Desktop should be added under 'Accessibility', 'Full Disk Access' and 'Files & Folders'.
 
Abhishek@Parallels said:
Hi, please check if proper permissions are provided for Parallels Desktop on Mac System Preferences.
Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Parallels Desktop should be added under 'Accessibility', 'Full Disk Access' and 'Files & Folders'.
Click to expand...
I used Parallels for 4 years. It certainly does have those checkboxes. It would not even start without those permissions.
 
I had this same problem for the past couple months. No amount of tuning the Windows 10 VMs would make them responsive. I just discovered that the root cause is identified here: https://forum.parallels.com/threads/high-cpu-usage-due-to-bsdtar-process.348187/ . If you have Parallels Toolbox for Mac running, it keeps a log file on the Mac in ~/Library/Logs/ParallelsToolbox (~/Library means /Users/your-user-name/Library). It appears that toolbox periodically launches a bsdtar process to archive the log files in this directory, and something causes these processes to hang with high CPU usage. You can quickly get several of these running, all stuck but sucking up CPU cycles. In my case, I believe the cause was improper permissions on the ~/Library directory (no read/execute permission for group or other). I had about 8 of these processes running. I used Activity Monitor to stop them and suddenly my Windows VMs ran at full speed. I've changed the permissions on ~/Library to rwxr-xr-x (with group 'staff'). I don't know yet if this will stop future bsdtar processes from hanging, but I'll keep an eye on it.
 
Hello,

I have this problem too and I tried several things. At the moment my Windows VM runs smooth and I hope it will stay so. I disabled the Spotlight search for the directory where the VM (.pvm) ist stored. Maybe PD writes in the .pvm file (which is about 150 GB) every time when you open a window or type something and Spotlight will index the .pvm file because the file has changed. In my setup the hdd of the VM ist self-inflating, maybe this could also be a reason.
Please try this advice and give response here in the forum if it works or not.

Johann
 
Is it possible to get good performance by installing the Parallels application on the Fusion drive, but put the actual VMs on an external SSD drive?
 
Hello jimcoyle , yes that also helped me. Now I have my entire system on an external SSD (Samsung SSD 1TB) and I also start the Mac from it. Everything is much faster now.
 
JohannB2 said:
Hello,

I have this problem too and I tried several things. At the moment my Windows VM runs smooth and I hope it will stay so. I disabled the Spotlight search for the directory where the VM (.pvm) ist stored. Maybe PD writes in the .pvm file (which is about 150 GB) every time when you open a window or type something and Spotlight will index the .pvm file because the file has changed. In my setup the hdd of the VM ist self-inflating, maybe this could also be a reason.
Please try this advice and give response here in the forum if it works or not.

Johann
Click to expand...


Thanks a lot! It helped me!
 
After restarting W10 VM, after 24 hours coming back from sleep it will just keep random freezing up to 30 seconds at a time.
 
I FINALLY SOLVED THIS ON MY VM! Hopefully this post helps someone else. I tried turning off TRIM, Antivirus, Firewall, etc, but it didn't work for me.

The issue for me was the new APFS file format. I regularly "duplicate" my Parallels VM in case it gets screwed up. But did you ever notice duplicating a 150 GB file on an APFS drive takes only 5 seconds? This is because APFS only copies the differences and keeps track of the differences between the files as time goes on.

Now what do you think happens if you do a backup every week, and the files slowly get VERY different? The file system gets slower and slower until your VM starts freezing whenever it has to do I/O.

I tested my theory and copied the full VM off to an external HDD, then copied to back to my Mac to make sure there were no APFS links to the previous versions of the files. NOW IT'S SO FAST IT'S AS IF I JUST RE-INSTALLED WINDOWS 10!!!
 
My slowdown seems to be directly related to the Antimalware Service Executable program running, which cannot be disabled. Any thoughts on this?
 
Try preventing Spotlight from searching the location of you Parallels VM.
Open System Preferences » Spotlight » Privacy and add the Parallels folder to the list.
 
daniel.rutten said:
Try preventing Spotlight from searching the location of you Parallels VM.
Open System Preferences » Spotlight » Privacy and add the Parallels folder to the list.
Click to expand...
Just saw JohannB2's response ... I can confirm that this solved the problem for me too. It happened very time after a big Windows update.
 
I had all these issues and tried all the solutions. The issue for me was the new Apple APFS file format for SSDs. I was regularly duplicating the VM in case it got corrupted, but the problem was that APFS only copies the differences in the files. As time goes on, these differences get larger and cause the VM to run slower and slower. Because I made a copy each week, the number of changes that APFS had to keep track of must have been enormous.

Solution:
1. Copy the VM to an external HDD.
2. Delete the VM from the SSD.
3. Copy the VM back to the SSD from the external HDD.
For me everything immediately went like greased lightning afterward. 3 months later I have absolutely no problems.
 
Just a note to my previous post. The 3 steps breaks the link between the old backups and the latest version of the VM. APFS no longer has to keep track of the file differences, so Parallels then runs fast.
 
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