Parallels Desktop frequently hangs (Spinning Beachball; Application Not Responding)

Frequently, my Parallels lapse into the "spinning beachball of death" state where only resolution is to force quit Parallels altogether. It appears that the application hangs frequently when I am scrolling through Word documents, messages in my Inbox view of my Outlook and rows of data in Excel; however, there have been instances where the application hung with no interaction.

To eliminate any legacy issues, I have recently recreated a fresh install of my XP environment, but the issue persists.

I've set the memory on my 17" MBP (2.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo; 4GB RAM) to allocate approximately 2 GB toward Parallels and the video memory at 64 MB.

I have my XP Professional installed on Build 5608. Installed Windows applications are only MS Office 2007 Standard and Adobe Acrobat 8.

Surprisingly, I did not find too many recent posts of such frequent general failure. Please advise if any of you have encountered and resolved this.

 

Please, try the following:

1. Set memory for Virtual Machine to less than 1 GB
2. Perform Mac and Windows side disk defragmentation http://www.xvsxp.com/system/system_tools_defrag.php
3. Set Adjust memory limit from Auto to Manual at Parallels Desktop -Preferences-Memory, and set limit a bit more higher than VM memory
4. Disable Themes in Windows XP serives.msc stop Themes service
5. If you are running in Coherence, try to switch to Single Window, or lower Mac resolution
6. Some antivirus software can load CPU when Heuristic Prediction is set, or Tamper protection (Symantec, MacAffey), adjust settings to risk you are supposed, high security settings is not always good idea, as it can also affect software running
7. Run msconfig , and disable unneeded startup items
See http://www.netsquirrel.com/msconfig/msconfig_xp.html
8. Make sure that no VNC,or remote desktop connection is established to Mac, this can slowdown Parallels Desktop

 

I'll give this a try.

Thanks. I'll try your suggestions.

The XP install base is pretty bare with no Themes; however, I do have Kaspersky currently installed set only for Anti-Malware (equivalent of Anti-Virus function).

I'm beginning to think the issue is the resolution. My 17" runs at 1920 X 1200 and I also run my 30" Cinema Display at 2560 X 1600 at the office, so I assume running either Coherence or Full Screen mode will definitely tax Parallels.

I'll run at Single Screen mode at lower resolution to see if the issue is resolved.

 

What is the known screen resolution limitation for Parallels?

Is there a consensus or specification on how high a resolution Parallels can run with a given set of memory? Of course we need to take account of the multiple display settings as well.

 

Set 64 mb in case 1400x900

 

Failed to mention that eventually Parallels crashes

I set the resolution and memory lower, but the issue still persists and after few minutes of spinning beach ball, Parallels crashed.

I'm loading the most recent crash log. Please advise.

I've run the defrag on Windows and the disk appears healthy. On the Mac side, I've downloaded a trial version of iDefrag and it shows pretty significant number of fragments for the virtual machine files. I guess this is expected for large files even on journaled HFS+, but I wasn't aware that Mac side defrag was necessary for running VM. I will buy a full-version of iDefrag and run a full defragmentation tonight.

Thanks.

 

Hi, denpashonen
The Parallels crash is most probably caused by the multiple monitors usage
usually not more than 2 are supported (actually - not more than 1 video card)
If you wish to use more than 2, please, leave only 2 => start Parallels Desktop => attach other monitors

 

Yep. it looks like so, just leave one Monitor , start Parallels Desktop and later you can plug in others

 

The hang/crash occurs even when I do not use external monitor.
The hang/crash occurs also when I am running the VM under single window at a resolution of 960 X 600.

Also when I use the extra monitor at the office, I am restarting my MBP from shutdown state as I do not carry my computer in suspended mode during transit.

Further, we have four staff members at our office who is running similar environments under Parallels v3; however, their configurations are 14" MBP and 24" Cinema Displays. The issue occurs with them at a frequency of once a week as opposed to several times a day for my set-up. This lead me to believe that the cause is likely Parallels limitation to support high resolution (> 1400 X 900). I am the only one in the office with 17" MBP running at 1920 X 1200 on the host computer. I will add that about four other staff members with 14" MBP and either 24" or 30" Cinema Displays running VMWare Fusion v2 do not encounter this problem.

 

Just clarification:
You need to start Mac OS with only one monitor, try this please

 

Thanks for the suggestion. I have done so on multiple occasions but the issue persists.

 

I think issue is not in Parallels Desktop but in some graphic intensive application, which steal video memory, please try to recall what applications you are using , and disable screensaver on Mac and Windows

 

We run X11 on the host side to run Linux applications while running our virtual machines at our firm. As noted previously, I am the only one having numerous hangs per day so I fail to see if X11 is contributing to it as all other members of our firm run virtually the same set of applications.

I also realized that we also have two 24" iMacs also running Parallels Desktop 3 and do not exhibit the problem at the high frequency rate observed on my MBP. Since these are set at 1920 X 1200 resolution by default (same as my 17" MBP), I need to strike down the notion that Parallels is hanging due to the screen resolution setting.

I just finished defragmenting my Mac HD using iDefrag, albeit using its Quick On-line mode. I'll report back whether this solved my problem. I also plan to run a comprehensive defrag over the weekend.

I've always had my screen saver on my Windows set to take after some ridiculously long time (1000 minutes). Thus, effectively disabling it on my Windows XP.

Do I really need to disable my screen saver on my host side? I'm using one of the default screen savers (Nature Patterns, Cosmos) on my Leopard. I'll separately test if this is causing my problem, but I feel if Parallels Desktop is susceptible to hanging due to simple screen savers, I think the product is flawed. Screen savers that require password to regain access are also required by my company to run at the host for security reasons.

 

Parallels Desktop High Resolution Limitation

The issue appears to be limitation with Parallels Desktop's support for higher resolution display. SBBOD and crash is inevitable when I am using my 30" Cinema Display at the default resolution of 2560 X 1600. While the same issue do occur when I am using my 17" MBP at its default resolution of 1920 X 1200, it occurs at a rate of once-a-day as opposed to every hour on the Cinema Display. I had a copy of my XP virtual machine moved to a 15" MBP connected to 23" Cinema Display and it only "crashed" twice during the week.

I've now moved to Fusion as it appears to be stable for my display set-up. Please let me know if this limitation will be addressed on Parallels Desktop 4.

 

This is Video memory limitation, in upcoming version video memory limit will be increased in up to 4 times allowing resolution higher than 2560 X 1600
Just arithmetic in this case,

 

Udpate

I upgraded to PD 4. It's only been one full day, but the issue appear to have been resolved.

Like many other users who posted issues with upgrade in the last few days, my conversion was also problematic. Process halted for manual intervention and ultimately failed the first time. On my second attempt using backup of my PD 3 VM file, the installation was successful after I removed Parallel Tools along with Kaspersky Internet Security that was installed previously on my Win XP SP3.

 

I get the beach ball once or twice a day on PD4 build 3522. It's prl_client_app that hangs. I'm using 128MB for video memory. I'm going to try using more memory and one CPU, see if that makes any difference.

The odd thing is that after I force quit and then restart ||, my VM comes back up instantly where it hung. When I try to shut down from Windows, things are hung up and can't do it. However, if I use the Shut Down button in the || toolbar, Windows shuts down gracefully.

Here's the beginning of the crash log:

------------------------------------------------

Date/Time: 2008-11-18 10:53:25 -0500
OS Version: 10.5.5 (Build 9F33)
Architecture: i386
Report Version: 4

Command: Parallels Desktop
Path: /Applications/Parallels Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_client_app
Version: 4.0 (3522.205912)
Build Version: 4.0.3522.205912
Project Name: Parallels
Source Version: 3522.205912
Parent: launchd [172]

PID: 307
Event: hang
Time: 10.14s
Steps: 67


Process: prl_client_app [307]
Path: /Applications/Parallels Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_client_app

ADDRESS BINARY
00001000 /Applications/Parallels Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_client_app
00e67000 /usr/lib/libpam.1.dylib
00e76000 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/libQtXml.4.dylib
00ef3000 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/libQtOpenGL.4.dylib
00f73000 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/libQtGui.4.dylib
018a3000 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/libQtNetwork.4.dylib
01972000 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/libQtCore.4.dylib
01bc3000 /System/Library/Components/AppleScript.component/Contents/MacOS/AppleScript
01e00000 /System/Library/CoreServices/Encodings/libTraditionalChineseConverter.dylib
01e16000 /System/Library/CoreServices/Encodings/libSimplifiedChineseConverter.dylib
01ed1000 /Library/InputManagers/1PasswdIM/1PasswdIM.bundle/Contents/MacOS/1PasswdIM
01fee000 /Library/ScriptingAdditions/Adobe Unit Types.osax/Contents/MacOS/Adobe Unit Types
136f0000 /usr/local/lib/libprl_sdk.dylib
17bb0000 /System/Library/Components/DictionaryService.component/Contents/MacOS/DictionaryService
17e4f000 /Library/QuickTime/DivX Decoder.component/Contents/MacOS/DivX Decoder
17ecf000 /Library/QuickTime/DivX 6 Decoder.component/Contents/MacOS/DivX 6 Decoder
17f31000 /Library/QuickTime/Elgato Turbo.component/Contents/MacOS/Elgato Turbo
1834d000 /Library/QuickTime/Elgato Turbo.component/Contents/Resources/EyeTV MPEG Support.component/Contents/MacOS/EyeTV MPEG Support
1959b000 /System/Library/CoreServices/RawCamera.bundle/Contents/MacOS/RawCamera
1a97c000 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/AppleScript.framework/Versions/A/AppleScript
ba900000 /System/Library/CoreServices/Encodings/libJapaneseConverter.dylib
bab00000 /System/Library/CoreServices/Encodings/libKoreanConverter.dylib