Sleep problems persist with GA

Discussion in 'Parallels Desktop for Mac' started by MatthewR, Jun 23, 2006.

  1. MatthewR

    MatthewR Member

    Messages:
    45
    I started with beta 4 and used every public build from there onwards. In every version sleep has had a severe problem, at least sometimes. In the early betas, the VM would die and never come back to life after a sleep. In beta6 and RC1, that was solved, but only by making the Mac never sleep. Upon attempt to sleep, it would always fail to write the safe-sleep image and then just kinda die at some point while the lifd is shut (perhaps theral overload shutdown?). Finally, RC2 appeared to fix this nasty problem and I thought all may be well.

    Fast forward to now, the GA is out and my trial key, which said it will be expiring today, has expired today in that it DOES NOT WORK. When it says its valid through this day, I expect it to work on this day, but apperently that license validity range is exclusive rather than inclusive of the last day listed. So, here I sit on a work day without a working VM and mulling whether I dare buy a license. The Ga WAS working fine, but then as of a few days ago it no longer does. The sleep death is back, so I must suspend the VM and exit PD before I allow the Mac to sleep, else I loose EVERYTHING I'm working on and not just whats in the VM. No big deal on a power plug, but if I'm on battery and anyone interrupts me, I'm forced to suspend the VM every time to ensure the system does not attempt to enter sleep while I am distracted, else it wander into neverland.

    Parallels: I have reported this multiple times on the forum and not heard much once we were into the RC phase. I like your product and would love to use it except this one issue. I do not mind the USB issues, and the other items on my wish-list are not show stoppers, but this is and its hard to spend the money on the license when I do not know when this will be resolved, if ever.

    To assist, here is a bit from /var/log/system.log when a sleep works (Parallels Desktop not running)
    Code:
    Jun 22 18:42:59 Fragile kernel[0]: hibernate image path: /var/vm/sleepimage
    Jun 22 18:42:59 Fragile kernel[0]: sizeof(IOHibernateImageHeader) == 512
    Jun 22 18:42:59 Fragile kernel[0]: Opened file /var/vm/sleepimage, size 2147483648, partition base 0xc805000, maxio 400000
    Jun 22 18:42:59 Fragile kernel[0]: hibernate image major 14, minor 2, blocksize 512, pollers 3
    Jun 22 18:42:59 Fragile kernel[0]: hibernate_alloc_pages flags 00000000, gobbling 0 pages
    Jun 23 10:35:09 Fragile kernel[0]: System SafeSleep
    Jun 23 10:35:09 Fragile kernel[0]: hibernate_page_list_setall start
    Jun 23 10:35:09 Fragile kernel[0]: hibernate_page_list_setall time: 252 ms
    Jun 23 10:35:09 Fragile kernel[0]: pages 346552, wire 40267, act 136698, inact 706, zf 524, could discard act 43601 inact 124756
    Jun 23 10:35:09 Fragile kernel[0]: hibernate_page_list_setall found pageCount 346552
    Jun 23 10:35:09 Fragile kernel[0]: IOHibernatePollerOpen, ml_get_interrupts_enabled 0
    Jun 23 10:35:09 Fragile kernel[0]: IOHibernatePollerOpen(0)
    Jun 23 10:35:09 Fragile kernel[0]: writing 346332 pages
    Jun 23 10:35:09 Fragile kernel[0]: image1Size 60778496
    Jun 23 10:35:09 Fragile kernel[0]: all time: 8025 ms, comp time: 2571 ms, deco time: 0 ms, 
    Jun 23 10:35:09 Fragile kernel[0]: image 357686272, uncompressed 728985600 (177975), compressed 356351724 (48%), sum1 186f1afe, sum2 f4d21dc4
    Jun 23 10:35:09 Fragile kernel[0]: hibernate_write_image done(0)
    
    When the problem occurs, only the first 5 lines would appear in the log. The next after that would be from the start of a cold boot when I next power the machine on after it has died on its own or had its battery pulled as the only means to get it out of the not-asleep and not-awake limbo state.
     
  2. pogi

    pogi Member

    Messages:
    31
    that is strange because it runs fine on my macbook. I put my macbook to sleep and open it back up all the time and my VM works great. I'm running the latest version w/ a paid key. Perhaps you need to create a new VM from scratch and reinstall everything(including windows). be sure to use the uninstall tool to uninstall all the old stuff.
     
  3. MatthewR

    MatthewR Member

    Messages:
    45
    I've uninstalled Parallels intself between recent version with the provided uninstaller before instaling the next. I have tried varrying other things, but Parallels is the only constant. It does not always cause the problem, its an on again / off again thing where it happens for a while, stops for a while, then reoccurs. I had thought RC2 fixed it, but maybe it was just off for the moment. If PD is not running, it NEVER happens, so I can't really blame it on anything else.

    Nothing personal, but the suggestion to create a new VM from scratch and install again is impractical and unsuitable. If that were to fix it then that would clearly mean Parallels is not sufficiently isolating the host from the guests. The guests should NEVER be able to disturb the host. If they can, then that means the system is now running with the total combined sum of all bugs and general garbage that causes instability of both the host and guest OSes.

    Parallels: I have gotten another trial key to extend this for a couple weeks. I'm open to assisting tracking his down because I really want to be able to use PD for my work. I'm awaiting a response and would like to know if there's any additional information that would be useful (additional system logs, perhaps some logs from PD itself if it makes any).
     
  4. Banacek

    Banacek Member

    Messages:
    27
    Hmm, it'd be nice to get a response to this.
     
  5. n4khq

    n4khq Member

    Messages:
    81
    Back in Beta 2 or 3 I was having the problem. I set windows xp sleep or screen save can't remember which to about 3 hours because I could not figure out how to turn it off. Never had another problem with sleep.
     
  6. MatthewR

    MatthewR Member

    Messages:
    45
    All power management is turned off in XP and the screensaver is disabled.
     
  7. unused_user_name

    unused_user_name Pro

    Messages:
    495
    An interesting thought:

    I was also having power management problems with my VM's running, but now I am having the same problems as MatthewR when PD is not running.

    Does PD install any drivers that stay perstistant when PD is not running, or am I barking up the wrong tree here?
     
  8. MatthewR

    MatthewR Member

    Messages:
    45
    PD installs 3 kexts, which I believe are resident at all times. What these do when PD is not running could only be answered by the developers.

    Excerpt from kextstat(8):
    Code:
      101    0 0x3af2c000 0xe000     0xd000     com.parallels.kext.hypervisor (2.2) <11 6 5 4 3 2>
      102    0 0x3aff6000 0x5000     0x4000     com.parallels.kext.vmmain (2.2) <11 6 5 4 3 2>
      103    0 0x3ae87000 0x3000     0x2000     com.parallels.kext.Pvsvnic (2.2) <38 4 3>
     

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