Very Slow Startup for Parallels 5

Discussion in 'Installation and Configuration of Parallels Desktop' started by rmansfield, Nov 4, 2009.

  1. PaoloR

    PaoloR Bit poster

    Messages:
    1
    I have the same problem and I report my problem as you say.
    My report ID is: 769953
     
  2. rmansfield

    rmansfield Member

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    22
    STim, my support number is 773151.
     
  3. Joe Liu

    Joe Liu Bit poster

    Messages:
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    Same issue for me

    When starting the virtual machine it hangs at 60% progress for about 10 minutes and then starts.

    During this time my computer is pretty much completely frozen with all system resources being used by parallels.

    I submitted a trouble report #773510.

    Please advise.

    Joe
     
  4. iparos

    iparos Bit poster

    Messages:
    4
    I have the same problem.
    My report ID is: 769953
     
  5. STim

    STim Bit poster

    Messages:
    942
    Thank you everyone for posting problem reports. We take this issue seriously and eager to investigate and fix it as soon as possible.

    The issue is registered as #456791 in our internal issue tracker. Please visit this thread from time to time, there may be additional help required from you during the investigation.
     
  6. electronic_cat

    electronic_cat Bit poster

    Messages:
    2
    Another report number

    my report number is 787201-- not sure if you still want these.
     
  7. STim

    STim Bit poster

    Messages:
    942
    Yes, we still do want reports. Please keep them coming.

    Can someone please try the following two things:
    1. Disable main window animation. To do this, go to Parallels Desktop menu->Preferences->Appearance tab->Animate group and uncheck the "Virtual Machine Window" option. After that quit Parallels Desktop and start it again.

    If it makes no difference, please
    2. Temporarily disable Time Machine on host. Quit Parallels Desktop, disable Time Machine, start Parallels Desktop. Will this improve startup time? Do not forget to re-enable Time Machine after the experiment.

    Thank you very much in advance.
     
  8. Marcovn

    Marcovn Bit poster

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    Have tried on Imac 24" 3.06Ghz and have turned off Time Machine, Window animation as suggested.
    Startup seemed faster but time between Welcome screen and actual windows was still long time, then decided also to turn " pause windows when not running applications" off.....that made major difference.
    Will turn Time Machine back on as I think has no impact to this.
     
  9. brett@vitaz.net

    brett@vitaz.net Bit poster

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    11
    Slow startup and every time I access Explorer

    I do have an alias to a network share on my desktop, which does not remain connected most of the time. I have moved it around but any time I access a folder with the alias in it, the VM freezes for around a minute. Why is Parallels attempting to connect to this share, and assuming there's a good reason, why wasn't that activity programmed into a different thread so it doesn't freeze Parallels? I'm not keen on hiding the alias in some obscure folder that I will hopefully never access with the VM. I want where it's always been, on my desktop.
     
  10. Steve Lomas

    Steve Lomas Bit poster

    Messages:
    5
    Holding pattern...

    I was just about to upgrade from v4 to v5, when I thought I better scan the forum posts. Very glad I did!

    Version 4 has been working great for me, but the promise of faster is always alluring ;-)

    Reading all the negative posts, has caused me to wait and see... I am NOT running Snow Leopard on my machine and i only have 4GB of RAM. Are there any reports of anyone have success with the upgrade?

    SL
     
  11. Kila

    Kila Bit poster

    Messages:
    5
    I too am experiencing sluggish loading. First time I loaded it, it hung (until I left it, and it did eventually load). Though now, the actual application loads relatively quickly, but I did disable all animations since then and it seems to be going okish.

    It does take ages for Windows to boot, then there's a long time before I can actually use any Windows applications (i.e. I have Windows Live Messenger set to load at startup, that takes a couple of minutes to appear, and it is generally really sluggish.

    Parallels Desktop 4 worked fine, and had no issues, booted up quickly etc.

    Also, there is a white line that appears just above the Dock (I'm using Coherence) and flashes and disappears. When I boot up Parallels and Windows loads, the line is there for about 5 secs then disappears. But it reappears momentarily during use.
     
  12. stonal

    stonal Bit poster

    Messages:
    6
    Window animation

    "1. Disable main window animation. To do this, go to Parallels Desktop menu->Preferences->Appearance tab->Animate group and uncheck the "Virtual Machine Window" option. After that quit Parallels Desktop and start it again."

    I did that suggestion. The Effect is, that Winxp-Startup and Sleepmode is faster. BUT: Nothing changed in very long time for starting PD 5. The Icon in dock is bouncing a long time, Beachball is turning - simply annoying comparing to the earlier versions of PD.

    Seems to be a serious problem for the Prallels-Programmers...
     
  13. STim

    STim Bit poster

    Messages:
    942
    Thank you for your feedbacks.

    Time to dig much deeper. What I am about to ask now will require some deeper knowledge of Mac OS X, but should finally shed some light on the issue.

    Please:
    1. Make sure that the Activity Monitor application is not running. If it is, quit it. Also please quit Parallels Desktop.
    2. Open Applications->Utilities->Terminal
    3. Paste the following string into Terminal and hit Enter:
    Code:
    sudo /Applications/Utilities/Activity\ Monitor.app/Contents/MacOS/Activity\ Monitor
    4. Enter your password when prompted.
    5. Activity Monitor window opens. Select "All Processes" in the drop-down at the top-right side of Activity Monitor window
    6. Start Parallels Desktop. Wait several seconds till it starts bouncing and beachballing.
    7. Find "Parallels Desktop" process in Activity Monitor's process list. Click it once to highlight.
    8. Click "Sample Process" button at the top of Activity Monitor window.
    9. In a while a window with text will open. Copy-paste the text into some text file and attach here. Or just copy-paste the text here at the forum.

    It is important to perform steps 7-8 while the issue is in progress (the Parallels Desktop icon is bouncing and beach ball happens). This should give some technical information on what the Parallels Desktop is doing that long.

    We need samples from as many different users as possible.

    Thank you very much in advance.
     
    Last edited: Nov 11, 2009
  14. soma1104

    soma1104 Bit poster

    Messages:
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    Sampling process 646 for 3 seconds with 1 millisecond of run time between samples
    Sampling completed, processing symbols...
    Analysis of sampling prl_client_app (pid 646) every 1 millisecond
    Call graph:
    2805 Thread_16306 DispatchQueue_1: com.apple.main-thread (serial)
    2805 start
    2805 start
    2805 CQCViewWidget::inputKeys()
    2805 CQCViewWidget::inputKeys()
    2805 CQCViewWidget::inputKeys()
    2805 CQCViewWidget::inputKeys()
    2805 MDQueryExecute
    2805 _MDQueryExecute
    2805 CFRunLoopRunInMode
    2805 CFRunLoopRunSpecific
    2805 __CFRunLoopRun
    2805 mach_msg
    2805 mach_msg_trap
    2805 Thread_16320 DispatchQueue_2: com.apple.libdispatch-manager (serial)
    2805 start_wqthread
    2805 _pthread_wqthread
    2805 _dispatch_worker_thread2
    2805 _dispatch_queue_invoke
    2805 _dispatch_mgr_invoke
    2805 kevent
    2805 Thread_16328
    2805 thread_start
    2805 _pthread_start
    2805 th_set_from_stat
    2805 0xf859e5f
    2805 th_set_from_stat
    2805 th_set_from_stat
    2805 th_set_from_stat
    2805 th_set_from_stat
    2805 th_set_from_stat
    2805 th_set_from_stat
    2805 select
    2805 select$DARWIN_EXTSN$NOCANCEL

    Total number in stack (recursive counted multiple, when >=5):
    7 th_set_from_stat

    Sort by top of stack, same collapsed (when >= 5):
    kevent 2805
    mach_msg_trap 2805
    select$DARWIN_EXTSN$NOCANCEL 2805
    Sample analysis of process 646 written to file /dev/stdout
     
  15. stonal

    stonal Bit poster

    Messages:
    6
    Sample

    Here my sample:
     
  16. iparos

    iparos Bit poster

    Messages:
    4
    Here my sample:

    Sampling process 2809 for 3 seconds with 1 millisecond of run time between samples
    Sampling completed, processing symbols...
    Analysis of sampling prl_client_app (pid 2809) every 1 millisecond
    Call graph:
    2804 Thread_43882 DispatchQueue_1: com.apple.main-thread (serial)
    2804 start
    2804 start
    2804 CQCViewWidget::inputKeys()
    2804 CQCViewWidget::inputKeys()
    2804 CQCViewWidget::inputKeys()
    2804 CQCViewWidget::inputKeys()
    2804 MDQueryExecute
    2804 _MDQueryExecute
    2801 CFRunLoopRunInMode
    2801 CFRunLoopRunSpecific
    2801 __CFRunLoopRun
    2800 mach_msg
    2800 mach_msg_trap
    1 __CFMachPortPerform
    1 dispatch_sync
    1 dispatch_barrier_sync_f
    2 pthread_cond_wait$UNIX2003
    2 _pthread_cond_wait
    2 __semwait_signal
    1 MDQueryStop
    1 dispatch_sync
    1 _dispatch_barrier_sync_f_slow
    1 _dispatch_semaphore_wait_slow
    1 semaphore_wait_trap
    2804 Thread_43896 DispatchQueue_2: com.apple.libdispatch-manager (serial)
    2804 start_wqthread
    2804 _pthread_wqthread
    2804 _dispatch_worker_thread2
    2804 _dispatch_queue_invoke
    2804 _dispatch_mgr_invoke
    2804 kevent
    2804 Thread_43900
    2804 thread_start
    2804 _pthread_start
    2804 th_set_from_stat
    2804 0x16086e5f
    2804 th_set_from_stat
    2804 th_set_from_stat
    2804 th_set_from_stat
    2804 th_set_from_stat
    2804 th_set_from_stat
    2804 th_set_from_stat
    2804 select
    2804 select$DARWIN_EXTSN$NOCANCEL
    2803 Thread_43897
    2803 start_wqthread
    2803 _pthread_wqthread
    2803 __workq_kernreturn
    2803 Thread_43901
    2803 start_wqthread
    2802 _pthread_wqthread
    2802 __workq_kernreturn
    1 start_wqthread
    2475 Thread_43911
    2475 start_wqthread
    2473 _pthread_wqthread
    2473 __workq_kernreturn
    2 start_wqthread
    1 Thread_43897 DispatchQueue_25: Query work queue (serial)
    1 start_wqthread
    1 _pthread_wqthread
    1 _dispatch_worker_thread2
    1 _dispatch_queue_invoke
    1 _dispatch_queue_drain
    1 _dispatch_queue_invoke
    1 _dispatch_queue_push_list_slow
    1 _dispatch_wakeup
    1 _dispatch_mgr_wakeup
    1 _dispatch_update_kq
    1 kevent
    1 Thread_43901 DispatchQueue_28: Query work queue (serial)
    1 start_wqthread
    1 _pthread_wqthread
    1 _dispatch_worker_thread2
    1 _dispatch_queue_invoke
    1 _dispatch_queue_drain
    1 _dispatch_queue_invoke
    1 _dispatch_queue_push_list_slow
    1 _dispatch_wakeup
    1 _dispatch_mgr_wakeup
    1 _dispatch_update_kq
    1 kevent
    1 Thread_43911 DispatchQueue_6: com.apple.root.default-priority (serial)
    1 start_wqthread
    1 _pthread_wqthread
    1 _dispatch_worker_thread2
    1 _dispatch_call_block_and_release
    1 ___MDQueryExecute_block_invoke_1
    1 mdsOpenAsyncQuery
    1 mach_msg
    1 mach_msg_trap

    Total number in stack (recursive counted multiple, when >=5):
    7 _pthread_wqthread
    7 start_wqthread
    7 th_set_from_stat
    5 _dispatch_queue_invoke

    Sort by top of stack, same collapsed (when >= 5):
    __workq_kernreturn 8078
    kevent 2806
    select$DARWIN_EXTSN$NOCANCEL 2804
    mach_msg_trap 2801
    Sample analysis of process 2809 written to file /dev/stdout
     
  17. OscarC

    OscarC Bit poster

    Messages:
    6
    Activity Monitor results

    Parallels started so quickly, I didn't have time to click on Parallels in the processes list. I opened the Windows XP virtual machine, and then interesting things began to happen. The Parallels Desktop process showed little or no change. However, there was a process, prl_vm_app, that began to take all resources (104% CPU, is that possible?). I can't send teh sample now (but I will later) because I had to change computers. Everything almost froze. For the past 6 minutes my computer has been unresponsive, but it hasn't frozen completely. As I said in a previous post, none of this happens with Linux, it only happens when I open Windows XP.
     
  18. OscarC

    OscarC Bit poster

    Messages:
    6
    Activity Monitor sample

    For the past 30 minutes or so my computer was unusable. I finally managed to shutdown Windows from the login window. The Sample of prl_vm_app is very long (334 lines), so here are the first three and the rest is in the attached text file.

    Sampling process 9331 for 3 seconds with 1 millisecond of run time between samples
    Sampling completed, processing symbols...
    Analysis of sampling prl_vm_app (pid 9331) every 1 millisecond
     

    Attached Files:

  19. STim

    STim Bit poster

    Messages:
    942
    An update to those watching this issue.

    1. Thank you very much for your help investigating this. Without you it is nearly impossible to make any progress.

    2. In this thread we are tracking a "slow Parallels Destkop startup" issue. It is observed like long Parallels Desktop icon bouncing in Dock before Parallels Desktop actually starts. If you have some other kind of "slow startup" issue like slow VM startup and excessive resources usage reported by OscarC, please create a separate thread on the issue. This issue requires separate means of investigation, better split it.

    3. The samples posted helped us localize several places in code that could cause the slow startup. We again need help in determining the particular code. Can you please:
    - Go to Parallels Desktop menu->Preferences->General Tab
    - Select the "Use Detailed Log Messages" option.
    - Quit Parallels Desktop. Start it again. Wait till it is finally started (bouncing and beachballing stops).
    - Make a problem report, send it and post a problem report ID.
    - Turn off the detailed log messages (otherwise your Parallels log file will grow too huge soon)

    We are looking forward to report IDs. Thank you very much in advance.

    PS: OscarC - can you please create a separate therad on your issue? Please do not forget to post your problem report ID.
     
  20. stonal

    stonal Bit poster

    Messages:
    6
    Report

    Just sent my problem report #809255
     

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