Windows 7 VM screen freezes after resume from sleep

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate in Full Screen mode inside a VM on my MacBook Pro (my system configuration and my VM configuration are below). I have Spaces configured such that the VM stays rooted inside space #2. At work, I connect my MacBook Pro to a Samsung 21.5" external display as its only display via DVI. The lid on my MacBook Pro remains closed. At home, I use my MacBook Pro's 17" inch display as the only display. I put my MacBook Pro to sleep when I move back and forth between home and work. At work, I use a wired Ethernet network and at home, I use a wireless network.

More often than not when I wake my MacBook Pro, the Windows 7 screen remains frozen. It does not respond to mouse clicks or keyboard taps. To unfreeze my VM, I do the following:

* Switch from Full Screen to Window

Doing this immediately unfreezes the screen and allows mouse and keyboard input to work again.

Has anyone else seen this behavior?

MacBook Pro Configuration
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro2,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.33 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 3 GB
Bus Speed: 667 MHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP21.00A5.B08
SMC Version (system): 1.14f5

Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac Build 5.0.9310

VM Configuration
1 CPU, 768 MB of memory
64 MB of video memory
Enable 3D Acceleration turned off, Aero graphics inside VM turned off
Network = Shared Networking
Sound = Connected
Bottom left corner in Active Screen Corners set to Show menu bar

 

Hi jkwuc89,
if possible, please submit problem report at the moment of freeze (Help > Report a Problem) and post report ID here.

 

Problem report submitted. The ID is 3272712.

 

I have this same problem. Host OS is Snow Leopard, 64-bit kernel. Guest OS is Windows 7 Ultimate x64, running on a Boot Camp partition. Host hardware is a Macbook Pro, 17" unibody, 2.8Ghz, 4GB RAM, with 1 GB dedicated to Windows 7.

If I sleep my machine (by shutting the lid) and bring it back up later, Parallels will sometimes quit with no warning and no error. When I launch Parallels again, it brings the Windows 7 back up in a small window (not full screen like it was when I slept the laptop), and I get a notice that Parallels has recovered from a serious error. At this point, Windows 7 will often be unstable, and I have to shut it down and restart Parallels.

To avoid this problem, I have been shutting down Windows 7 before sleeping the machine.

I have submitted an error report before, but did not write down the number.

 

Windows 7 VM freezes after resume from sleep

I am seeing this same problem right now. I have a security password set, and when I enter it and the MacBook Pro recovers from sleep mode, the Mac side works just fine; but Parallels is frozen and none of the programs or start menu respond. It will switch from coherance to window mode (no desktop), but still no response to any mouse selections; but is unable to get back to coherance mode. This seems to have gotten much more frequent after installing MS Live Meeting and Communicator 2007 with my MS Office 2007 programs. So Outlook is always open when it freezes.
Sent report #7268709
Has nothing to do with external monitor or changing locations, connections, etc.
Only solution is to ungracefully abort Parallels and restart.

 

Same or similar issue

I am experiencing a very similar, if not the same issue. I have a Windows 7 VM that I use in Full Screen mode. I've never had any trouble leaving the VM running on my iMac. I just recently starting using a laptop. At least half of the times I have put the Mac to sleep, by closing the lid, the Windows VM has been unusable when I brought the computer back up. The Apple Activity Monitor says that the parallels vm app is continuously using >100% of the CPU. I've only made it responsive again by forcing the VM to exit.

 

Same issue

Problem report 9843209. Happening very often now. Please assist.

 

WIN7 freezes when resuming from sleep

Configuration: MBA 2011 + OSX Lion + Parallels 6 + Win7 Family Edition 64 bytes

I use Win7 fullscreen.

Everytime I close the Mac for more than 1 hour, it won't resume when I open it back. It will freeze, no way I can come back to OSX or regain control. I have to force-turnoff the computer. Bad thing.

Unless Paralles provide a fix, this is simply a dealbreaker. Parallels doesn't handle properly sleep on OSX Lion at the moment.

 

Same Problem

I'm running Windows 7 Ultimate SP-1 under Parallels 6 on a new 13" MacBook Air with Lion. When I leave Windows 7 open in full screen mode and close the lid, the computer will freeze when I reopen it. If I quit Parallels before closing the lid, I'm okay. This is not my understanding of how the software is supposed to work. I hope a solution is forthcoming, or at least an acknowledgement that this is a bug.

 

No answer from support

I hosted a similar complaint on februari 21 ('mac os x ferezes when waking form hibernation with VM running')

I have a Macbook Pro with Mac OSX Leopard. when I hibernate the mac with the parallels 6.0 rev 12094 VM running, it crashes when waking up from sleep. When suspending the VM before hibernating, all goes well when waking up.
This only occurs using the Mac OS X Hibernate mode (contents get written to disk and machine gets powered down). Using the standard sleep mode (contens written to Ram, Ram is being powered while asleep) I don't have this problem.

The probleem still persists in the new Parallels 7.0 beta version.

Never got an answer from Parallels support.

Marc

 

Anyone from support listening? Parallels is semi broken on laptops because of this and it is not hare to reproduce. Marcs description is accurate. It is around hibernate.

 

seems it is related to the hibernatemode selected. If I choose mode 1 I am able to hibernate while VM is on and wake form sleep...

http://www.macworld.com/article/53471/2006/10/sleepmode.html

Marc

 

Full Screen + Sleep/hibernate

I'm having the same sort of problem on my 2011 MacBook Pro 13" laptop running Parallels 7 and OS X Lion. I am running with hibernate mode 3. I'm having the problem with multiple types of virtual machines: OS X Lion, Fedora, and Ubuntu. The VMs are unresponsive after I resume from sleep/hibernate. There is no recovery once this happens: I have to stop the VMs and lose all data.

It seems that the problem only occurs if the VM is in full screen mode at the time of sleep/hibernate. As a workaround, I put my VMs back in window mode before I close the lid. Not hard to do - as long as I remember to do it!

I have not tried switching to hibernate mode 1 - I have 8 GB of memory and I would think that mode 1 would be very slow to resume after hibernate.

 

Same Problem Here

Pretty much what everyone else said. Having the same problem. Changing from coherence to window does not help. If the VM itself doesn't completely freeze, then all of the Windows 7 programs that had been running do.

 

Same problem here. Running latest MacBook Air 13". When Parallels 7 is open and the lid is closed for more than 1 hour, it goes into deep sleep and on reopening the lid, the computer is frozen (backlid is lit), requiring a manual restart. Checked with Apple Care, not a hardware issue (as tested by partioning the HD); had to reload Lion, reinstall Parallels7 and the problem persists. Conclusion it is not an hw or OS problem, but rather a Parallels problem.
PLEASE PROVIDE BUG FIX.

 

Yeah I still need a fix for this long standing problem too. Its pretty easy to recreate. As soon as a suspended laptop decides to suspend to disk due to inactivity (approx 1 hour) the vm locks up (I always run in full screen not sure if connected).

I flagged and reported this when I first noticed it a few months ago and they said they were aware but no eta or info on prioritisation of a fix which is frankly useless. It seems they want to drive all macbook owners to the competition?

 

I have the same problem on a MacBook Pro 15" running OS X 10.6.8. I haven't tried switching window modes to fix, but I will try that. I will also send a problem report the next time it happens (it happens all the time). I never noticed Parallels 6 doing this; I just paid to upgrade and this is making Parallels 7 extremely annoying to use.

 

Hi everybody,
I have just updated my windows xp to windows 7 and now I have this same problem.
When I work in coeherence and then put the mac in the sleep mode, once I start it again the windows side is frozen and I have to shut down the VM.
My report ID is 10842109.
Bruno

 

Well I've been testing VMWare's Fusion to see if its any better. Guess what. It does the same thing!!!!

However on the plus side it doesn't have a process that shoots to 100% cpu randomly and I can assign more than 1 core without getting probs. Also no colour palette problems.

I guess in a few iterations more, one of these VM solutions will do what I need reliably!

 

The same with opneSUSE 11.x / VM hangs when closing the laptop lid

Hi, I have the same problem after upgrading to Lion OS. It worked fine using snow tiger and Parallels 6. Then I upgraded to Lion and since then Parallels VM freezes when I close the Laptop Lid. I thought it is an incompatibility from Parallels 6 and Lion so I upgraded to Parallels 7 but the result is the same. Installed also a new openSUSE 11.4 and new Parallels Tools from version 7 but no change! I contacted the Parallels Support and they provided the following answer: 1. Parallel does not recommend to close the Laptop Lid while the VM is running. They say always resume first the VM and then close the laptop lid...... (ha ha). However, they also suggested the following to try: 1. remove Parallels completely and install it once again (I did, no change) 2. reduce the memory assigned to the VM to 1-2 GB and just 1 CPU (I had assigned 4 GB and 2 of 4 CPUS) but again, no change. To my opinion this (and taking into account all the other complains here) means that there is a general incompatibility between Parallels (regardless of version 6 or 7) and the new Lion OS which prevents that the VM goes to sleep mode properly and will wake up after the laptop lid is opened again. I should mention that I also use the VM in full window mode. Lets hope that Parallels gets triggered by people so that they look into that problem. This however means you all have to contact the support, otherwise I'm afraid that they keep arguing "put the VM in sleep mode before you close the laptop lid"....