Hi all, I'm new here and I hate when people join forums to slate the product so I'm trying no to do that. I really need a bit of help in finding how to get product support. My ticket has ben closed several times with "Solution Provided" and the only thing they have given me a is knowledge base article link to which I do not have permission to open. https://kb.parallels.com/en/125580 I reopen the ticket and then a week late they simply mark it as closed again. It's very frustrating. Anyway, maybe someone here can direct me to an appropriate area as I can't seem to get my search right to find the answer. My issue is the sound quality when I'm not using my VM. Hold on, I need to clarify this and it's really hard to explain so please bear with me. 27" iMac 2019 running Big Sur, Parallels 17.0.1 Windows 10 21H1 VM 64bit The sound on the Mac is perfect, as is the sound when using the VM, the issue happens when you have sound coming from the VM and you are using any app that is not Parallels. So, for example, I am in a Teams Meeting (bored) and decide to browse the internet in Safari/reply to an email, WhatsApp a friend etc whilst dutifully listening to my meeting. The sound from the VM is immediately scratchy and distorted. If I click back on the VM, it clears up immediately and I can recreate the issue simply by clicking into a different app to Parallels. The issue is not limited to Teams either, YouTube, system sounds, absolutely everything behaves the same. I think this issue started on the last update of Parallels but I'm not certain. I've tried reinstalling the Toolbox on the VM, and have also proved that it happens with any Win10 VM as I have even built a fresh one to test with. One Parallels tech connected to my machine and reinstalled the Toolbox also but then he started to do what I deemed to be snooping by opening my documents folders etc. and when I asked what he was up to he replied "Do you not want my help?" As he couldn't give me an answer to my line of questions about what he was looking for in my personal docs, he ended the session! I want to highlight the fact that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE Parallels and the fact that I don't need my crappy work laptop and can use my beloved Mac all day instead, I had (until this point) been waxing lyrical about it, though this issue is really getting me down. So if anyone has had this experience or can provide me with the content of the KB article, point me in the direction of a more suitable place to post this I will be extremely grateful. Thanks for reading Richard
Hi Richard, Don't have the same sound issue as you, but I also regularly experience some sound issues. I also think it started with the upgrade to Parallels 17. Most of the time I have a couple of VMs running (1 Linux, 1 or 2 Windows). 'Sometimes' (love that in a support ticket) the sound on my Mac just stops working. Can't even access the volume controls to increase/ decrease the volume. If I then shut down the Windows VMs (or just 1 of them) it starts to work again. Thought it was a hardware issue at first, but now think it's somehow related to Parallels. Tried to disable the sound output in the configuration of the Windows VM's, but that didn't help. Looks like disabling the sound for a Windows VM only 'mutes' it: it doesn't stop sending the output to the sound device. Mark
Hello, please update to Parallels Desktop for Mac 17.1.0 and let us know if still the issue persist. Thanks, Parallels Team.
I can confirm this still exists on the latest 17 release. If I have music playing on the mac, under some circumstances when the VM tries to make a sound, it stops all audio on the mac. Guest is Fedora 35 x86_64 Reverting to 16 solves the problem (but parallel tools will no build on that version - 17 had excellent graphics performance, but loosing audio is a show stopper with teams being so critical for me)
