FreeBSD 14 Not working after update

L

Leandro Carvalho

Bit poster
Hi,

I have a FreeBSD 14 Installed on my Parallels Desktop. Everything was working fine until the last update, now when I try to start my virtual machine, it get stuck in a reboot loop telling me "panic: Unhandled external data abort".

I don't know what to do.
I can't select any option during the boot, is like the keyboard is not working. Screenshot 2025-12-22 at 11.09.11.png
 
I have exactly the same issue with ALL my BSD-like VMs.
NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, all different versions.
None of them works since I updated Parallels Desktop.

In VirtualBox, I can create and run any of the BSDs without any issue...
 
Can confirm. I had a FreeBSD 14.1 VM, which implies that it worked at some time. But at some point, I get the panic on handle_el1h_sync.
Even the FreeBSD 15 installer ISO panics in the exact same way.
 
Thanks for reply. I'm converted my Parallels machine to a VirtualBox machine and now it's working.
It's kind of frustrating that we pay for a tool to use Virtual Machines thinking that we would have any support.
 
Leandro Carvalho said:
Thanks for reply. I'm converted my Parallels machine to a VirtualBox machine and now it's working.
It's kind of frustrating that we pay for a tool to use Virtual Machines thinking that we would have any support.
Click to expand...
Will Dormann said:
Can confirm. I had a FreeBSD 14.1 VM, which implies that it worked at some time. But at some point, I get the panic on handle_el1h_sync.
Even the FreeBSD 15 installer ISO panics in the exact same way.
Click to expand...

I managed to get my BSDs up and running again on Parallels.
I downloaded the installer of the previous version (before the last update), and installed it over the existing (broken) version.
After that, all ran as smooth as before.

Parallels does not provide the possibility to download older versions unfortunately...
Google is your best friend for that... I made myself a mental note to download and keep all versions from now on.
 
I apparently don't have the ability to file support tickets anymore. Presumably someone from Parallels monitors this forum? This is a regression that needs to be fixed.
 
Apparently this is a known (to the Parallels support chat bot) issue:
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If you truly need FreeBSD support, you'll probably will need to dig to find 26.1.2-57293, as the download page only allows selection of major version. Not minor.
But be aware that choosing to continue to use an old version is probably unwise, as you'll miss out on bug and vulnerability fixes and the like.
 
I have the same issue after upgrading Parallels Desktop. I confirm that UTM can boot a FreeBSD VM. I had to reinstall my FreeBSD system from scratch using UTM. I don't like the idea of using 2 distinct hypervisors (or at least hypervisor wrappers) on the same system.

It is unacceptable that a product we pay a substantial amount of money for suddenly stops supporting a feature that many paying customers actually use. It is even more a disgrace when you realise that a free and open source product can do what the product you are paying for doesn't.

PARALLELS, WE WANT FREEBSD SUPPORT BACK !
 
So, apparently the AI chat was wrong (imagine that! )
The problem isn't that FreeBSD support was dropped, it's that Parallels accidentally broke the "Other" preset for guest OS type. If you want to be able to install FreeBSD, you should:
1. Select "Other Linux" as the OS type at VM creation time
2. In the config.pvs for the VM, go to the <Video...> section of the file and change <Type>1</Type> to <Type>0</Type>

If you want to edit an existing FreeBSD VM that was created as "Other" type and have it work in the current Parallels version, in the config.pvs file for the VM:
1. Change <OsType>255</OsType> to <OsType>9</OsType>
2. Change <OsNumber>65535</OsNumber> to <OsNumber>2559</OsNumber>
3. Go to the <Video...> section of the file ensure that it has <Type>0</Type> to ensure that the video works in the VM
 
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