Parallel Tools Hangup

I am running Parallels Desktop 12 for Mac Pro Edition Version 12.2.2.0 (41591) with Windows 8.1. It has been running flawlessley for the past couple of years. Yesterday when I went into Windows it started loaded Parallels tools and got to 15% and hung up. I couldn't get Windows to shut down or restart (even after restarting the Mac a couple of times,) and finally I got just a solid blue screen so I decided to restore a backup of the .pvm file and start again.

I use Carbon Copy for my backups, and I have "safety net" turned on and I let it keep complete copies of my .pvm files nightly (about 60GB each) so I have probably 30 or 40 complete .pvm files. Using Finder I copied a .pvm file that was a couple of days old to my Parallels folder overwritting the existing file, and then I got a "The specified bundle is invalid" error message. This message comes up regardless of which of my .pvm backup files that I try to use. However, when I do a restore of the .pvm file using Carbon Copy Parallels will allow me to resume Windows, but a soon as it resumes it starts updating Parallel Tools and freezes at 15%.

I have two questions:

1. Why wouldn't I be able to just copy the complete .pvm file over using Finder and have the same results as restoring it using CC?

2. Assuming that I have to restore it using CC, how would I fix the hanging up problem when it starts trying to install Parallels tools?

Thanks!

Steve

 

I have answered my own question about Carbon Copy. The .pvm file is just a container, and Carbon Copy only copies the changes withing the container from one backup to the next. A lot of the files in the .pvm file aren't copied so the .pvm file is incomplete. I have also been doing backups using Acronis so I do have other good backups of my .pvm file but I'm sure glad that I wasn't relying soley on the Carbon Copy backup!

Regarding the hangup issue I'm convinced it's a problem with the latest Parallels update, in particular the Parallel Tools for Windows. That's what's hanging the Windows system up, and unfortunately I can't shut Windows down or stop the new Parallel tools installation program from starting up almost immediately once I do restore a complete .pvm file.

 

@SteveJ4 Sorry we missed you. You can restore the .pvm which is either located in /Documents/Parallels or in /Users/Shared/Parallels and start it. With regards to the Parallels tools issue, you can refer to this article to re-install it. If you're unable to re-install it, kill the process through Windows task-manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc) and try re-installing the same.

 

Thanks.

 

You're welcome! Keep us posted on the issue. Thanks!

 

I finally got Windows to stop by selecting "stop" from within the Mac side. When I relaunched it I was able to get Task Manager launched before the Parallel Tools update started. I could then see that the install program was pegging the disk access at 100% (only under Windows and Parallels - if I went back to the Mac operating system everything was normal.) Knowing this I waited for a LONG time (probably 15 minutes) for the Parallel Tools update to finish then rebooted Windows and everything was then fine. I'm not sure whether the Parallel Tools installation caused the disk access problem or if a disk "overload" problem of some sort cause the Parallel Tools installation problem but it's resolved now. Thanks!

 

Glad to know that the issue's resolved. Thanks!

 

As a followup, I figured out what the root cause of problem was. I hadn't started Windows in a couple of weeks and Kaspersky antivirus did a big database update and was obviously re-scanning the entire Windows drive and was maxing out the disk access. Task Manager showed disk usage at 100%. The Parallel Tools installation was slowed down to a crawl trying to compete with Kaspersky for disk access time. No doubt if I would have just let it run for 5 or 10 minutes until Kaspersky was finished with the scan it wouldn't have been a problem.

 

Thank you for this detailed information, from time to time the conflict between Parallels Tools and Antivirus appears and we suggest to temporary disable antivirus during Parallels Tools installation.
Thank you once again.