Parallels 4.0 hangs at startup

Pleiades

Member
I upgraded directly from 3.0 to 4.0 but when I try to run PD, it hangs on startup. The icon bounces for a long time before settling down and doing nothing. Checking the Activity Monitor, both Parallels Desktop and Parallels Starter are hung and are not responding. The application name never appears in the title bar and no windows ever show up.

I tried uninstalling it, reinstalling it, uninstalling it, deleting all traces I could find including preference files, and reinstalling it, all with restarts or shutdowns in between.

It still behaves in exactly the same way. It hangs on startup and refuses to proceed.
 
Same here and this topic has been covered extensively. They have given "fixes" and none of them have worked for anyone yet. I am awaiting a reply both in e-mail and private message. Will post if I hear anything.
 
Same Problem here

Repairing disk permissions does not solve this problem either. I hope that future installers try to keep the previous version. I know now that using versions with a zero at the end is not a good idea.

My System:
Model: MacBookPro1,1, BootROM MBP11.0055.B08, 2 processors, Intel Core Duo, 1.83 GHz, 2 GB
Graphics: kHW_ATIr520Item, ATY,RadeonX1600, spdisplays_pcie_device, 128 MB
Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 1 GB, DDR2 SDRAM, 667 MHz
Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM1, 1 GB, DDR2 SDRAM, 667 MHz
AirPort: spairport_wireless_card_type_airport_extreme (0x168C, 0x86), 1.4.8.0
Bluetooth: Version 2.1.0f17, 2 service, 1 devices, 1 incoming serial ports
Network Service: Ethernet (integriert), Ethernet, en0
Network Service: USB-Ethernet (en5), Ethernet, en5
Network Service: Parallels Shared Networking Adapter, Ethernet, en6
Network Service: Parallels Host-Only Networking Adapter, Ethernet, en7
Serial ATA Device: ST9160823AS, 149,05 GB
Parallel ATA Device: MATSHITADVD-R UJ-857
USB Device: Built-in iSight, Micron, high_speed, 500 mA
USB Device: hub_device, high_speed, 500 mA
USB Device: Hub in Apple Extended USB Keyboard, Mitsumi Electric, full_speed, 500 mA
USB Device: Apple Optical USB Mouse, Mitsumi Electric, low_speed, 100 mA
USB Device: Apple Extended USB Keyboard, Mitsumi Electric, full_speed, 250 mA
USB Device: hub_device, high_speed, 500 mA
USB Device: CanoScan, Canon, high_speed, 500 mA
USB Device: USB 7-in-1 Card Reader, OTi, high_speed, 500 mA
USB Device: Cinergy T USB XS, TerraTec Electronic GmbH, high_speed, 500 mA
USB Device: Apple Cinema Display, Apple Computer, Inc., full_speed, 500 mA
USB Device: Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad, Apple Computer, full_speed, 500 mA
USB Device: IR Receiver, Apple Computer, Inc., full_speed, 500 mA
USB Device: Bluetooth USB Host Controller, Apple, Inc., full_speed, 500 mA
FireWire Device: unknown_device, unknown_value, unknown_speed


Start of the Crash-report (after aborting PD):

Date/Time: 2008-11-12 15:12:56 +0100
OS Version: 10.5.5 (Build 9F33)
Architecture: i386
Report Version: 4

Command: Parallels Desktop
Path: /Applications/Parallels Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_client_app
Version: 4.0 (3522.205912)
Build Version: 4.0.3522.205912
Project Name: Parallels
Source Version: 3522.205912
Parent: launchd [107]

PID: 2082
Event: hang
Time: 6.66s
Steps: 36


Process: prl_client_app [2082]
Path: /Applications/Parallels Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_client_app

ADDRESS BINARY
00001000 /Applications/Parallels Desktop.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_client_app
00e67000 /usr/lib/libpam.1.dylib
00e76000 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/libQtXml.4.dylib
00ef3000 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/libQtOpenGL.4.dylib
00f73000 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/libQtGui.4.dylib
018a3000 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/libQtNetwork.4.dylib
01972000 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/libQtCore.4.dylib

Thread id: 7fcb5d0
User stack:
 
Last edited:
After a couple of days of trying, I still cannot get the program to launch successfully on my MBP. The icon bounces many times and then finally stops. No windows appear, nothing. Activity Monitor shows that PD and Parallels Starter are not responding. Fixing permissions, repairing disk (no issues), reinstalling numerous times, have not helped at all.

I've gone in and deleted almost everything in my startup account, leaving only iTunes Helper and Airport Base Station Agent. I can't think of any program that's running that PD could possibly be conflicting with.

Any idea why this program simply won't start up?
 
I too have this issue, although it does not happen when using any other user other than my original admin (501) user. See if this happens with you too. If this is the case, there must be something up with a file somewhere in my admin's home folder that is causing the hang.
 
Have you looked at your system logs to see if anything is printed there when you try and start parallels?
 
I am having the same problem. I did find a way to make it work by making a new admin user and i installed it under that new user and it worked fine. When i switch to my main user and try to open parallels i just the same freezing again but if i switch to my other user it works fine? I can't figure this one out?. It must have a conflict with something in my main user account.
 
Slightly different hang

I upgraded to 4.0 and Parallels Desktop will not even start up. It doesn't crash, but it quits before really starting. There is the following message in system.log:

com.apple.launchd[129] ([0x0-0x26026].com.parallels.desktop.console[326]): Exited with exit code: 9

Starting Parallels Explorer yields a dialog box that says: Unable to find Parallels SDK library, and a system log entry of:

om.parallels.server.explorer[358]: Failed to load Parallels SDK library: 80000010, from file: /../../Contents/Resources/libprl_sdk.dylib

That dylib is there and has proper permissions. I have attached the system.log from the installation.
 

Attachments

Check Console for clues

Bi11 made the best suggestion for the first step of troubleshooting non-starting apps: check your console for error messages.

Finder:Applications:Utilities:Console

View all messages and also check:
~/Library/Logs/Parallels and
/Library/Logs/parallel.log
 
Log Contents

Console log wa shown above. /Library/Logs/Parallels/parallels.log contains a lot of stuff that does not appear to identify itself as errors, although its difficutl to tell. It does contain a large number of:

01:57:50.830 F /gui:325/ Failed to load SDK library
01:57:50.831 F /gui:325/ Error while initializing SDK. Return code: [-2147483639]

I suspect the libprl_sdk.dylib is somehow corrupted as I can find it using each of the various references it has. I have installed from the CD and also from the updated download with exactly the same results.
 
Making Progress

After many hours of digging around I have found tha Parallels does not use that name in the startup processes. The actual process name used is prl_client_app. You have to use that name with dtruss to trace what is happening. Doing that I find that it make the following attenots to find the SDK:

stat("/Library/Frameworks/ParallelsVirtualizationSDK.framework/Libraries/libprl_sdk.dylib\0", 0xBFFFE488, 0xBFFFF2AC) = -1 Err#2
11814/0x81b67d8: stat("/Users/doug/lib/libprl_sdk.dylib\0", 0xBFFFED08, 0xBFFFF2AC) = -1 Err#2
11814/0x81b67d8: stat("/usr/local/lib/libprl_sdk.dylib\0", 0xBFFFED08, 0xBFFFF2AC) = -1 Err#2

As you can see none of them work. None of those files exist. Somehow I suspect the first one should have been installed by the installer but was not.
 
Success

I have found the installation problem. If you have the directory /usr/local/lib defined on your system, then Parallels places links to the SDK there. However, they use relative links of the form: ../../../.... Since MacOS has a tendency to remove and recreate /usr/local leaving it in its normal place tends to cause problems. I have it sym linked off to an location in my home directory so that at worst only the link gets removed. That can easily be recreated. However, then the Parallels sym links no longer work. They are making presumptions about the directory structure that are not always valid. They should be using full file references. Once I changed the link for the SDK to the real location where it is stored in the app, then Parallels started up properly.
 
wa6vvv,

Do you have a step-by-step procedure on how to make this change? I'm relatively new to Macs, having mine for about a year. I was able to find out that the change has to made in Terminal which looks like the DOS screen in Windows. I don't know what commands to type.

Also, doesn't the Parallels developers know about this bug? According to this thread, it's been around for about a month. I e-mailed their tech support and they linked me to here. Do they plan a bug fix?

I appreciate any help.
 
The approach depends on how your system (in particular /usr/local/lib) is setup. The developers certainly know about this situation so there should be a more permanent fix sometime fairly soon. To figure out what needs to be done go to terminal (in utilities) and enter:

cd /usr/local/lib
pwd -P
ls -l libprl_sdk*
ls -l '/Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Frameworks/ParallelsVirtualizationSDK.framework/Versions/3.0/Libraries/libprl_sdk.dylib'

Watch out for the last one. It has a space in it not a return. Post the results of all that.
 
Posting Results

Here's what I get:

Last login: Tue Dec 16 21:21:00 on console
ricardo-rosarios-imac:~ RicardoRosario$ cd /usr/local/lib
ricardo-rosarios-imac:lib RicardoRosario$ pwd -P
/usr/local/lib
ricardo-rosarios-imac:lib RicardoRosario$ ls -l libprl_sdk*
ls: libprl_sdk*: No such file or directory
ricardo-rosarios-imac:lib RicardoRosario$ ls -l '/Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Frameworks/ParallelsVirtualizationSDK.framework/Versions/3.0/Libraries/libprl_sdk.dylib'
ls: /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/Frameworks/ParallelsVirtualizationSDK.framework/Versions/3.0/Libraries/libprl_sdk.dylib: No such file or directory
ricardo-rosarios-imac:lib RicardoRosario$

Will wait to hear from you.
 
That is a different problem than I encountered. Parallels is not completely installed. I would suggest re-installing it. Make sure you are installing it as an admin user.
 
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