Parallels crashing Mac network adapters

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DavidG13

Bit poster
Just purchased a new MacBook Pro 13" (with El Capitan 10.11.5) and installed latest version of Parallels for Mac & Windows 10. Whenever windows is running I start having network connection problems in both the Mac and Windows environments that after a couple of minutes completely shuts down all network adapters in the computer (both wifi & ethernet). Ethernet adapters remain off-line and cannot be restarted, even after shutting down parallels and requires the MBP to be rebooted before the adapters will return to functionality. Have tried changing the Parallels network settings (shared, etc.) but nothing works. Problem started with Win 7 update 1 installed. Created a windows 10 upgrade disk on a separate computer and was able to use the disk to upgrade the windows installation to Windows 10, but even after rebooting the machine problem still occurs. Have even tried running the full El Capitan 10.11.5 installer app downloaded from the App store but no change.
We have several other (slightly older) MacBook Pro's running Parallels 11 / Windows 10 on the previous El Capitan version (10.11.4) without issue.
Is anyone else having this issue with Parallels / El Capitan 10.11.5? Has anyone found a work around?
 
Hi DavidG13, please make sure that you are using Shared Networking. Then click Start -> Run and execute cmd.exe. Type in the appeared window command "ipconfig /all" (make sure that all output fits the window). Then, without closing the window, click Parallels Desktop menu "Help"->"Report a Problem", send a problem report (it is not necessary to provide description) and post here the report ID.
 
I also appear to be experiencing a similar problem, although with different versions of OS X and Parallels Desktop. I'm currently using Parallels Desktop v11.2.0 (32581). I upgraded from v10.4.0 (10337?) yesterday to see if it would fix this, but it hasn't made any difference. The host OS is OS X 10.9.5. The guest OSes are Windows Pro v8.1 (x64) and Ubuntu v14.04. I'm using wired ethernet.

Opening a Terminal window and starting "ping" to my network gateway returns sub-millisecond times and no lost packets. Launching either guest OS causes the ping requests to immediately start timing out and, from that point, neither the host nor guest OS have network access. Exiting the guest OS and Parallels Desktop is not sufficient to restore the network connection to the host: I must restart the host network connection.

I have tried both Bridged (my preferred option) and Shared networking and the Virtio/Intel Pro1000/Realtek network options in the Windows 8.1 guest. None of these changes seem to make any difference to the symptoms. I have also experimented with static vs DHCP network address (I'm using IPv4 only), and again, this seems to make no difference. Both guests have previously had working network connectivity (they are only used intermittently), but I have upgraded Parallels Desktop from v9 -> v10 -> v11 on this computer over time.

Does anyone have any other suggestions?
 
Hi JimK4, follow the steps mentioned below:
1. Go to Parallels Desktop menu (on Mac OS X menu bar) > Preferences.
2. Open Devices tab and highlight Apple USB Ethernet Adapter in the list of devices.
3. Select Connect it to my Mac option and close Preferences tab.
4. Restart the Virtual Machine and check how it goes.
 
I'm just posting to document the resolution of this problem, which was found after considerable trial and error.
1. The steps outlined by Arun above made no difference.
2. I updated to Desktop 11.2.1-32626, which didn't resolve the problem.
3. I tried creating a new VM, with a fresh install of Windows 10 using the Parallels installation defaults and ended up with a VM without working networking connectivity. The Windows network adapter never seemed to receive an IP address via DHCP, and manually inserting a network configuration didn't help.
4. I worked through the troubleshooting guide found here, but there was nothing obviously wrong.
5. The fact that the VM network adapter didn't receive an IP address via DHCP even in Shared Networking mode suggested that something was wrong with the base Parallels networking configuration i.e. that this was a Parallels problem rather than an OS X or Windows problem.
6. Unfortunately, when I tried to check the Shared Networking configuration in the Network tab in Parallels, I found that the tab was missing. Apparently that option has migrated to the Professional edition only, which meant that there was no ability for me to either view or fix the "broken" network configuration.
7. This thread provided the remaining pieces of the puzzle. My existing network.desktop.xml file (located here: /Library/Preferences/Parallels/network.desktop.xml) was ~12.5KB of relatively unobvious XML, so I tried exiting Parallels and then renaming the file in the hope that Parallels would recreate a default file on its next restart. It did (a much smaller ~5.3KB) and network connectivity was "magically" restored.

It is clearly a problem that the networking configuration cannot be viewed/edited in the non-Pro edition anymore and consideration needs to be given to restoring that capability please.
 
I do still have a copy of the non-functional version of the network.desktop.xml file if that would be helpful. If yes, is there a way to pass this on to you?
 
Hi JimK4,

We have forwarded your feedback to concern team. If they require that file we will let you know about it.

Thanks,
Ajith M.
 
Maria@Parallels said:
Hey @JimK4, please check your inbox. I've sent you some additional details about this issue.
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Hi Maria, please may I also have your additional details? This is also affecting me - the only way that I can make the VM start is to force quit Parallels, delete the network.desktop.xml file and then restart the machine.

Clearly, this cannot be a long-term workaround?!

Many thanks.

A
 
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