Parallels hanging

W

wmwdit

Bit poster
I searched the forums and did not find anything relating to my issue, so I'm hoping that someone can point me in the right direction or maybe they can help me out with this issue. My IT staff is PC centric so I am left with handling most of the Mac tech support.

I am running a Mac G5 (Intel Xeon quad prcoessors), OS 10.4.11 with 5 GB of RAM.

I have Parallels 3.0 for Mac (Build 5584) running Windows XP Pro SP2, with 1.5 GB set aside for RAM. It has been running with minimal problems for more than 10 months now.

My problem occurs when I am running multiple applications, particularly Adobe products. I have the full Adobe CS3 Master Suite.

The most common occurrence happens when I am running Parallels, InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and Adobe Bridge. I have Parallels running with XP so that I can check my office email, calendar and task, etc. I have these software opened for a full days work with frequent switching between the apps. The problems occurs when I go to shut down the Adobe Apps. They all shut down fine with InDesign crashing on occasions (That's another story), but when after shutting down, I try to switch to Parallels but it will not switch or make the app active (I am running in coherence mode and not full screen). On some occasions, it appears that Parallels is swapping or paging out memory or something and eventually my Parallels XP will come back on. I can then log out for the day. However, recently I have had Parallels do something different. It will not come back to the active screen. As a matter of fact the last software (One of the Adobe Products) to close will show in the menu bar at the top even when I have switched to Parallels. It should show Parallel but it does not. I have waited in hopes that it is swapping or paging something but it has reached the unacceptable 5-10 minute barrier so I am left with no choice but to force quit the Parallels app. The Force Quit Application screen does not show that Parallels is not responding, it shows that the app is running. So. I have to kill it. This has happened three times now in the past week. Not sure what is going on. I have restarted the system each time and there has been no install of new software in recent months. Does anyone have any insight on what might be going on? Do I need to allocate more RAM? It there some setting in Parallels that I am missing? Any information would be helpful! Thanks!
 
Do you do a disk clean up and defag of your XP?
How much Hard Disk space do you have left on your VM?
kat
 
The Mac has two HDs, the OS drive is 250 GB and my data drive is 500 GB. The VM is installed on the main drive with 100 GB set aside for XP. All my data and work files are stored on the my 500 GB drive. I don't use the XP for much except for email, calendar, task, etc, and some use of MS Office. Other than this the VM drive is pretty clean. I took a look at the VM drive's fragmentation and it looks very clean. I am using about 16 GB out of the 100 GB on the VM. I also did a "get Info" on the main drive on my Mac and it shows that I still have 78 GB available out of the 250 GB. I don't think it is a virtual memory issue unless you know something I don't know. Appreciate the help! Thanks!
 
Did this type of behavior just start after you installed the latest build 5584?

Did you have any issues installing Parallels tools?

If you are having Adobe issues:
"(One of the Adobe Products) to close will show in the menu bar at the top even when I have switched to Parallels. It should show Parallel but it does not."

Have you checked into the Adobe application folders or your save work files for any stray Parallels files? (On both HDs)

If you run you VM in Full Screen does this still happen?

kat
 
Did this type of behavior just start after you installed the latest build 5584? No. This behavior only manifested recently.

Did you have any issues installing Parallels tools? No problems here either.

Have you checked into the Adobe application folders or your save work files for any stray Parallels files? (On both HDs) I have checked my data drive and from what I can see, there are no Parallels files, but I've not looked at the Main OS dirve. Although I don't know how files could "stray", but I'll certainly look to make sure there are none.

If you run you VM in Full Screen does this still happen? I notice the "swapping/paging issue" happens more frequently when running in full screen. So I keep it in coherence so I can get to my desktop quickly. One thing I neglected to mention is that I either hide or minimize the Parallels app while I am working with the other apps. Again, the problem shows after I close the last app. The last app menu does not close and return to the desktop menu. So, when I try to switch to Parallels to bring the app out of hiding or to maximize the app, it will not become active. I cannot access the menu for Parallels because the previous app menu is still on screen or it is still "shutting down". This is where I wait or just force quit the app. Funny thing is when I force quit, the only apps that are running is Parallels and Finder.
 
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Well "stray" is a nice way of saying someone may have accidently saved or moved files to another location. :)

The reason I asked about latest build 5584 and tools is it appears that several people have had issues http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=19562. (Have you checked your error logs?)

I have tried to duplicate your VMs' issues. But have not been unable to do so as of yet. This behavior only happens when you are using Adobe? Or closing Adobe apps when Parallels is running? Is it always the same Adobe app? You still run Tiger.

kat.
 
I haven't checked the logs...let you know if I find anything there.

As for the Adobe thing, yes, it appears that it only happens when closing out Adobe apps. Typically, my daily app load consist of Parallels, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Adobe Bridge...hmmm, and Acrobat 8 pro. Because of possible memory issue, I try not to run all of them at the same time. I will shut down what I'm not using at the moment, but what I typically run is listed above. An yes I'm still on Tiger ver. 10.4.11.
 
Hi

Are VM Coherence options set up something like this? See attached image.


sorry to say, but this still may be a conflict with Adobe.
 

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wmwdit,

I spoke with my Mac IT Tec, (it pay to have one living with you) about Adobe and Parallels "Adobe is a resource hog" Will slow your system down when you have both running at the same time.

"On some occasions, it appears that Parallels is swapping or paging out memory"

I found this work around re memory:

The possible workarounds are:

- lower the total Parallels Desktop reserved memory limit (under Preferences - Memory).
- lower the amount of memory allocated to the particular VM.
- start Parallels Desktop right after the Mac restart (thus we put our main drivers in the first 4 GB address space of the system).

kat
 
I should have asked you this, but I didn't because you are running PD in Coherence.

Your set up is Parallels on your Mac. NOT Bootcamp partition with Parallels installed on Mac side accessing the XP.

Kat
 
First of all, thanks for taking the time to help me out with this, it is much appreciated! I will take a look at adjusting the memory prefs to see if this will alleviate some of the problems. I totally agree with you on the Adobe thing. Adobe products like the ones I use have always been memory hungry. My G4 was able to handle things pretty well...but the new Intel Mac however with its memory management thing is a little different for me. Particularly the way they configured the "Wired, Active, Inactive, and Free memory" thing. I have yet to really sit down to figure out how to really optimize the memory management, if it is even possible. Again, I'll take a look at the reserve memory prefs.

I have 5 GB on the Intel Mac and I have 1.5 GB set aisde for the PD XP...you suggest I lower the memory?

I typically will start PD first before I begin anything else since I need to access my email at the start of the day. Finally, I am running PD as VM on the Mac, no bootcamp here.
 
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Yes, try to lower your memory to about 1024 in your xp, see if that helps.

The reason I asked about bootcamp is that your VM hard drive at 100 is large. I don't use bootcamp, and because of that I wouldn't give boothcamp advice so I just wanted to make sure. I generally go with the hard drive option "expanding disk space". I also clone my original and use the clone for testing etc. (that way when I want, I just delete it and clone another). Using "expanding disk" uses less space on my hard drive.

kat
 
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PS Make a copy of your VMs' .hdd and .pvs files, just in case you need them later.
 
I've reduced the RAM settings for the VM down to 1024, and moved my reserve memory down to half of the default config. Gonna run this setup for a week or so to see what turns up.

Also: Something interesting happened, I may have narrowed down my search for the culprit software. I think Illustrator is the problem Adobe app. I had to run Illustrator intensively today to design some LARGE displays with lots of raster and vector components using the new settings and when I went to quit Illustrator (Only PD XP and Illustrator running) the system did not return PD back to active. I had my PD XP in the backgound as I was quitting Illustrator and as it was closing I saw my PD app minimize to the Dock. But when I went to retrieve the minimized app, it was not minimized. I could not switch back to the PD app because now my Illustrator top menu was stuck on screen. I had to force quit my PD. I'll test this a little further with other Adobe apps to see how they respond.
 
Hi,

Just checking, its been about 2 weeks, wanted to know if all works well. No further Adobe issues?

kat
 
Everything appears a little bit smoother...still have that memory swapping/paging thing that bugs me from time to time but all in all it appears more stable than before. Not sure what did the trick though. I tried a number of changes, lowering RAM to 1 GB, lower the reserve to half and since I was able to narrow down my suspect software to Illustrator CS3, I merely adjusted the shutdown procedure...I shutdown my VM first then shutdown Illustrator CS3. I have not experienced a bad hang on my VM since these changes. I did however get the opportunity to test my other Adobe CS3 products - Photoshop, InDesign, Bridge, Flash, Dreamweaver, and Premiere from my Master Suite and they all appear to respond normally when shutting down with PD VM in the background. It's only when I am shutting down Illustrator ahead of my VM that the problem shows up.

I'm leaning towards Illustrator as the culprit, but since everything appears stable, I'll keep the settings as they are and continue my shutdown workaround. It's stable...and that's what I want. Hopefully Adobe/Apple are getting the crash reports and work towards a resolution. Thanks again for your help and the followup! Much appreciated!

Best Regards,

Sonny
 
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