Repeated Corrupt .PVM file

S

SkipH

Bit poster
I have a case where my Parallels .PVM file appears to become corrupt. This has happened 4 times over the past 12 months.

Here is the normal course of events:

  • While working in Parallels the VM freezes and becomes unresponsive. I get the spinning beach ball of death. Eventually the Mac becomes unresponsive and a forced shutdown must be performed.
  • After rebooting the Mac, Parallels does not start. It keeps spinning but the VM window never opens. Any attempt to do anything in Parallels makes the Mac unresponsive.
  • After another Mac reboot, attempting to copy the .PVM file to an external hard disk results in "The operation can't be completed because an unexpected error occurred (error code 100034)."
  • To fix the problem I have to delete the .PVM file and restore a backup of the file.
After this initially happened I did a complete reformat of the Mac SSD and reinstall of the OS. But the problem has resurfaced 3 times since. I now regularly back up my .PVM file to an external SSD so I don't lose everything. I do regular backups with Time Machine but the .PVM file is excluded.

This has happened with multiple Parallels versions and multiple Mac OS versions.

I've searched for answers regarding the 100034 error code when copying the file but can't determine anything definitive. Running Disk FirstAid shows a healthy disk.

Any ideas of what might be causing this issue?

MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017), 16 GB, 500 GB SSD
macOS Mojave 10.14.4
Parallels Desktop v14.1.3
Guest OS: Windows 10.
 
I know it's of no help, but it has just happened to me. VM froze, had to do a complete forced power down of iMac. The only difference is I have a Late-2012 iMac, with Mojave 10.14.5. Last operation in the VM was to change a configuration to link a Mac folder to the VM. Interested in any response that might be made.
 
I've had one of those critical lockups occur when Time Machine was backing up to an external USB disk - twice.
Just wondering if this hasn't been complicated by the USB disk problems reported in Spring'19 Win10 update.
 
I fact it has to be related to the USB drive issue. Had another lockup this morning and it didn't unlock until the drive started spinning up.
 
I was unable to copy the .pvm file directly to an external hard drive. I found out that its actually a folder and you can view the files inside of it (right-click, "show package contents").

I WAS able to copy the files out of that folder onto an external hard drive. Then I formatted/reinstalled MacOS and copied the files back to the Mac. I copied them into a folder I named Windows. Then when the transfer was done, renamed the folder to Windows.pvm and was able to start the VM up.

If you have files on your VM you want to get off before trying this, you can go into the .pvm folder and right-click on your .hdd file and open with Parallels Mounter. This will mount the hdd to your Mac as a hard drive and you can copy whatever you need from the VM hd.
 
And now my pvm is hosed too. This time it locked up during a shutdown (and likely a trim). Mounted the .hdd image in Parallels Mounter.app. The Documents and Settings, Program Files, ProgramData, Users, Windows directories... all wiped clean.
Looks like I'm starting from scratch. #NotAHappyCamper
 
It would seem related to USB - I plugged in a USB disk (Time Machine) and the iMac just started to freeze (some apps worked for a short while.) Mail couldn't connect to my accounts - I had to force quit then restart, but it wouldn't actually start again, just gave me the option to Force Quit. Parallels wouldn't quit at all. Safari wouldn't quit. Restart eventually closed everything (after I force quit Parallels which was preventing the restart) but hung at a black screen until I force powered off.
I don't know how to generate a technical report in a situation like this. The Windows VM doesn't appear to have been corrupted.
 
I first noticed it when the 1903 install originally failed and locked. The original 1903 upgrade had a problem with USB drives that may have been fixed. Newer incremental upgrades but still may not be fully installing, because... USB drives.

Don't recommend going the route I went to ultimately fix it, which was to completely start from scratch with a 1703 USB stick install, upgrade to 1803, then force it to upgrade with 1903 using the Windows 10 Upgrade Assistant.

If you have a working VM file, I think Windows retains 1803 so you can uninstall 1903 and go back to 1803 or whatever the Fall one was (1809?? 1810??). If anything, that gets you out of the USB do-loop. Then you can use the Upgrade Assistant to force it up to 1903... BUT I would eject any USB drives and unset Time Machine from automatic beforehand, just to make sure.

If you don't have it, the Update Assistant can be downloaded from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
 
Thanks Mark. Unfortunately I'm not a Windows/Parallels expert so I don't really understand what you are telling me - I presume those are Windows release identifiers? I installed Parallels and Windows 10 Pro less than a month ago in order to run an app that won't work under MacOS or Wine. From what I can tell, Windows is just automatically running updates when I launch the VM. TBH, I wish I had just lumped for a cheap Windows laptop as between it crashing the Mac and the keyboard not working properly, Parallels is proving to be a real PITA.
 
They issue a major release twice yearly: one in the Spring, another in the Fall.
1903 is basically the year/month of the release, so essentially Spring 2019.
1810 was the major upgrade before that, Fall 2018. You may be able to revert to that by going into:
Settings -> Update & Security -> View Update History -> Recovery Options -> Go back to the previous version of Windows 10.
However, as I said, I would eject all external drives and disable Time Machine and reboot Windows before doing any of this, especially if the USB interface is what's doing it.
 
Ah, I understand now. I see the below in update - is it worth doing that? Presumably first disconnecting drives and disabling time machine?
 

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I wouldn't until you knew you had a stable 1903 baseline. For all you know you could just be adding to the existing problem in 1903.
Best to go back to 1810 by first uninstalling 1903 as described, then downloading/installing a fresh 1903 upgrade using the Upgrade Assistant.
 
Ok, understood - just one more question, sorry. Given that I downloaded and installed the Windows OS on the 12th June this year will I actually be able to go back to the 1810 version by uninstalling updates - there are two cumulative updates for 1903 according to the update history? I would have thought that if there was an issue with an early release of 1903, by the time I downloaded a full Windows OS image it would contain the good one. Under recovery options, I don't have an option to go back to a previous version of Windows 10, only "Reset this PC", "Advanced Startup" and, under More Recovery Options "Fresh Start".
 

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Ugh... that stinks... don't know, tbh.
Reset seems like a start from scratch option which is going to take a lot of work to recover from.
If all Fresh Start does is pull down and install a completely new 1903 without messing up your settings, I'd say go with that.
I'd try and avoid losing your current settings if possible. I don't know about you, but I really hate trying to get things back to where I like them.
OTOH, you could always try downloading and running the Update Assistant and see what that does. It may allow you to go backwards.
 
Thanks. I think I will just run those updates on the basis that the download image for June must be up to date with correct fixes. The Update Assistant you refer to above just seems to be a link to update to May 2019 build or to download a tool to create installation media, neither of which I want to do. Incidentally, that page doesn't render in Edge until I re-size the window a few times - either that or it is incredibly slow! Other web sites are fine.
 
I have been struggling with similar issues for months. Every time I encounter this issue, the support team ends up restoring a backup from time machine. I am not sure why no one is looking at fixing the root cause?
 
One more thing. I was at least able to mount it in the past as a drive to get my files out. Now I am not able to do it either. Thanks.
 
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