WARNING: do NOT update Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (August 12, 2014)

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Serendip7

Bit poster
I stupidly allowed Ubuntu to update this morning and my Virtual Machine is completely hosed. The trackpad on my Macbook Pro no longer works in Ubuntu and the screen resolution settings are completely broken. I get this attached message when it boots up. I can't even click Close because the trackpad doesn't work any more. I'm using Parallels 9 Build 9.0.24237 which I think is the latest version.




Screen Shot 2014-08-12 at 3.59.15 PM.png
 
Ram@Parallels said:
Hi Serendip7,

Please try (re)installing Parallels Tools once as suggested at http://download.parallels.com/desktop/v9/ga/docs/en_US/Parallels Desktop User's Guide/32791.htm and let us know how it works.
Click to expand...



It took a while to try this since the desktop menus disappeared and there was no way to get to a terminal. After going into terminal mode with ctrl-alt-F1 I was able to get the install app to uninstall and then install again. This was a non-trivial experience as well since the pro-tools-linux.iso file is not where that document says it is. I eventually found that file in /Applications/Parallels Desktop.app/Contents/Resources/Tools instead of /Library/Parallels/... like this link suggested. After all that.... the mouse and keyboard are now working and the resolution seems to be fine but my menus and other shortcuts are gone. The only thing on the desktop are my files. So we're like 80% there I guess...
 
It took a while but I finally got it to work. First you need to reinstall the parallels tools as mentioned in the link. I have a couple of suggestions on top of the link mentioned.

1) The pro-tools-linux.iso is not where the above instructions says it is. Its in /Applications/Parallels Desktop.app/Contents/Resources/Tools.
2) You need to attach it to the VM by right clicking on the cdrom icon in the VM window and "Connect Image...". Even then you won't be able to access it because it won't mount automagically. You'll need to "su mkdir /media/cdrom" and "sudo mount /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom".
3) You probably won't be able to do 2) anyways because you can't get to a console/terminal because mouse and keyboard aren't working. So right click on the USB icon in the VM window and click on the "Apple Internal Keyboard/Trackpad". From this point on you won't be able to control OSX so have instructions at the ready. The mouse/keyboard will now work in Ubuntu.
4) You probably still can't do 2) because Unity is broken and you can't start a console/terminal. Do a ctrl-alt-fn-F1 and log into the terminal mode login. Now do 2)
5) run /media/cdrom/install as superuser "su /media/cdrom/install" and uninstall Parallel Tools. Do it all again and install Parallel Tools.
6) Fix the Unity problem by running through the instructions in "http://kb.parallels.com/en/121300". Again you'll probably have to go through ctrl-alt-fn-F1 to get to a terminal.

I finally got everything working after all that. Someone at Parallels should find a more user friendly way to fix this... or at least update the instructions somewhat.
 
Wished I'd seen this thread 10 minutes ago. Ran into the same problem but after rebooting linux and basically getting a completely dead screen, I deleted the VM entirely and will just reinstall ubuntu from scratch. "peeved" would be an understatement.
 
to Serendip7:
I had the same problem with Desktop 10 a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, I decided to remove the VM, and re-install Ubuntu 14.04.
I just got an email this morning re: Ubuntu 14.10. Do you think it is safe to install Ubuntu updates now?
 
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