X crashing when Parallels is minimized

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notrealdan

Junior Member
Host OS: Fedora Core 6 (Kernel version 2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.i686)
Guest OS: Windows XP with Parallels Tools installed
Parallels version: 2.2 Build 2092

When I have a VM running and minimize the console window, my X server crashes and brings me back to my host OS's login prompt. Here are entries from /var/log/messages that seem relevant:

Code: 
Oct 31 09:29:51 localhost escd: *** glibc detected *** ./escd: free(): invalid pointer: 0xbfc08574 *** 
Oct 31 09:29:53 localhost kernel: [ 3667] Application process unexpectly died (/usr/lib/parallels/drivers/drv_main/device.c:106)
Oct 31 09:29:53 localhost kernel: device eth0 left promiscuous mode
Oct 31 09:29:53 localhost kernel: audit(1162304993.150:11): dev=eth0 prom=0 old_prom=256 auid=4294967295
Oct 31 09:29:54 localhost kernel: audit(1162304994.950:12): avc:  denied  { execheap } for  pid=4301 comm="Xorg" scontext=system_u:system_r:xdm_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 tcontext=system_u:system_r:xdm_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 tclass=process
Oct 31 09:29:54 localhost kernel: audit(1162304994.950:13): avc:  denied  { execheap } for  pid=4301 comm="Xorg" scontext=system_u:system_r:xdm_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 tcontext=system_u:system_r:xdm_t:s0-s0:c0.c1023 tclass=process
Oct 31 09:30:09 localhost gconfd (djl-3307): GConf server is not in use, shutting down.
Oct 31 09:30:09 localhost gconfd (djl-3307): Exiting
Oct 31 09:30:59 localhost gconfd (djl-4384): starting (version 2.14.0), pid 4384 user 'djl'
Oct 31 09:30:59 localhost gconfd (djl-4384): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only configuration source at position 0
Oct 31 09:30:59 localhost gconfd (djl-4384): Resolved address "xml:readwrite:/home/djl/.gconf" to a writable configuration source at position 1
Oct 31 09:30:59 localhost gconfd (djl-4384): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only configuration source at position 2

This is on a Dell Latitude D620 laptop with an Intel Core Duo 2.16GHz processor and 1GB RAM. The FC6 installation is very plain, although I replaced the i586 kernel with the i686 one (known bug in FC6's installer) and installed the nvidia-graphics8776 driver from atrpms.net for my video card. I haven't tried going back to the stock "nv" driver, but I'll try that next and post results. I don't have anything fancy like sound or USB enabled in the VM. Just networking, which works properly.

I'd be happy to provide more info. Any thoughts?

-Dan
 
Last edited:
OK, here's what I've found so far:
It doesn't matter which video driver I have loaded. I get the same result either way.
If I'm logged into the host OS as root (I know, not usually a good idea to log into root in a gui) everything works fine. I can minimize the VM window without crashing. If I'm logged in as a normal user, it crashes.
I put SELinux into permissive mode, in case Parallels was tripping over it (audit entries in log), but that didn't help.
Uninstalling Parallels Tools from the guest OS also didn't help.

Next, I'll try different acceleration levels. Currently I'm on "High" and have hardware support enabled.

-Dan
 
Even with acceleration set to "Disabled" and hardware support turned off, it still crashes.

I think I'm out of ideas.

-Dan
 
I was thinking that since it works fine while logged in as root, maybe if I use sudo or su - it might work, but I was wrong. It still crashes if it's run as root. The only way I can get it to work is if I'm logged into X Windows as root.
It also crashes if I switch workspaces.

If I have time, I'll reinstall FC6 and only install the i686 kernel and Parallels. This way I'm absolutely sure everything is fresh and clean.

-Dan
 
OK, I did some more testing. I tried to keep things as clean and simple as possible and took notes along the way. Here are my results:

1. I reinstalled Fedora Core 6 on my laptop to make sure there wasn't any extra software mucking up the works. I installed only the default packages. I was installing from the FC6 DVD (media tested OK, just in case). All other packages installed later (except Parallels) came from this DVD.

2. I replaced the i586 kernel (mistakenly installed by anaconda, known bug) with the i686 kernel. kernel-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.i686.rpm

3. I installed the following packages (in this order) so that Parallels would install and parallels-config would run:
kernel-devel-2.6.18-1.2798.fc6.i686.rpm (kernel headers needed by parallels-config)
compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-61.i386.rpm (Parallels depends on libstdc++.so.5 which is provided by this package)
arts-1.5.4-1.i386.rpm (Parallels depends on libartsc.so.0 which is provided by this package)
glibc-headers-2.5-3.i386.rpm (dependency of glibc-devel)
glibc-devel-2.5-3.i386.rpm (dependency of gcc)
libgomp-4.1.1-30.i386.rpm (dependency of gcc)
gcc-4.1.1-30.i386.rpm (compiler needed by parallels-config, though not listed as a dependency)

4. I installed Parallels-2.2.2092-lin.i386.rpm with rpm --nodeps because otherwise it reports that libXft.so.1 cannot be found, though libXft 2.1.10-1.1 is installed. This is not new with FC6 or this version of Parallels. This was true on previous versions of both and has been discussed on this forum before.

5. I ran parallels-config. It successfully compiled, installed, and started the drivers.

6. I ran parallels as myself (normal user privs) and loaded my existing VM, which booted Windows XP SP2 with no apparent problems.

7. I minimized the Parallels console and X crashed.

I also tried the exact same procedure on a Dell OptiPlex GX620 desktop (Pentium D and an integrated Intel 945 video card). It works fine and does NOT crash. Unfortunately, this isn't the system I need it to work on...

After this testing, for the heck of it, on my laptop I installed kmod-nvidia-1.0.9626 from Livna. This is the beta nvidia driver that works with the fancy AIGLX/compiz desktop effects. No change. Parallels still crashes when minimized with that driver installed. Though, the fancy effects make it look very nice in the process... :)

In summary: There is a compatibility issue somewhere between Dell Latitude D620 laptops (maybe other models, but not all systems, not even all Dells), Fedora Core 6, and Parallels. For some reason, this issue is avoided when the user is logged into the X session as root (running Parallels with root privs is not enough).

Hope this info helps.

-Dan
 
For what it's worth, with AIGLX/compiz running I now can switch to other workspaces. So now I'm keeping the VM window on another workspace so I'm not as likely to accidentally minimize the window.

I'm starting to think I'm the only one with this problem, even though I can reproduce it 100% of the time. Anyone else out there in my boat?

-Dan
 
notrealdan said:
For what it's worth, with AIGLX/compiz running I now can switch to other workspaces. So now I'm keeping the VM window on another workspace so I'm not as likely to accidentally minimize the window.

I'm starting to think I'm the only one with this problem, even though I can reproduce it 100% of the time. Anyone else out there in my boat?

-Dan
Click to expand...
I have this problem too!, I'm using Ubuntu 6.10, all worked fine for a couple of weeks but now if I minimize Parallels or switch workspaces my xserver restarts. Frustrating.
 
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