Can't open Windows 10 - stuck on spinning device

As I know, one of our engineers sent you an email with details for the further issue investigation.
Could you please reply on it.

 

I had this issue today and after the process read all 256GB of my MBP while stuck on the loop, I closed out all the processes associated with it and restarted MacOS. Once restarted, I disconnected my computer from the internet and booted up the Windows 10 VM. Everything fired right up. The posts about Windows and Parallels both reaching out for updates made me think to do this. Your mileage may very but, it worked for me and I hope it works for others until it is properly fixed.

 

Same Here: Stuck on spinning wheel after stopping Windows10 VM (diagnostics report ID 334884548. Initial problem: switching to coherence not possible, after no restart of Windows and Mac since weeks).
Quit Parallels Desktop, Disconnected Internet. Restarting Mac, restarting Parallels Desktop: et voilà, VM booted seamlessly.
To polish things, I manually updated Windows 10 and Mac OS. - HTH!

 

BTW: There was a hefty Windows update pending, which required a restart. Maybe this update did block the vm restart... (2020-03: Windows Version 1903 for x64-based Systems, KB4540673)

 

Hi Guys thought I would post here with my findings. I have had parallels on macOS Sierra, Mojave & Now Catalina.
Parelles was never the speediest but it worked. In the last month whilst on Mojave it got really bad and I had the same issues as everyone else. This is why I updated to Catalina. This still didn't correct the issue. As I use this for work I was desperate to get things working so I backed up all my documents etc (I also have a time machine drive connected) then I completely wiped the iMac as if it was a new machine and re-installed Catalina. Everything is so fast now. I just timed it and windows 10 takes 15 seconds to open up. It's only been about a week but every thing is working great. To be honest everything on my machine had got a bit sluggish over the years. I just think after a certain amount of time we collect allot of crap on our machines and they need a good clean.

All the best
Patrick

 

I got the solution, follow these steps:

1. On your parallel top panel click on Action
2. on Action click on reset and stop the reset immediately by clicking on any button.
3. You Windows 10 is back!!!!! just that

 

Tried the reset button. didn't work for me. Also everything is much faster since re boot of system.

 

Guys, please try to switch to Apple Hypervisor (In the configuration panel > Hardware > CPU & Memory > Advanced Settings) and run your virtual machine.
and share any results with us

 

1) Generated tech report 336011783 while Win 10 VM spinning/hung at VM startup (took about 20 mins to generate report).
2) Mac hung, so forced reboot of Mac.
3) Parallels itself hung while starting Parallels (before starting VM) and then Mac became non-responsive.
4) Forced another Mac reboot. Then rebooted several times normally.
5) Ran Disk First Aid
6) Rebooted Mac again.
7) Switched to Apple Hypervisor per Maria instructions.
8) Started Win 10 VM, which again hung with same spinning circle.
9) While Win 10 VM hung/spinning, generated new tech report 336016887 (again took about 20 minutes to generate)

 

I don't understand Parallels' lack of serious response to this issue. Every month or so I waste an entire afternoon trying to get my Windows 10 VM running again. My Mac locks, overheats, crashes, and hours go by until randomly it starts working again.
There are many forum posts reporting the same thing for AT LEAST A YEAR - can't start a Win 10 VM, Mac crashes, large number of "bytes read" (presumably something with the VM's hard drive), and a correlation with Windows Updates. Goes away after some series of recovery steps but then returns after a month or so.
The Parallels Team typically responds on these forums with "please collect tech report" or with some quick fix to try. Then everyone tries these things and crickets again from the Parallels Team.
Case in point: March 25th - Parallels suggests using Apple Hypervisor. RichardT16 tries the suggestion and reports back that it did not work. Nothing else.
I appreciate the Parallels Team members that do post on here. But it isn't enough. Parallels, where are you on this issue!?
BTW I've had a tiny bit of luck running the hard drive file scan process described here - https://kb.parallels.com/113241. Pretty random but maybe this will help someone.

 

GregA1, Just out of curiosity do you have the O365 version of Outlook for Mac running when you try to run your VM? I've found that, more times then not, if Outlook is running on the host or in the VM is more likely to freeze and hang. I have a few Win10 VM's that have older versions of Office and I don't use Outlook in them. They almost never have issues.

 

Unfortunately no. My company uses Office 365 but I've been using the browser version of Outlook in Chrome.

 

I raised the issue with Parallels support who provided the following instructions, which *so far* seem to have sorted the issue for me:
1.0. Start Parallels Desktop. Make sure that the virtual machine is shut down. If it is in a suspended state, please run it and then immediately shut down (Actions > Shut Down).
1.1. Perform a soft restart of your Mac (Apple Logo > Restart). It is quite important. If a soft restart fails at first (macOS gets stuck and does not reboot), perform a hard reset using power button followed by a soft restart.
1.2. In Mac macOS, run Terminal and execute the command below:

prl_disk_tool check --hdd /Users/Shared/Parallels/Windows\ 10.pvm/Windows\ 7-0.hdd
If you pvm has different name or location, modify above command accordingly. A simple way to do that is type the first part of the command including a space at the end like this
prl_disk_tool check --hdd
then, in Finder, drag your pvm and drop on the terminal window.

1.3. Wait till the operation finishes. It may take a while (mine took a few hours).
The progress % may get stuck at some point, but the process is actually working. You can see it if you open Activity monitor, go to Disk tab and in the search bar type "prl", you will see a "prl_disk_tool" process, and the number of "Bytes read" slowly rising.

2.1 Once the process finishes (prl_disk_tool will disappear from the activity monitor), run the virtual machine. If the issue persists, please raise issue with Parallels support.
2.2 Once booted, click on the Windows icon (left bottom) and type 'cmd'
2.3 'Command prompt' will appear in suggestions. Right-click on it > Run as administrator > Yes.
2.4 Paste the following command into the prompt:

chkdsk C: /f /r /x

2.5 Press return to execute the command.
2.6 It will ask 'Would you like to schedule this volume to be
checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)'. Type 'Y' and press return.

2.7 Restart Windows (Windows icon > Power icon > Restart).

After that, please, do not touch mouse or keyboard, otherwise Windows might cancel the disk check. Once it is initiated, it might take from 5 minutes to an hour depending on the disk's condition.

Once the operation is complete, boot into Windows and see if performance has improved.

 

This happened to me, same horrible stuff. As one post stated unusable. But because of all your posts I was finally able to work my way through it with many downloads of 15.1.3 and attempted installs. But now, I feel sure that it is the updates to windows that Parallels somehow can't handle (like parallels is in a loop). Yes, I have clicked "later" on several of the windows update requests but I won't in the future because I think it gets balled up!! This is how I made it work again. Out of desperation I downloaded VMware and was proceeding with that. In trying to import my Parallels VM to VMware, my Parallels virtual machine all of a sudden started "cranking along" again with Parallels. But this time it started doing windows updates too. I got different screens finally instead of that spinning thing. After a few more reboots it got through all the windows updates (maybe there was a significant one or something?) and started again into Parallels as if it had never had the problem. Maybe attempting opening my vm with VMware broke through the Parallels "shell". I hope this helps someone. I feel as though once I brokethrough the "log jam" of windows updates, (and after many former reloading attempts), that is when the Parallels and my whole MacBook will actually work again and not be possesed by Parallels. Its still working great for overnight and now.

 

I have run into this problem more than a few times this past year and just wanted to add my two cents on what seems to have fixed it for me. In the configuration settings for my Windows 10 VM, under "Options->Sharing", under the "Share Mac" tab, I had the "Share folders:" setting set to "Home folders only" and under the "Shared profile:" setting, I had "Share Mac user folders with Windows" selected. When I turn both of those settings off, I am no longer seeing the long pauses that have plagued my VM and occasionally led to the complete freezing and two hour checking disc for errors process to get everything running again. I still need to share files between my Mac and Windows, so I have instead enabled "Access Windows folders from Mac" under the "Share Windows" tab. It's not ideal, but it works and I my VM is back to being the very smooth experience it was a couple of years ago (I've been running the same VM for many years now). No random pauses, no freezes, no crashes that take forever to recover from. FWIW, I do use iCloud for storing my Mac Desktop and Documents folder and I do have the option enabled to "Optimize Mac Storage". I have a hunch there's a disk i/o bug lurking with this particular set up.

 

PatrickW2, thanks for sharing this. Under "Options > Sharing > Share Mac" I had the "Share Folders" set to "None" but had one custom folder set (my Mac's Downloads folder). I've removed that and will try it out for a while.

Also Maria@Parallels had previously suggested running with the Apple hypervisor, set under "Hardware > CPU & Memory > Advanced Settings". Unfortunately this causes my Mac to run extremely slow with VERY high CPU utilization.

My Macbook is 2018 15" with 16GB RAM. I've got my VM set to values in the "recommended" range for a software development system - 4 virtual procs, 8GB RAM. This is where I run Microsoft stack for our legacy apps - Visual Studio, SQL Server etc. Any tips from others here? Thanks!

 

This pure garbage support is still going on? "Send me your error logs"

Lol. Parallels is a joke. I try to reboot this waste of space every month or so when an update comes out and it causes my mac to crash and overheat and completely wastes 2 hours of my life.

I wish we could get a lawsuit together. The support for this is an absolute outrage. I constantly tell people not to use this trash.

The sharing thing does not work for me. Mine was already off.

 

Ok, On a SERIOUS note - because my posts haven't been useful since I gave up. This actually happened to me again YESTERDAY like an hour after I posted this on another instance. I was furious to say the least, but I spent some time debugging.

Was anyone using Quicktime to record their screen when this happened to them?

I can replicate this problem doing the following:

#1 Open Quicktime
#2 Screen record for about 10-15 minutes, even upwards of 20
#3 Open Visual Studio and do some work. At this point it should freeze.

It happens every time for me. I'm not sure if its a memory problem or what, but basically Quicktime will look like its "Frozen" for recoding, and when you stop the recording or reboot I get the failure .

Oddly enough, I can get back into the system even after I get the "checking disk of death" screen as follows:

If you are stuck in the loading screen still and your Mac is getting super warm right now, do the following, otherwise skip to step 6.

#1 Power off your mac by holding the power button
#2 Power on your mac by holding the power button
#3 Open Parallels. You will see the "starting" popup but it won't actually start
#4 Power off your mac by holding the power button
#5 Power on your mac by holding the power button

This seems to completely stop Parallels. I'm not sure why you need to do it twice, but I have too, otherwise you can't get back into Paralells.

#6 Copy your PVM file(s) to a backup that is OFF of your computer
#7 Erase your original PVM
#8 Copy your PVM file back to your Mac

I can then use my Parallels as normal.

Switching to Hyper mode or whatever other bullshit that's recommended by "support" has never worked for me. I did however increase the ram from 4gig to 8gig, but I'm not sure if that helped or not.

Good luck.

 

Holy Cow! I came to the forum to look for a solution for a totally different issue and stumbled on this thread again. I CANNOT BELIEVE this has not be fixed by Parallels yet!!! I'm one of the users who has struggled with this since last fall and with around 200 macs running parallels in teaching labs, believe, this is a HUGE headache! Every time I saw another "send us your error log" message I laughed hysterically. This is simply UNACCEPTABLE!

 

Where are you seeing Action? This isn't in my menu?