After upgrade to Parallels 5, MS Outlook hangs when returning from suspended state

I've been using Parallels through versions 3 and 4, and kept a very simple Windows XP Pro virtual machine to use Microsoft Office.

After upgrading to Parallels 5 (as well as the newest build 9308) MS Outlook keeps hanging. This happens after I return from a Parallels suspended state, though I normally close out of Outlook before I put the virtual machine on suspend. When I return from a suspended state, open up Outlook, and create a new mail message, the program hangs. A force quit is required.

When I then attempt to shutdown and reboot Windows, I always get an alert that a program called CPInterceptor is not responding. I have to force quit this program before shutdown will proceed. I have no clue what this CPInterceptor is, and I've never had an error from this before.

I haven't made any changes to my virtual machine other than upgrading to Parallels 5 and installing the appropriate version of Parallels Tools.

 

Hello PatL,
could you specify you MS Office version? How often do you see the problem with CPInterceptor after vm resume? Always?

 

I'm running Microsoft Office 2003 on Windows XP Pro. Again, this is the same configuration I'd used without problems in prior versions of Parallels Desktop.

The CPInterceptor ('Application Not Responding') alert appears after these steps. However, CPInterceptor never appears listed in the Windows Task Manager.

1) Launch Outlook
2) Quit Outlook
3) Suspend virtual machine and Quit Parallels
4) Reopen Parallels and Resume virtual machine
5) Launch Outlook
6) Create New Message or Reply to Message
7) As soon as the New Message window displays, Outlook and Word (which is used internally by Outlook to compose new messages) stops responding.
8) Force quit Outlook and Word via Windows Task Manager
9) Attempt to Shut Down windows
10) Shut down is interrupted; 'Application Not Responding' error for CPInterceptor appears.

 

Similar behaviour, possibly related to Dreamweaver CS4

I am seeing a similar behaviour when I try to use Dreamweaver CS4 after returning from suspended mode. The programme launches fine, but the first time I try to save to the virtual hdd (rather than a Windows-mounted version of the Mac's directories) the programme ceases to respond and the VM requires a restart. Before I can restart, I need to click on "End Now..." for CPinterceptor.exe, as described in the previous post. I'm running Win XP from a MacBook with 4 GB RAM. The VM is configured to use 1 GB.

Excuse the crossposting: I first brought this up here.

 

I am experiencing the same problem as PatL - Outlook 2003 hanging, CPInterceptor doesn't respond at closing.

-Ron

 

Ditto

I am having the same problem with the CPInterceptor thread. Also after the upgrade I have experienced lockups with Outlook. Disabling windows search seems to help.

Jeff Childers

 

Any progress here?

I've tried disabling Windows Search indexing but it's not made a difference. I've also made adjustments to memory usage with no success. I've also tried removing and reinstalling Parallels Tools.

Parallels 5 is the first update I've been disappointed in. It feels much more bloated, unstable, and slow than any other previous version. And I've been with Parallels since verison 2.5. The most disappointing part is that my Windows XP virtual machine is very barebones and I use only Office applications.

For a long time loyal customer, I'm extremely disappointed. It is absolutely ridiculous that I need to restart my virtual machine and Parallels every time I want to write a new email message in Outlook!

 

Same exact symptoms as PatL with Parallels 5 (build 9310): after resuming XP (SP3) VM from suspended mode, Office (2003) applications hang. Word, Excel and Powerpoint hang immediately after launch, Outlook hangs only after you attempt to create a new email message (when it tries to open Word as the email editor). Rebooting the VM solves the problem until the next suspend and wake cycle when the problem re-appears. During reboot I also get the alert that CPInterceptor is not responding.

Any Help?!!!

Thanks!

 

I can't reproduce the problem with Outlook 2003 on my 9308. (I use test-case which PatL wrote) May be it is accidental bug. How often do you see it?
And one more question: are there some other running applications in your guest OSes which can potentially work with clipboard?

 

I see this every time I resume from suspend. My guest OS is very small and only has Office 2003, Adobe Acrobat Pro 7 and Avast antivirus installed... Does CPInterceptor refer to your clipboard transfer program?

Some more clues: I just did some further testing and I can hang any guest OS application (e.g. Wordpad, IE 8, etc.) if I attempt to copy and paste something from the Mac OS to the guest OS via the clipboard.

Restarting the guest OS clears this up until the guest OS is suspended and then resumed and then everything breaks again. It definitely seems to be clipboard related.

thanks!

 

esz, hello.
Yes, CPInterceptor is clipboard related thing and now I study the problem. Thank you for quick reply.
Could you write steps to hang guest OS application for some app, e.g. notepad? (Beginning from start your vm)
You said your guest OS is very small, but may be there is some suspicious apps on your Mac host?

 

Thanks for looking into this. The steps for reproducing are:

Start VM
Suspend VM
Resume VM
Copy something into clipboard in Mac OS
Open notepad in guest OS
Attempt to paste contents of clipboard into notepad

for me notepad and any other application you attempt to past to will hang indefinitely at this point. This will not correct itself until the guest OS is restarted. It appears that the clipboard functionality does not work after a Suspend and Resume and this somehow affects the MS Office applications that try to check the contents of the clipboard on startup...

thanks!

 

Just wanted to mention that I see this CPInterceptor problem, too. If I use my electronic banking software after a suspend/resume, sometimes (actually about 80% of the times) the application fails to start and simply hangs. The only thing I can do then is restart the Windows XP instance, and when Windows tries to close all threads/tasks the popup appears saying that CPInterceptor cannot be stopped.

I had the same problem since PD4 by the way (but maybe I'm just bad in remembering things).

 

More information:

I have 3 VM's: XP, Vista and Windows 7. All three behave the same way with regards to the clipboard not working and any application you attempt to copy and paste into in the guest OS hanging after resuming from a suspend.

Any help, please?

thanks!

 

i have the same problem after resuming from suspend using win xp sp3. it also freezes firefox when i click a bookmark link in the sidebar. the only solution is to restart the windows vm, at which point it shows the message about ending the CPInterceptor task right before it shuts down. i'm running parallels 5.0.9310 revision 546799.

 

From what I read from the postings here there are some cases where people don't even use copy&paste functionality, but some applications simply crash or stop working after a resume. In all cases the CPInterceptor seems to hang. It is somehow confusing that applications hang if a clipboard problem occurs, even if you don't use the clipboard (in my case I simply try to start a specific application and it stops working even before I try to login into the application (it has a built-in user management)) or hitting any key at all.

 

this problem still exists in 5.0.9344 (rev 558741). same "CPInterceptor not responding" error when shutting down also.

 

i may have found a temporary workaround for this issue (not a true fix).

i currently use a program called Butler as an app launcher, snippets, extended pasteboard, etc. if i clear the pasteboard using butler (this empties the mac os clipboard) before resuming the winxp vm, i no longer get the stalled app issue. i've only tried this a few times, and it seems to be working, but i want to see if this works for others.

so i would suggest using an app like butler that can clear out the mac os x clipboard (or an applescript or terminal command that does it) before resuming a suspended vm and report back your results here.

hopefully parallels devs are looking into this CPInterceptor issue.

 

same problem

Just to chime in and confirm that I got the same problem with applications hanging after resume from suspension with the CPInterceptor problem thingy. This really SUCKS!

WindowsXP
MacOSX 10.4.11
MacBookPro Intel 15"
Microsoft Money hangs
Parallels 5.0.9344.558741 (WTF)

Come on Parallels team, this is ridiculous. I've also got Butler installed so maybe I'll try the same tip from samx.

 

I just wanted to add that attempting to copy plain text from Mac OS X and attempting to paste it into a New Mail Message in Outlook causes the window to hang and become unresponsive. At the same time, disk read activity jumps up. I have to force quit Outlook to regain control.

Please, please PLEASE. Can someone at Parallels look at the problems that are being caused by the clipboard?