Parallels Desktop5 Hangs at launch - Promo Screen?

I am running an iMac with OSX10.6.4 with Parallels Desktop 5.

I have been successfully using this software for several months.
Recently, Parallels hangs at launch, before any virtual machine is selected, but the Parallels welcome screen does appear.
I get the Pizza Wheel of Death and have to Force Quit as the application becomes unresponsive.

Parallels Log shows this as the last entry:
17:47:56.464 F /gui:2464:207/ New subtask is 1 [ShowPromoScreen]

and, in fact, I do not get the usual "update to v6" screen when the software hangs.

Removal of Parallels and reinstall does not help. However, I can switch to another user account on the same machine and launch successfully - and get Promo Screen.

In the problem user account, I have attempted to remove every Parallels config or preference file I can find, then do the reinstall. No Luck.

Clearly I am missing something.

Any suggestions for a fix or a reference to a procedure to remove ALL Parallels files before reinstalling?
Is it possible that the VM files themselves, which do not exist in the account where launch is successful, could be causing the problem? Remember that the hang occurs BEFORE the virtual machines are launched.

Thanks...

 

Had the same problem. I read the suggestions in the other thread above ("Grey screen freeze..") and tried the font folder emptying thing. Parallels instantly worked perfectly again. I have no idea why though.

Good luck,

Xaver

 

Yup. Removing the fonts from ~/Library/Fonts solved the problem.

Font problems after all these years !! Thought those were a relic of the past.

Great insight Xaver.

Thanks a lot.

Paul

 

hangs at launch

I went through a long and repetitive support process until they finally suggested booting into another mac account. I too found that parallels worked in the other account. Then I booted back into my 'normal' account and decided to just try parallels 5. It worked. I have not changed anything in the fonts folder. But I do believe that I am currently running the previous (5.0.9344, not the latest) build of PD5. During troubleshooting I tried uninstalling and reinstalling various builds and just ended with this build. But PD has checked for updates and says I am up to date.