After upgrading to Mavericks, Act Mon says Windows 8 (not responding)

Andrew@Parallels said:
Hello MarcelloS,
Sorry if I was not clear that the update has been sent on the forum (in this thread) but not on Twitter:
http://forum.parallels.com/showthre...ot-responding)&p=705719&viewfull=1#post705719

Parallels Development Team is working on a fix. Stand by for the product update.
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Thank you for your answer Andrew, but I will not stand by.
I'm using Parallels for my job and I cannot wait. I already downloaded Fusion and I'm doing some test.
I did a migration of my Windows7 WM from Parallels to Fusion, without making any changes, and like many others have written with Fusion there are no problem of CPU usage.
I suggest you to speak to your Development Team to find a solution very soon, otherwise I will switch to Fusion and I will ask for a refund.
 
As my usage is purely work related, and I spent most of my day mobile, high CPU and fans running constantly on my MacBook Air isn't ideal....the impact on battery life is impossible to live with.

I have made a request for a refund as part of my ticket #1765664.

At this point I've provided more technical input into the ticket than Parallels support, who have only given me steps to un-install and re-install, wasting no less than 3 hours of my time along the way.

I've installed Fusion, imported the VM directly in, and don't have any issues with processes "not responding", high CPU (constantly, even when VM is idle) or "Recent "Hangs" in activity monitor. This is a shame as I was quite enjoying Parallels look, feel and IMHO better feature set, sadly if this comes at the detriment of basic VM usability my options become limited.

Good luck in finding solutions to this/these issues, my hope is that the developers get this sorted quickly and support are given better tools and procedures to help ensure customers aren't forced to walk away from future purchases as I have.
 
WORKAROUND FOUND

I ran Task Manager in my virtual session (Windows XP) and saw svchost.exe was using 99% CPU. I ended the process and CPU usage went down to 0% in the VM, Activity Monitor showed a lower value, and the CPUs cooled down. Activity Monitor still showed (Not Responding), so that appears to be a literal red herring. (I tried running tasklist /svc /fi "imagename eq svchost.exe" and net stop ... for the affected PID, but partway through I reran tasklist and it dropped to 0%, and stayed that way after reboots (the services all restarted). The only other change I noticed was now I had Windows updates waiting to be installed (they're set to download automatically but install manually), so it might have been a Windows update service or network traffic that was the cause.
 
Yes the "Not Responding" thing is a red herring, that's what I've been trying to tell.

Not Responding.jpg
 
With the exception that people (like me) are reporting issues with high CPU in Activity Monitor, where no such high CPU exists in windows when looking at Task Manager (making sure that we ensure that all processes are showing).

Also that in conjunction with the "Not Responding" error, we are also seeing a very large number of "Recent Hangs".

Red herring, I think not until someone can actually confirm how these three points are not linked.

I personally can handle the "Not Responding" minor issue in isolation (I'm sure that a fix is pending), however when mixed with that number of recent hangs and also the issue with high CPU in Activity Monitor, even where no CPU load is apparent on the windows side....to the point my MBA 13" fans are running frequently.

I've decided (sadly) to return to Fusion for the moment (or at least for the next 30 days whilst my trial is running), I hope these issues are fixed soon and perhaps I can give Parallels another go.

PS - Here is my detailed thread about my experience and findings - http://forum.parallels.com/showthre...-Mavericks-Windows-8-1-VM&p=706797#post706797
 
PS - Specimen, good on you for stepping in here and trying to help us misguided souls. Folks like you who just want to help and give back to the wider community are just fantastic.

Just to confirm that I agree that the Not Responding issue is cosmetic, however when I then see a massive number of "Recent Hangs" (just click on the "i" button above the process name....this leads me to believe that something is specifically wrong as no other processes have this behaviour on my system.
 
ozsmac said:
Just to confirm that I agree that the Not Responding issue is cosmetic, however when I then see a massive number of "Recent Hangs" (just click on the "i" button above the process name....this leads me to believe that something is specifically wrong as no other processes have this behaviour on my system.
Click to expand...

Thank you.
The "Not Responding" and "recent hangs" are related, but neither "recent hangs" or "Not Responding" are related to the excessive CPU consumption being reported.

Rather then using my own words to explain this I found a good and simple explanation of what it all means here: https://lists.apple.com/archives/unix-porting/2005/Oct/msg00032.html

- "Not Responding" means that the application is currently "hung".
- "recent hangs" is the count of times the application was not responding, but then became responsive again.

ActivityMonitor sends "ping" AppleEvents to processes to determine if they are hung. If they respond to the event, then they are not hung. If they fail to respond to the event, then they are considered to be in a "Not Responding" state, and for each transition from "Responding" to "Not Responding" that it sees counts as a "hang" of the application.

Normally, an application will be written in such a way that it will at least *periodically* check for AppleEvents, even if it tends to call from an event from CFRunLoop into a long involved process. You can get false positives on a "Not Responding" (the same situation that gets the busy cursor on an application in the GUI, FWIW) if an application does a huge amount of work in something called from CFRunLoop.
Click to expand...

(Please note that this was written in 2005, the way AppleEvents works has clearly changed in Mavericks, hence the bigger number of false positives, happens with Google Chrome too)

I hope that clarifies.
 
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Have given up resolving the Mavericks/Parallels8/Windows7/Inventor2013 problem after trying everything I could find in these forums and elsewhere.

I DL'd Fusion 6, imported the Parallels virtual machine with no problem. Autodesk Inventor is now running perfectly. Will run Fusion for the rest of its 30 day trial, then purchase if all's still well at that time.
 
RidgeG said:
I DL'd Fusion 6, imported the Parallels virtual machine with no problem.......
Click to expand...

Could you write a short info how did you 'move' your Win system from PD to Fusion please? I guess you did it without problems. I'm preparing myself for this action.

Thanks a lot.
 
Sure. When I first ran Fusion, its startup sequence gave me an option to import an already existing VM. I browsed to the Parallels VM (Documents->Parallels->Windows 7.pvm) and double-clicked to import it. The import took a few minutes (maybe about 20 min, not sure because I went away from the machine after I started the import) and showed no errors.

I finished the rest of Fusion first run, then started Windows 7, then started Inventor. I got a license activation error and shut down Inventor to go look for my license info. Just then, I noticed an email from AutoDesk, which had a new activation code. I then restarted Inventor to apply the new activation code - and Inventor started up normally, without my having done anything to enter the new code. Didn't ever have to do that. Inventor's been running normally since.

The import of the Parallels VM was painless, and my Inventor installation works fine so far.
 
RidgeG, one further point, I would un-install the Parallels tools in Windows prior to migration. I had an issue in Windows 8.1 where when I tried to un-install when migrated into Fusion, the virtual machine wouldn't boot and recovery options didn't fix it.

Process would be
1 - Un-install tools & run a clean-up of the disk in Parallels
2 - Shutdown the machine, don't let it boot again, else I believe Parallels tools will be re-installed
3 - Migrate into "other" solution
4 - Boot in other solution

PS - you might also like to un-install the Stardock tools, Start8 and ModernMix, as they won't function anymore. For me Start8 is no longer useful given the changes to Windows 8.1....however I have purchased ModernMix, this is an essential capability in Windows...the ability to choose to run any app in a window.

Also for me I have to praise Parallels 30 day money back guarantee, whilst my product and support experience were largely poor, my request for a refund so I could move to another solution was actioned quickly and without fuss.
 
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It's really very strange situation with Palallels this time. I've been using this service for several years. And I almost never had a problem, but now, I can not explain it! After upgrade to Maveric and PD 9 I can not work with this software! Share connection has a big problem! Internet speed is very small! Network does not work after sleep mode! And so on,,,, And the support is silent .... I'm already thinking to find another service ... It's weird and stupid ...
 
Right, latest update fix 'something'.....
Not responding status has been fixed but huge CPU consumption is still the same (high). I've tested on two computers so this is not just one case.

Waiting for weekend to move everything to F.
 
I've been submitting report ids all over the place since the release of PD8 and never got a reply nor did they solve a problem. They just want us to upgrade and our money. It's a pity that a software such as PD doesn't get the support they promise.
 
UPDATE TO WORKAROUND

I started my XP image after not using it for over a week; this time while svchost.exe was using 99% Windows CPU, I was able to find the offending service in time: I ran net stop wuauserv , the Automatic Updates service stopped, and CPU usage dropped to normal. (I haven't applied the Parallels update yet, so all this might no longer be necessary, but I'm documenting it in case it doesn't, or in case users have older versions.) While typing al this, the service started itself and pegged the CPU again. I stopped it, changed Control Panel, Automatic Updates from download to notify, no change; set to Turn off Automatic Updates, and it stayed dead. (The service shows as not running in Services; if a reboot starts it and pegs the CPU after the Parallels update, I'll disable it from there.)

Update: I applied the current Parallels update; the only change to the above issue was that in Mac OS' Activity Monitor, it no longer says Not Responding. Also, in Windows XP, if Control Panel, Automatic Updates is turned back on from an off state, the Automatic Updates service's startup setting is changed from Manual or Disabled to Automatic, and it starts (and within about 10 seconds, svchost.exe goes to 99%). Setting Automatic Updates to Turn Off, and setting the Automatic Updates service to Manual or Disabled, should stay off after a logoff or reboot cycle; I didn't bother testing it.
 
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the latest update destroyed my fixed Win8 VM, which was fixed through a 2-HOURS International phone call + remote session.

now i have huge CPU problem again, mac is unusable once VM starts, and eventually VM turned freeze.

that's it. i had it enough. I'm buying VM Fusion today.
 
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