Grey screen on 9.0.23350

J

JonG89

Member
I am running a Win7 VM in full-screen mode on a second (external) monitor from my MacBook Pro. It's never given me trouble before, but after the 9.0.23350 update, the Win7 screen will suddenly drop to a lovely solid dark grey. If I "Exit Full Screen," everything is still running and working just fine, and I get video back. I can then return to full screen mode, at least for a bit, but the grey screen will return very soon. I can also use Mission Control to drag the fullscreen VM to the built-in screen, and then back to the external, to restore video.

This is on Mavericks, with "Displays have separate Spaces" enabled in Mission Control.

Any ideas?
 
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Same here

JonG89 said:
I am running a Win7 VM in full-screen mode on a second (external) monitor from my MacBook Pro. It's never given me trouble before, but after the 9.0.23350 update, the Win7 screen will suddenly drop to a lovely solid dark grey. If I "Exit Full Screen," everything is still running and working just fine, and I get video back. I can then return to full screen mode, at least for a bit, but the grey screen will return very soon. I can also use Mission Control to drag the fullscreen VM to the built-in screen, and then back to the external, to restore video.

This is on Mavericks, with "Displays have separate Spaces" enabled in Mission Control.

Any ideas?
Click to expand...

I get the grey screen in Win 7, 8 and 8.1

@Parallels,

Is there a patch coming or how do I rollback the hot fix?
 
A few more details, hopefully helpful. I have video memory set to 256MB, 3D acceleration to DirectX10 with vertical sync enabled. If the VM is just "sitting" at the Windows desktop, it seems stable. But if I run a "video intensive" app, like SolidWorks, that's when the grey screen starts happening. And it only seems to happen on the secondary (external) monitor, not on the MBP's built-in display.

* Actually, after further testing, it doesn't just happen with 3D-intensive apps. It will occur even with Windows just sitting at the desktop.
 
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JonG89 said:
A few more details, hopefully helpful. I have video memory set to 256MB, 3D acceleration to DirectX10 with vertical sync enabled. If the VM is just "sitting" at the Windows desktop, it seems stable. But if I run a "video intensive" app, like SolidWorks, that's when the grey screen starts happening. And it only seems to happen on the secondary (external) monitor, not on the MBP's built-in display.
Click to expand...

I have the exact same settings with 2 external apple displays.
 
If/when you run into this issue: When the grey screen occurs, pull down the Help menu in Parallels Desktop, click "Report a Problem...", go through the steps to submit the problem report, and then add the problem report ID to this thread. I've opened a support case, and providing more than one problem report may be helpful.
 
JonG89 said:
If/when you run into this issue: When the grey screen occurs, pull down the Help menu in Parallels Desktop, click "Report a Problem...", go through the steps to submit the problem report, and then add the problem report ID to this thread. I've opened a support case, and providing more than one problem report may be helpful.
Click to expand...

Done.

Here is the ID: 33435449
 
Just did a remote-control support session. Try increasing the video memory for your VM...mine was at 256MB, and we bumped it to 1GB. You might also try switching between DirectX10 and DirectX9 to see if that does anything. So far, so good--though I haven't used it much since the tweaks. If I go the rest of the day without seeing the grey screen, I'll be fairly convinced.
 
I have the same problem with a support ticket which seems to be going around and around. I can replicate this on Windows 8.1 x86 and x64 fresh installations. Go to the windows desktop in coherence and then use the show desktop button on the right hand side of the clock in the taskbar. Do this a few times and this causes the theme / background to revert to the grey screen. Going back to the start screen then shows the desktop image switching between the original background and a grey screen, eventually it will settle on one !
Bumping up the GFX memory / switching DirectX versions is not helping. For now I have disabled the charms menu on the desktop and do not use the show desktop button; this seems to keep the grey screen from appearing . . .
 
I'm having the exact issue running Windows 7 Enterprise on my MBA with Mavericks. I'm running parallels in full screen on a second monitor - a Thunderbolt display - and it will flip to a grey screen regularly on me throughout the day.

Just upped my video memory from 256 to 1GB to see if that fixed it and the first time I unplugged my thunderbolt display which had Windows running full screen on it and plugged it back in the grey screen came back. Going to try also changing from DirectX 10 to 9 to see if that helps.
 
Tried changing my DirectX version to 9 and upping video memory to 1GB and still having the same issue whenever I plug in my Thunderbolt display. I have to drag my full screened Parallels window with Windows 7 running in it over to my built-in display via Mission Control then drag it back to the Thunderbolt display and that fixes things for a period of time. But the grey screen is always there when I plug in the monitor and periodically happens during normal use with the monitor plugged in.

I'm pretty much just running Outlook and Excel in Windows.
 
I thought the remote-control support session had fixed the problem, that it was basically just an issue of not enough video memory and/or DirectX version, but nope. I'm still getting the grey screen on a regular basis, with 1GB of video memory and either DirectX9 or 10. I'll have to reopen the case.
 
When your VM is open, access the "View" menu in Parallels, and be sure "Use All Displays in Full Screen" is NOT checked. If it is checked, un-check it, and see if the problem goes away.
 
Just checked and the "Use all displays in full screen" was NOT checked for me and never has been as far as I know.
 
The support agent sent me to http://kb.parallels.com/en/118728 which seems to be related, but also says that the issue was resolved in the last rev of PD9...and I'm running a newer version than that. So there's apparently still an issue with multiple monitors in Mavericks. You might try the resolutions in that KB article, just for argument's sake. If you have time, use the "Report a problem..." link in the Help menu (preferably when the grey screen occurs) and generate a support ticket. If you learn anything useful, post it here for everyone's edification.
 
I can run the VM in windowed mode, stretched to fill the screen, on the secondary monitor with no problems. Works great. It's only when I change the VM to fullscreen mode that the random video greyscreen occurs.
 
More environment & testing information

My host OS is Mac OS X 10.9.1 running on a mid-2009 13" MacBook Pro, 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo, 8GB memory, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256MB video, 512GB SSD system drive.

I have an external monitor (1920x1080 Hannspree flatscreen) connected via Thunderbolt-to-VGA adapter. It is configured as the secondary display, and the "Displays have separate Spaces" option is enabled in Mission Control.

I have several guest OSes, including Win7, WinXP, Linux Mint 15, and tails.

I can run any guest OS in fullscreen mode on the built-in display with no problems.

I can run any guest OS in windowed mode on the secondary display with no problems.

If I run any guest OS in fullscreen mode on the secondary display, the display will go completely grey at some point. Sometimes it takes a few minutes, but it always happens.

The "tails" guest OS is a CentOS-based VM that does not have Parallels Tools installed, and the grey screen issue occurs with it as well.

There doesn't seem to be any "magic action" that causes the greyscreen, but in general, it seems like the more video activity, the faster it will occur.

When the screen goes grey, I can use Mission Control to drag the VM's screen from the secondary display to the built-in display, at which point the video returns and I can continue to use the VM. The grey screen does not appear to affect the operation of the VM, but only prevents me from seeing the VM's screen (i.e. the guest OS is still running "behind" the grey screen).

So, based on my experience:

* The issue is not with Parallels Tools, because the greyscreen occurs even when the guest OS is not running Parallels Tools.
* The issue is not with any particular guest OS, because the greyscreen occurs with multiple different guest OSes
* The issue is not with the video settings of the guest OS, because I've tried multiple configurations with multiple guest OSes

It appears to me that Parallels Desktop itself has a problem in fullscreen mode with secondary displays in Mavericks, at least on some systems. No clue what's happening there.
 
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