Parallels 11 and key press 'stuck' issue

J

JamesP3

Bit poster
A co-worker and I just updated to Parallels 11 from 10 and we both have started seeing some issues with key presses being randomly repeated. The specific issue is that we begin typing and then the key press gets 'stuck' and keeps repeating. Sometimes hitting another key stops it sometimes it just stops it self. The issue is completely random (meaning not every n strokes or specific keys) but consistently occurs once it begins happening. I didn't see this issue at first but returning to my instance this morning (it was running all night) I started to see the issue. My co-worker said that restarting the VM fixed the issue for the moment. I will find out if it starts happening again for him later today.

I am running Mavericks as the host OS and Mavericks as the guest VM, he is running Yosemite for both. Both VM instances were built in 10 and opened in the newly installed 11.
 
I am encountering this issue as well. Yosemite is host OS, Mavericks is the guest VM.
Just updated to Parallels 11.0.1. Problem still occurs.
 
I'm having the exact same issue and for the longest time thought it was a bad macbook pro keyboard, or bad usb port or bad external keyboard. After replacing all of them, I still have this issue. Anybody else encountering the same thing?

I'm running the most recent version of parallels desktop 11: 11.1.3 (32521) and have removed and re-installed parallels tools. The issue ONLY seems to occur with OS X as guest OS. I haven't been able to confirm the problem with a Windows as guest. The issue did NOT exist in Parallels Desktop 10.x with Mountain Lion. Only after upgrading to El Capitan + Parallels Desktop 11.x did the problems manifest. I also created brand new guest VMs using Parallels 11 and migrated the guest VMs created using Parallels 10 but that didn't solve anything. The issues are *exactly* as described by JamesP3.

I would love to hear from others and perhaps some pointers as to what else to try. I tried rolling back to Mountain Lion but too many things went wrong so I'm forced to continue forward only.
 
Please email us at the Problem report ID along with the issue description to cs(at)parallels(.)com, so we can check it for you through a remote session.
 
Hi Manoj,

Unfortunately our security policies prevent remote sessions. But I can tell you additional information if you send me what you're looking for. Also I don't understand your point about a Problem Report ID. Where do I generate that? I should clarify that Parallels Desktop does NOT give any errors and does NOT crash or fail in any way. If you can tell me where to extract a log or portion of a log, I can send you that.
 
Hello Guys,
Please try the below work around and check.
  1. Select Virtual Machine, click Configure.
  2. Click on the Hardware Tab and select Mouse and Keyboard.
  3. For the options "Mouse" and "Keyboard" select "Optimize for games" from each of their drop-down options. If the option is already set, then try changing it.
  4. Click on Actions > Reinstall Parallels Tools.
 
The starting point was the default setting:
Mouse "Auto-detect for games"; Keyboard "Don't optimize for games"
This setting exhibits the intermittent key repeat problem.

Trial 1:
- set both Mouse and Keyboard to "Optimize for Games"
- After restarting the VM the mouse could not be used within the virtual machine at all. No cursor was visible and the only way to see the mouse was to use the Ctrl+Option sequence to make mouse visible. Reinstallation of Parallels Tools had to rely on the expiry of the timer to restart the virtual machine as it was impossible to find and click on the "Restart" button. After restart, the mouse was still not visible. The keyboard continued to function and Cmd+Tab could be used to switch between applications and keyboard bindings continued to work.
Observation: This setting is unusable. The VM is unusable. Trial was abandoned within 10 mins.

Trial 2:
- set Mouse to "Don't optimize for games"; Keyboard to "Don't optimize for games"
- After restarting the VM, the mouse was still behaving erratically until after the successful reinstallation of Parallels Tools. I simply let the timer expire to restart the VM. After restart the mouse and cursor were visible as normal. I continued the daily activities and the intermittent key repeat issue was still there. No other adverse changes were noticed (this was a full day's work yesterday).
Observation: This setting was usable, Trial lasted 1 full day's worth of work. Problem condition was still there.

Trial 3: Reset back to "Default"
- Reinstallation of Parallels Tools was as normal. I did not have to wait for timer, mouse worked properly.
- Today's morning work was the same as when I noted the issue. The intermittent key repeat is still there. I'm leaving it here until you advise on an updated course of action.
Observation: This setting was usable, Trial has lasted half a day so far. Problem condition was still there.
 
I'm seeing the same issue here. Host: El Capitan, VM: El Capitan. This is very frustrating as I use the VMs as development environments. The input repeats happen frequently while coding or entering commands in the command line. I also tried the settings changes Khalid posted above to no avail.
 
POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Try connecting your keyboard as a USB device to Windows (there is a feature for this in Parallels), and remove the "Virtual Keyboard" under "Bluetooth and devices" inside Windows. So far no freezes for me with this solution!
 
maxpaj said:
POSSIBLE SOLUTION: Try connecting your keyboard as a USB device to Windows (there is a feature for this in Parallels), and remove the "Virtual Keyboard" under "Bluetooth and devices" inside Windows. So far no freezes for me with this solution!
Click to expand...
Hello, thank you for sharing your troubleshooting steps.
 
Reviving an old thread - this has been plaguing me on two M1 machines running Win11. Changing optimization for games doesn't seem to matter. Anybody else seeing this or have suggestions?
 
I ended up having to re-install from scratch. Something is getting corrupted in the windows install that they don't seem to know how to fix. It's happened several times since then, and the solution is always the same (clean VM). Always fixes it.
 
Hello,
Please confirm if key stuck issue is happening with any specific keys, or is it random ?
Kindly provide us with more details of the issue.
Also for further investigation, kindly start your Parallels Desktop, reproduce the issue, and please collect a technical report (right-click Parallels icon in Dock > Help > Send technical data > check "Attach screenshots..." > press Send Report) and provide us with the report's 9-digit ID in reply.
 
I'm certainly still seeing this on a Sonoma client/guest pair (although the Ubuntu client on the same machine is fine)
The keys that are sticking are random; whatever the last key that has been pressed including single characters, or the return, or pretty much anything. Makes typing passwords into login fields almost impossible. Sent technical data on the system as 461862068
 
This issue is infuriating and has made macOS Guest on Host unusable for me. I've had to switch to an Ubuntu guest which performs perfectly. The keyboard is absolute junk on the macOS guest. Even the latest 19.4.1 Parallels update doesn't do anything.
 
Yes, it makes macOS clients pretty much unusable in 19.4.0 and 19.4.1
I have to start the client and then log in to it over SSH rather than using the actual parallels view of the operating system!
Sylvester@Parallels ManojK@Parallels the settings for optimise for games make no difference to the issue in my case.
 
I have the exact same repeating key issue with Sonoma 14.6.1 host and Sonoma 14.6.1 guest OS. Reading this forum it has been an issue for years with no fix. I wish I did not have to switch from VMWare Fusion, which doesn't have this issue, to Parallels due to VMWare dropping macOS guest support.
 
Try this: turn off Configure > Hardware > USB & Bluetooth > Advanced > Enable USB 3.1. In my case, this helped: key repeat now works as expected.
 
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