v4 very slow after resume

I had a test with some VM config options and now the speed went (reproducable) up!
Less than 10 seconds to resume!

Maybe what I did help you, too:
Run the VM
Virtual Machine -> Configure
Features: Disable everything on Shared folders
Features: Disable everything on Shared applications
Reboot the machine
Virtual Machine -> Configure
Features: Enable what you need on Shared folders
Features: Enable what you need on Shared applications
Then sleep / resume and measure time.
 
Same here... My machine is incredibly slow when trying to come "back to life" after a resume. I have 4 megs of memory on a Macbook Pro.
 
Same

I've reported this multiple times and gotten no satisfaction from tech support. For me, if I quit Windows XP, quit Parallels, then restart Parallels and then restart XP, it will always run fast. If I -resume- a WinXP VM, it will always run slow after the resume.

This is an awful workaround, because it makes the process of using Parallels much more tedious.

HELP! Tech support are you out there?
 
MarkusZ said:
I had a test with some VM config options and now the speed went (reproducable) up!
Less than 10 seconds to resume!

Maybe what I did help you, too:
Run the VM
Virtual Machine -> Configure
Features: Disable everything on Shared folders
Features: Disable everything on Shared applications
Reboot the machine
Virtual Machine -> Configure
Features: Enable what you need on Shared folders
Features: Enable what you need on Shared applications
Then sleep / resume and measure time.
Click to expand...

Markus,

This seemed to help quite a bit. I disabled all sharing - folders and applications - and it cut my resume time down from 3 minutes to just under 1 minute. I timed the computer from the time I clicked "resume" until I could successfully open and close an application (with shared folders "on" it takes about 1 minute to resume, but another 2 minutes for the computer to become responsive).

Results were:

Parallels 3: 29 seconds
Parallels 4 with folder and application sharing on: 2 minutes, 57 seconds
Parallels 4 with folder/application sharing off: 56 seconds

It's still not as quick as Parallels 3, but it's certainly better than what it was. I'm running a bare-bones XP system with only a few applications our auto techs need to communicate with their cars, but if I update them to parallels 4 and they need to wait 3 minutes as opposed to the 30 seconds they're used to, I'll never hear the end of it. Thanks for the tip.
 
Did my tips help?

I'd like to know if my steps helped out anyone else. It is still fast for me - even after rebooting the Mac and doing a lot of things.
 
I have had this problem for a couple months now. It started after a Parallels Tools upgrade, but I can't remember which one.

MarkusZ, I disabled all sharing, then re-enabled exactly one folder. It's still tragically slow. Takes 45 minutes or so before it's usable. If I'm aware that I need to do some Windows stuff in the morning, I leave it on all night. Then it's really fast in the morning.

I've tried all kinds of things. I am going to try Fusion out as it doesn't seem like Parallels Support has helped anyone in this thread -- must be some combination of factors that's not all that common.
 
Same here

I have noticed some relationship with speed and shared folders, but Parallels still renders my computer (the entire computer, not just Windows) utterly useless upon resume.

At this point, until this is fixed, I will simply continue to use vmware.
 
Same here ...

I've got two Win XP SP3 VMs and now a Windows 7 VM. After resume the VM is pretty useless. I haven't seen the
performance ever get better as others report, for me it just stays bad. Window updates are fragmented, it is a painful process to watch a large window get lowered to the task bar, it is like it is getting peeled off the screen.

Looks like Windows 7 suffers the same problem, I was hoping it might fare better, oh well.

Having to constantly reboot VM's is no fun ...
 
Me Too!

Hey "Parallels Team", how about at least an acknowledgement that you are aware of this issue and are 'trying' to resolve it... a matter that's been known for many many months!

My workaround since Snow Leopard is to:
Start my computer,
Start Parallels,
Reset the VM,
Quit Parallels before allowing the reset to commence,
Shut down my computer,
Restart my computer,
Restart Parallels,
VM reboots... then all is well!

Works every time... but come on! what king of 'solution' is this?
 
Pain, pain, pain

I tried Marcus's suggestion to no avail.

So, fundamentally, it can take many, many minutes for XP to boot on resume. But what I've noticed, using iStat Menus or Activity Monitor, is that memory acquisition by Parallels is an extremely slow crawl during this time--anywhere from 1 to 5 or so MB per second, or sometimes stopping completely at times, after an initial acquisition of 150 or so MB, with almost 1.4 GB RAM free. The VM is not responsive at this stage. It doesn't matter if the MBP has just been rebooted.

Watching this in real time it took 4 minutes to increase from 535 to 624 MB. (Of course, this is after already waiting for awhile to get to this stage from 150 MB). Then 2 more minutes to increase to 628. At this point, it doesn't seem to acquire more RAM until I click around the VM and attempt to start some apps, at which point things are quite sluggish but at least eventually responsive. So starting an app increased RAM to 815 within a couple of minutes, at which point no further increases at all are seen for another 3 minutes. Over the next minute RAM = 819, then stops, with no activity on my part. 822 after another minute. Went to dinner. Still only 843 in use. VM is usable at this point. During this entire time, XP Task Manager thinks it has the full 1024 MB.

This is in sharp contrast to how memory is acquired from a cold VM boot, where it essentially acquires all the memory, 1024 MB, within about half a minute after the XP boot splash screen disappears and locks it, and the VM works perfectly well.

Perhaps this memory management is all normally expected behavior after resume and has nothing to do with the performance problem at issue. I don't have a properly functioning mac running Parallels to compare.

In any event, it is orders of magnitude faster to cold boot than to suspend/resume. This has been going on for I don't know how many weeks or months. I just wish I didn't have to use Windows or Parallels at all.
 
Parallels have gone into P5 mode

Frankly I doubt we'll see any fix for this, nor a response in the forums. This thread is now ollllld and they're working on Parallels 5.

Nice one, Parallels. Way to keep your customer base satisfied. Would you at least like to pretend you care by asking for log files or dumps or something?

No? Oh, well, at least I asked. This customer service is why I switched from Parallels 3 to VMWare 2. But because VMWare 2 sucks so terribly, I switched from VMWare 2 to Parallels 4 because everyone said it was great. It doesn't matter whether it is. This makes Parallels 4 next to worthless.
 
Just to add "ME TOO!" 5 plus minutes to start XP. My MB PRO slows to a crawl, then returns to normal after XP is up and stable. Same behavior with Windows 7.... I am seriously looking at other options as I use this for customer support and I cannot be bothered to have my customers wait while my VM spins up...
 
Same here

I have had similar issues with Parallels taking as many as 10 minutes to get to a semi-usable state. The lack of response from the Parallels team on this issue is absolutely detestable. I have to look forward to a different software if you do not resolve the issue soon.
 
Me too!

I am having this same problem. The only way to get decent performance is to reboot windows.

I'm running W2k3 server with 2GB RAM on v4
 
This seems long shot, but I had major issues after upgrade to PD4 from PD3, when I had accidentally mounted same Mac folders directly and through profile sharing (desktop, home folder)... The fact that same Mac folder was mounted twice has caused all sorts of issues, one of them were issues with recovering from suspending the VM. Check it - it'll cost you nothing.

This caused no problems to PD3, but PD4 had real problems.

Jan
 
Hello? Anyone Home At Parallels- Obviously this is a problem

I've talked to 5 others with the same problem.

We're going to post a youtube video demonstrating what a challenging problem this is. Maybe YouTube users have some suggestions. We'll post the URL here in this forum thread as well.
 
It looks like an issue that was valid for PD4 on Snow Leopard host and fixed some two updates ago.

Can someone please confirm that:
1. You are on Snow Leopard host.
2. You have Parallels Desktop build 3844 or earlier (you can check it in Parallels Desktop menu->About Parallels Desktop)

Thank you.
 
Hey Tim- Thanks for helping out.

Here's my config:
- Snow Leopard 10.6.1
- Unibody Macbook- 2.4Ghz Core Duo 2 with 4GB memory
- Parallels 4 build 4.0.3848

Hope this helps and thanks for looking into this.
 
Bill,

Please generate and send a problem report while your VM is running (Help->Report a problem). This will give us necessary logs to dig deeper into the issue.
 
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