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Parallels Desktop for Mac (issues thread)

Minghold

Minghold

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Oct 21, 2022
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Set-up: 2015 MBP running Monterey natively, with Parallels 20, into which Macos Mojave has been installed. Particulars: SIP is disabled, Parallels Desktop Tools are installed, and vrious necessary permissions have been granted to Parallels in Monterey's System Preferences' Security and Privacy. Creating VMs proceeds without a hitch.

Issue #1: internal drives and external USB volumes do not appear ac accessible mounted devices on VM's desktops. Needless to say, this prevents using Migration Assistant to pull in apps and settings from existing Mac drives.

So, looking for a solution to enable mounting volumes in VMs generally, and enabling a MacOS VM's Migration Assistant to pull from applicable Mac volumes in particular.
 
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Guess it's an issue with Mojave? Have been using Parallels on my 2018 (intel) Mini since 2020 with Windows 10, MacOS Mountain Lion and Sierra. Never saw these problems, never did anything special like disabling SIP. I have 4 external USB SSD's, they are all accessible.

Was running Catalina initially as the host operating system on the Mini, upgraded to Monterey later and still runing it now. Am always concerned about things breaking in Parallels, so even though I have the pro subscription, am reluctant to upgrade. Still running 18.1.1. now. Planning to upgrade to Sequoia before long and worried about what that might break.

FWIW, I don't use the Mac VM's very often anymore but need them from time to time for some very expensive old CAD and 3d modelling software. I initally created those VM's from clones of old Macs that I don't use anymore. When I start one of the VM's, there are a variety of issues based on the way iCloud was configured on those old machines, generating annoying alerts on all my current Apple devices.

My primary use of Parallels is Windows 10, which I use very heavily with professional GIS software. It has been surprisingly robust for that.
 
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Disconnect the USB drive. When you reconnect it, Parallels should ask if you want to connect the drive to the Mac or the virtual machine.

Internal drives can be accessed using Parallels Shared Folders, but I don't think that's good enough for Migration Assistant.

What if you try to mount the internal drive by using File Sharing on the host machine? In the guest machine, connect to the host and select the internal drive.
I don't know if Migration Assistant will look at mounted network drives. I don't know if a guest can connect to host. I know a host can connect to guest using one of the guest network options but the reverse might not be possible.

You could use Disk Utility to create a GPT formatted disk image and restore a partition to the disk image. Then convert that to a Parallels Virtual Hard Disk.
I've done this with HFS+ formatted partitions. But not APFS partitions.

Code: 
#=========================================================================================
# Create a hdd which points to a dmg using a relative path

cd "/Volumes/FreeBig/DiskImages"

# Create the dmg files with sizes larger than the source partition rounded up to the nearest MiB.
mkfile -n $(((41000000000 + 0x100000 - 1) & -0x100000)) Tiger.dmg
mkfile -n $(((44000000000 + 0x100000 - 1) & -0x100000)) Leopard.dmg
mkfile -n $(((44000000000 + 0x100000 - 1) & -0x100000)) SnowLeopard.dmg
mkfile -n $(((70000000000 + 0x100000 - 1) & -0x100000)) Lion.dmg
mkfile -n $(((65000000000 + 0x100000 - 1) & -0x100000)) Yosemite.dmg
mkfile -n $(((65000000000 + 0x100000 - 1) & -0x100000)) ElCapitan.dmg
mkfile -n $(((60000000000 + 0x100000 - 1) & -0x100000)) Sierra.dmg
mkfile -n $(((66000000000 + 0x100000 - 1) & -0x100000)) HighSierra.dmg
mkfile -n $(((71000000000 + 0x100000 - 1) & -0x100000)) MountainLion.dmg
mkfile -n $(((92000000000 + 0x100000 - 1) & -0x100000)) Mavericks.dmg

# Create a GPT partition map using gdisk
for thedisk in Tiger Leopard SnowLeopard Lion MountainLion Mavericks Yosemite ElCapitan Sierra HighSierra ; do
	printf "%s\n" 'printf "o\nY\nw\nY\n" | sudo gdisk "'${thedisk}.dmg'" > /dev/null && echo good || echo bad'
done

# Erase the disks using diskutil to create EFI and single partition
for thedisk in Tiger Leopard SnowLeopard Lion MountainLion Mavericks Yosemite ElCapitan Sierra HighSierra ; do
	printf "%s\n" 'diskutil partitionDisk $(hdiutil attach -nomount "'"${thedisk}.dmg"'" | sed -n '"'"'1 { s/ .*//p ; }'"'"') GPT HFSX "'"${thedisk}New"'" 0'
done

# Use the asr command to restore the source partition to the destination dmg
# Be careful here. The source and destination might have similar names.
# Do this command manually or use Disk Utility.app to perform the task.
#asr restore --source sourcevolume --target destvolume

# Use prl_disk_tool to create a hdd wrapper for the dmg (requires you to keep the dmg
# but you can mount the dmg in the Finder when it's not being used by Parallels Desktop).
for thedmg in *.dmg ; do
	prl_disk_tool create --hdd "$(pwd)/${thedmg/.dmg/.hdd}" --dmg "$(stat -f %R "$thedmg")"
done

Tiger and Leopard require further modification (details are elsewhere) to make them compatible with Parallels Desktop for Mac.
 
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Boyd01 said:
Guess it's an issue with Mojave? Have been using Parallels on my 2018 (intel) Mini since 2020 with Windows 10, MacOS Mountain Lion and Sierra. Never saw these problems....
Click to expand...
Well, I can confirm that it doesn't work in VMs of either Mojave 10.4.4 or 10.4.6 in either Parallels 18 or Parallels 20 (wither either's VM opened in either, since they're compatable). Will explore other MacOSes shortly.


Boyd01 said:
Was running Catalina initially as the host operating system on the Mini,
Click to expand...
My condolences.
Boyd01 said:
upgraded to Monterey later and still runing it now. Am always concerned about things breaking in Parallels, so even though I have the pro subscription, am reluctant to upgrade. Still running 18.1.1. now. Planning to upgrade to Sequoia before long and worried about what that might break.
Click to expand...
Well, I don't think P18 is going to run in Sequoia (let alone run fast under that bloated sow, since nothing else will either).

Monterey is, AFAIA, the last fully-clone/bootable (via CCC 6.1.1) version of the MacOS, and I'll eventually be squeezed out sometime later in the decade. But I'm fine with that, seeing as I'll never buy a Mac with a soldered-in drive.

joevt said:
Disconnect the USB drive. When you reconnect it, Parallels should ask if you want to connect the drive to the Mac or the virtual machine.
Click to expand...
It does so ask (after rooting through settings to flip the appropriate switches that one would think ought to have been default in the first place for any VM that's not a "guest" running on a slave device or monitor). But it still doesn't work (at least not with Mojavel see above).

joevt said:
Internal drives can be accessed using Parallels Shared Folders, but I don't think that's good enough for Migration Assistant.
Click to expand...

joevt said:
What if you try to mount the internal drive by using File Sharing on the host machine? In the guest machine, connect to the host and select the internal drive. I don't know if Migration Assistant will look at mounted network drives...
Click to expand...
It will, provided they're mounted as drives, not folders (which is what Parallels does).
joevt said:
...You could use Disk Utility to create a GPT formatted disk image and restore a partition to the disk image. Then convert that to a Parallels Virtual Hard Disk.
Click to expand...
After considerable effin' around, I discovered that a Mojave VM's Migration Assistant would indeed import from an externally-hosted Disk Utility-made image into which I'd cloned a Mojave partition. I also discover that, instead of using the Migration Assistant, I could use the VM's Disk Utility to create a new volume (in the VM's APFS container), it would pop up on the VM's desktop, then I could run CCC5 to clone the mounted external image to the new volume. (Then I restarted with Option held down...and that failed miserably, BUT I could still select a different Startup Disk, and that worked!)
 
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Next issue: Is anyone having any success making Parallels MacOS VMs in which 32bit games and other apps that require OpenGL function correctly?
 
So... ...no OpenGL in any Parallels intel-era MacOS VMs? (I've tried Mojave, High Sierra, and Mountain Lion.)
 
joevt said:
This note https://kb.parallels.com/124095 says you need a host and guest OS that is Big Sur or later to get any kind of graphics acceleration.
Click to expand...
I doubt that's the correct answer. For example, Mojave runs natively on a 2019 iMac, and a 32bit game like Angry Birds launches just fine. But a Parallels Mojave VM running inside Monterey or Ventura (note: both newer than Big Sur) on the same machine won't launch Angry Birds due to OpenGL not being correctly configured.

In the example so described, I'm pretty sure that this is a failing of Parallels, not of anything on the Apple side.
 
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Patrice Brousseau said:
Sorry, I hadn’t read carefully that you were running OCLP! I apologize…
Click to expand...
Speaking of new junk on old junk and vice-versa, does anyone know what's the highest version of Parallels that will run on each of Snow Leopard, Lion, Mavericks, El Capitan, and High Sierra? (I'm trying to see how far backwards compatible Parallels VMs are. For example, VMs made in P20 seem to run perfectly in P18, and vice-versa.
 
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