Parallels knowledgebase (KB)

Symptoms

A virtual machine hanged, it is impossible to stop/restart it from the GUI, because all the buttons are grayed out.

Resolution

On the Host computer open Terminal application from Finder -> Applications -> Utilities and copy/paste the following command:

ps auxwww | grep prl

Hit Return and you will see a list of Parallels processes like the one below:

administrator   362 44.3 4.9   594924 77396   ?? R     9:52AM   0:16.80 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/../PlugIns/Parallels VM.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_vm_app 78 {248e9848-2169-4aa6-bfbf-c53c3db5c752} {b08e2690-ca2e-4e4b-aeab-449e99edb98e} server
administrator   360   9.1 5.3   735940 82612   ?? U     9:52AM   0:12.26 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/../PlugIns/Parallels VM.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_vm_app 62 {cae3858f-5863-4e9a-badc-a7af37a43297} {b08e2690-ca2e-4e4b-aeab-449e99edb98e} server
administrator   327   7.5 3.8   929836 59676   ?? S     9:50AM   0:23.71 /Applications/Parallels Management Console.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_client_app -psn_0_106522
root       180   6.1 0.8   119124 12876   ?? S     9:47AM   0:04.32 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_disp_service -e --logfile /var/log/prl_disp_service_server.log --pidfile /var/run/prl_disp_service.pid
root       165   0.0 0.2    92560   2948   ?? Ss    9:47AM   0:00.08 /Library/Parallels/Parallels Service.app/Contents/MacOS/prl_naptd

prl_vm_app processes are the ones of your virtual machines (all which are in not stopped state - running, suspended, paused etc).

The line in the first curly breaks is the correcpondent machine's UUID ({248e9848-2169-4aa6-bfbf-c53c3db5c752} - for the first machine in our example above).

Issue the second command:

prlctl list -a

Hit Return and you will get a list of all your virtual machines with their UUIDs:

{248e9848-2169-4aa6-bfbf-c53c3db5c752} paused       Red Hat Enterprise Linux
{7959a431-e0c1-4380-9887-e766f6e51530} stopped      CentOS Linux
{9d9174e1-deed-4d7e-bb14-4e7ad307899f} stopped      Ubuntu Linux
{a9b57971-b7d7-4961-b157-10490852cced} stopped      Ubuntu Linux 8.10
{b5d933c3-6b41-44f5-b477-dadeb2c2e346} stopped      Windows Server 2003
{cae3858f-5863-4e9a-badc-a7af37a43297} running      Windows XP

Find out the UUID of the machine you would like to stop and abort the prl_vm_app process of this VM:

sudo kill -9 362

NOTE: You will be asked for Mac administrator's password, though you will not see it when typing.

In case of Parallels Server, please, restart the Parallels Management Console.

How to terminate a virtual machine frozen

Symptoms

Resolution