Parallels engineers have been putting thousands of hours into Parallels Desktop 16 for Mac development and testing to make sure it fully supports macOS 11 Big Sur. Most of issues we ran into have been resolved, some have workarounds, and there are just few we’re still working hard on to resolve. Older Parallels Desktop versions only partially support working on macOS Big Sur due to technical reasons may experience the issues below depending on the configuration.
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Known issues
| Issue | Workaround | |
|---|---|---|
| macOS Big Sur as a host operating system | ||
|
1 |
Parallels Desktop cannot be installed in macOS Big Sur Beta. |
Fixed in 16.0.0 (Download) |
|
2 |
Parallels Desktop does not start after upgrading a Mac to macOS Big Sur Beta. |
Fixed in 16.0.0 (Download) |
|
3 |
Macs with macOS Big Sur Beta 5 crash when a user starts a virtual machine. |
Fixed in 16.0.1 (Download) |
| 4 |
After upgrading Mac to Big Sur the notification 'To start the virtual machine, please restart your Mac first.' appears on attempt to start a virtual machine |
Or
|
| 5 | After upgrading macOS to Big Sur, virtual machine automatically suspends on Macs with Intel HD 5xxx/5xx graphics cards | Fixed in 16.1.2 (Download) |
| 6 | After upgrading a Mac to Big Sur Beta 6, the "Network initialization failed" message appears when starting a virtual machine. |
|
| 7 |
Parallels Desktop freezes when opening Control Center or virtual machine configuration. |
Fixed in 16.0.0 (Download) |
| 8 |
When trying to quit Parallels Desktop, it freezes. |
Fixed in 16.0.0 (Download) |
| 9 |
Graphics artifacts appear in the background when a virtual machine is running in the Coherence view mode. |
Fixed in 16.0.0 (Download) |
| 10 |
After upgrading a Mac to Big Sur, the "Unable to load the Parallels driver." message appears when starting a virtual machine. |
Fixed in 16.1.0 (Download) |
| 11 |
The "Deleting a snapshot…" window freezes each time a user tries to delete a snapshot. |
Fixed in macOS Big Sur Beta 5 |
| 12 |
Parallels Desktop crashes after clicking "VM is ready" at the end of the virtual machine installation. |
Fixed in 16.0.0 (Download) |
| 13 |
Cannot type certain symbols in a virtual machine (e.g., 1, 2, T, Y, etc.). |
Fixed in 16.0.0 (Download) |
| 14 |
Parallels Tools do not install automatically in a Boot Camp-based virtual machine. |
Click the Actions menu in the macOS menu bar and select Install Parallels Tools. Once the installation is finished, restart the virtual machine |
| 15 |
A virtual machine crashes when a user logs in to Windows. |
Fixed in 16.0.0 (Download) |
| 16 | Suspended virtual machine not resuming after updating to Parallels Desktop 16. | Fixed in 16.1.0 (Download) |
| 17 | “Unable to pause “virtual machine name”.” message appearing while deleting a snapshot. | Fixed in 16.1.0 (Download) |
| 18 | The CPU menu in the virtual machine configuration showing only two menu items. | Fixed in 16.1.0 (Download) |
| 19 | Multiple virtual machine icons in the Dock. | Fixed in 16.1.0 (Download) |
| macOS Big Sur as a virtual machine | ||
|
1 |
An existing macOS virtual machine cannot be upgraded to macOS Big Sur. |
Fixed in macOS Big Sur Beta 4 |
|
2 |
Unable to install macOS Big Sur in a virtual machine from an .app file. |
Fixed in 16.0.0 (Download) |
|
3 |
Installation Assistant shows the macOS Big Sur version incorrectly (as 10.16). |
Fixed in 16.1.0 (Download) |
|
4 |
Unable to install macOS Big Sur in a virtual machine from the Recovery partition. |
Fixed in 16.1.1 (Download) |
|
5 |
A virtual machine with macOS Big Sur shows a black screen after the Parallels Tools reinstallation. |
Fixed in 16.0.0 (Download) |
|
6 |
On Macs with the macOS version other than Big Sur, screen resolution of a newly created Big Sur virtual machine is set to 1024x768 | Fixed in 16.1.0 (Download) |
| 7 | A macOS virtual machine showing a black screen after upgrading it to macOS Big Sur. | Fixed in 16.1.0 (Download) |
| 8 | Virtual machine apps showing a black window upgrading an existing macOS virtual machine to Big Sur. | Click the Actions menu in the macOS menu bar and select Reinstall Parallels Tools. Once the installation is finished, restart the virtual machine |
|
9 |
Installation Assistant freezes when trying to create a virtual machine with macOS Big Sur Beta 5. |
Fixed in macOS Big Sur Beta 6 |
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