CentOS 6.4 Upgrade Prevents Boot on Parallels Virtual Machine

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I recently upgraded my Parallels Desktop 8 virtual machine from CentOS 6.3 to 6.4, and after restarting I found that CentOS wouldn’t boot properly.

I received the following error when running the “startx” command:

(EE) module ABI major version (10) doesn’t match the server’s version (13)

Turns out this error is related to the (non-native) video driver used by Parallels Desktop. The problem is caused by changes to the ABI for the X.org video drivers.

Resolution

If your Linux system boots to a command prompt, e.g., runlevel 3, the solution is relatively easy. Simply run the Parallels Tools installation routine and uninstall Parallels Tools. After rebooting, install Parallels Tools again, and the boot problem should be fixed.

However if your system normally boots to the GUI, e.g., runlevel 5, you need to temporarily modify the kernal parameters to boot to runlevel 3 so you have access to the command prompt.

The following should get you to a command prompt:

Start the virtual machine.

At the boot countdown, press any key to get the boot menu. You’ll probably have to click the screen to get your key press to activate the menu.

Press a Key at the boot countdown.

Press a Key at the boot countdown.

When the boot menu appears, press the “a” key to modify the kernel arguements.

Select the Kernel version to boot

Press the “a” key to modify kernel boot arguements.

At the prompt, append a “3” to the end of the line. This instructs the kernel to boot to runlevel 3. Your boot command should look similar to the following:

crashkernel=auto rhgb quiet 3

Press the Return key to proceed with the boot.

Once you get to the command prompt, run the following command to uninstall Parallels Tools:

sudo /usr/lib/parallels-tools/install -r

Once Parallels Tools has been uninstalled, reboot the system.
Install Parallels Tools again, and the boot problem should be fixed.

The CentOS Wiki lists this as a known issue with CentOS 6.4 (see section 5).

8 Comments

  1. Alan Shaw
    Alan Shaw on April 22, 2013 at 11:14 am

    I tried to comment on your post – it really helped me out. I wanted to add the following, but whenever I submitted the comment I got “Error: Possible Spambot” despite filling in the captcha correctly (I tried a few times as well).

    Worth mentioning that after logging in I had to get parallels to attach the install cd to the machine via:
    Virtual Machine > Reinstall Parallels Tools

    Then mount:
    sudo mount -o exec /dev/cdrom /media/cdrom
    (from http://download.parallels.com/desktop/v5/docs/en/Parallels_Desktop_Users_Guide/22570.htm)

    Then run installer:
    cd /media/cdrom
    sudo ./install

    I had to remove, then install via command line before I was able to boot into GUI.

    • Robert Thomas
      Robert Thomas on April 22, 2013 at 11:17 am

      Thanks for your input Alan. I’m sure others will find it helpful! Thanks for also letting me know about the problem you were experiencing in leaving a comment. The problem should now be resolved.

  2. Michael
    Michael on April 22, 2013 at 4:58 pm

    I tried to uninstall and reinstall on centOS 6.4 (Final) but it still hangs on boot when installing parallels tools. I can get to run level 3, install and uninstall, but the same results happens. Any ideas?

    • Robert Thomas
      Robert Thomas on April 22, 2013 at 7:14 pm

      Hi Michael.

      If you uninstall Parallels Tools and reboot, does X (the GUI) start when you run “startx?” If it doesn’t, I would suspect the Parallels Tools video driver wasn’t fully uninstalled.

      To fix this, you might want to try manually uninstalling Parallels Tools. I didn’t see much on the web about how to do this, but you can gleam some info from the Parallels Tools install script. You can also peruse the /var/log/parallels.log and /var/log/parallels-tools-install.log files. From the parallels-tools-install log, it looks like the majority (if not all) of the tools are installed in /usr/lib/parallels-tools directory.

      You might want to try manually removing this directory, reboot, and see if “startx” starts the GUI. If X does start, try reinstalling the tools again. I highly recommend you make a backup of your virtual machine before making these potentially destructive changes!

      If you uninstall Parallels Tools and reboot, and “startx” doesn’t start X, you might have to reconfigure your X settings.

      Good luck!

  3. Thomas
    Thomas on May 16, 2013 at 2:59 am

    Thanks Robert for all the instructions. I just ran into the same issue and searching for a solution brought me right to this article. Luckily I had sshd configured on the VM and could skip the grub adjustments.

    • Robert Thomas
      Robert Thomas on May 17, 2013 at 7:38 pm

      You’re welcome! Thanks for the comment!

  4. Eduardo
    Eduardo on August 7, 2013 at 10:26 am

    hi guys
    I upgraded a CentOS 6.3 32-bit server to CentoOS 6.4 which is a virtual machine in Virtual Box 4.2.12

    After the upgrade, not start the graphical X.

    the solution was:

    – Boot into run level 3
    – Reinstall VirtualBox guest addon
    – Reboot .. that’s all

    I hope will be helpful my comment.

    Eduardo.-

    • Robert Thomas
      Robert Thomas on August 7, 2013 at 4:51 pm

      Thank you for sharing this information Eduardo!

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