Do I? Don’t I?

I keep apps installed on my devices updated regularly, so was recently trying to check whether Parallels Desktop for Mac Pro had an update, it has been a while since their last update, which was rather unusual.

Selecting Check for Updates from the menu I’d expectation dialog showing me it doing so, with notification a minute or so later whether anything newer exists, instead I was getting an error message telling me Parallels couldn’t check.

When I was first presented with this back in April I decided to manually download the latest point release from their website figuring the release I was running must surely have a bug or few. Installed, I re-attempted checking again only to receive the same error message. A quick check of the Security section of Settings to ensure it wasn’t a limitation here, and it wasn’t, I was stumped.

Checking the internet for my issue I wasn’t coming up with anything, unusually if this was likely something more widespread. I decided this week to contact Parallels support team for assistance, only after doing so did it dawn upon me that these issues begin after I’d installed NordVPN. After Launching NordVPN, and then re-attempting check for updates I finally had success. Of course I now had to cancel my support request, though frustrating I needed to do this, there’s no option on the Mac version of NordVPN for split tunnelling which might allow me to exclude Parallels from routing via NordVPN.

Other issues have plagued me recently too on the Mac that I am now considering a fresh install of macOS, wiping the drive and not restoring from time machine as I have done each time I buy a new machine. The setup will take far longer, however, I won’t inherit all the clutter from previous systems either. Concern for me in not doing that is my just commencing a graduate diploma and really needing this machine working in tip top condition.