I have a winform program that does some asynchronous IO on a SerialPort
. However, I'm periodically running into an issue with the program freezing on the SerialPort.Close() call, seemingly at random.
I think it's a thread safety issue, but I'm not sure how to fix it if it is. I tried adding/removing the async DataReceived handler with the port open/close functions and discarding the in and out buffers on the port, but it doesn't seem to do anything. I think the important SerialPort
code is below:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO.Ports;
public class SerialComm
{
private object locker = new object();
private SerialPort port;
private List<byte> receivedBytes;
public SerialComm(string portName)
{
port = new SerialPort(portName);
port.BaudRate = 57600;
port.Parity = Parity.None;
port.DataBits = 8;
port.StopBits = StopBits.One;
receivedBytes = new List<byte>();
}
public void OpenPort()
{
if(port!=null && !port.IsOpen){
lock(locker){
receivedBytes.Clear();
}
port.DataReceived += port_DataReceived;
port.Open();
}
}
public void ClosePort()
{
if(port!=null && port.IsOpen){
port.DataReceived -= port_DataReceived;
while(!(port.BytesToRead==0 && port.BytesToWrite==0)){
port.DiscardInBuffer();
port.DiscardOutBuffer();
}
port.Close();
}
}
private void port_DataReceived(object sender, SerialDataReceivedEventArgs e)
{
try{
byte[] buffer = new byte[port.BytesToRead];
int rcvdBytes = port.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
lock(locker){
receivedBytes.AddRange(buffer);
}
//Do the more interesting handling of the receivedBytes list here.
} catch (Exception ex) {
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(ex.ToString());
//put other, more interesting error handling here.
}
}
}
UPDATE
Thanks to @Afrin's answer pointing out the deadlock condition with the UI thread (This blog post does a good job describing it, and gives several other good tips), I made a simple change, and haven't been able to reproduce the error yet!
private void port_DataReceived(object sender, SerialDataReceivedEventArgs e)
{
try{
byte[] buffer = new byte[port.BytesToRead];
int rcvdBytes = port.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
lock(locker){
receivedBytes.AddRange(buffer);
}
ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(handleReceivedBytes);
} catch (Exception ex) {
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(ex.ToString());
//put other, more interesting error handling here.
}
}
private void handleReceivedBytes(object state)
{
//Do the more interesting handling of the receivedBytes list here.
}