Cross-thread operation not valid: Control accessed

Question

I have a scenario. (Windows Forms, C#, .NET)

1. There is a main form which hosts some user control.
2. The user control does some heavy data operation, such that if I directly call the UserControl_Load method the UI become nonresponsive for the duration for load method execution.
3. To overcome this I load data on different thread (trying to change existing code as little as I can)
4. I used a background worker thread which will be loading the data and when done will notify the application that it has done its work.
5. Now came a real problem. All the UI (main form and its child usercontrols) was created on the primary main thread. In the LOAD method of the usercontrol I'm fetching data based on the values of some control (like textbox) on userControl.

The pseudocode would look like this:

CODE 1

UserContrl1_LoadDataMethod()
{
    if (textbox1.text == "MyName") // This gives exception
    {
        //Load data corresponding to "MyName".
        //Populate a globale variable List<string> which will be binded to grid at some later stage.
    }
}

The Exception it gave was

Cross-thread operation not valid: Control accessed from a thread other than the thread it was created on.

To know more about this I did some googling and a suggestion came up like using the following code

CODE 2

UserContrl1_LoadDataMethod()
{
    if (InvokeRequired) // Line #1
    {
        this.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(UserContrl1_LoadDataMethod));
        return;
    }

    if (textbox1.text == "MyName") // Now it wont give an exception
    {
    //Load data correspondin to "MyName"
        //Populate a globale variable List<string> which will be binded to grid at some later stage
    }
}

BUT BUT BUT... it seems I'm back to square one. The Application again become nonresponsive. It seems to be due to the execution of line #1 if condition. The loading task is again done by the parent thread and not the third that I spawned.

I don't know whether I perceived this right or wrong. I'm new to threading.

How do I resolve this and also what is the effect of execution of Line#1 if block?

The situation is this: I want to load data into a global variable based on the value of a control. I don't want to change the value of a control from the child thread. I'm not going to do it ever from a child thread.

So only accessing the value so that the corresponding data can be fetched from the database.

Answer 1

I have had this problem with the FileSystemWatcher and found that the following code solved the problem:

fsw.SynchronizingObject = this

The control then uses the current form object to deal with the events, and will therefore be on the same thread.

Answer 2

Along the same lines as previous answers, but a very short addition that Allows to use all Control properties without having cross thread invokation exception.

Helper Method

/// <summary>
/// Helper method to determin if invoke required, if so will rerun method on correct thread.
/// if not do nothing.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="c">Control that might require invoking</param>
/// <param name="a">action to preform on control thread if so.</param>
/// <returns>true if invoke required</returns>
public bool ControlInvokeRequired(Control c, Action a)
{
    if (c.InvokeRequired) c.Invoke(new MethodInvoker(delegate
    {
        a();
    }));
    else return false;

    return true;
}

Sample Usage

// usage on textbox
public void UpdateTextBox1(String text)
{
    //Check if invoke requied if so return - as i will be recalled in correct thread
    if (ControlInvokeRequired(textBox1, () => UpdateTextBox1(text))) return;
    textBox1.Text = ellapsed;
}

//Or any control
public void UpdateControl(Color c, String s)
{
    //Check if invoke requied if so return - as i will be recalled in correct thread
    if (ControlInvokeRequired(myControl, () => UpdateControl(c, s))) return;
    myControl.Text = s;
    myControl.BackColor = c;
}

Answer 3

Action y; //declared inside class

label1.Invoke(y=()=>label1.Text="text");

Answer 4

I know its too late now. However even today if you are having trouble accessing cross thread controls? This is the shortest answer till date :P

Invoke(new Action(() =>
                {
                    label1.Text = "WooHoo!!!";
                }));

This is how i access any form control from a thread.

Answer 5

I found a need for this while programming an iOS-Phone monotouch app controller in a visual studio winforms prototype project outside of xamarin stuidio. Preferring to program in VS over xamarin studio as much as possible, I wanted the controller to be completely decoupled from the phone framework. This way implementing this for other frameworks like Android and Windows Phone would be much easier for future uses.

I wanted a solution where the GUI could respond to events without the burden of dealing with the cross threading switching code behind every button click. Basically let the class controller handle that to keep the client code simple. You could possibly have many events on the GUI where as if you could handle it in one place in the class would be cleaner. I am not a multi theading expert, let me know if this is flawed.

public partial class Form1 : Form
{
    private ExampleController.MyController controller;

    public Form1()
    {          
        InitializeComponent();
        controller = new ExampleController.MyController((ISynchronizeInvoke) this);
        controller.Finished += controller_Finished;
    }

    void controller_Finished(string returnValue)
    {
        label1.Text = returnValue; 
    }

    private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        controller.SubmitTask("Do It");
    }
}

The GUI form is unaware the controller is running asynchronous tasks.

public delegate void FinishedTasksHandler(string returnValue);

public class MyController
{
    private ISynchronizeInvoke _syn; 
    public MyController(ISynchronizeInvoke syn) {  _syn = syn; } 
    public event FinishedTasksHandler Finished; 

    public void SubmitTask(string someValue)
    {
        System.Threading.ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(state => submitTask(someValue));
    }

    private void submitTask(string someValue)
    {
        someValue = someValue + " " + DateTime.Now.ToString();
        System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(5000);
//Finished(someValue); This causes cross threading error if called like this.

        if (Finished != null)
        {
            if (_syn.InvokeRequired)
            {
                _syn.Invoke(Finished, new object[] { someValue });
            }
            else
            {
                Finished(someValue);
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 6

I find the check-and-invoke code which needs to be littered within all methods related to forms to be way too verbose and unneeded. Here's a simple extension method which lets you do away with it completely:

public static class Extensions
{
    public static void Invoke<TControlType>(this TControlType control, Action<TControlType> del) 
        where TControlType : Control
        {
            if (control.InvokeRequired)
                control.Invoke(new Action(() => del(control)));
            else
                del(control);
    }
}

And then you can simply do this:

textbox1.Invoke(t => t.Text = "A");

No more messing around - simple.