How to stop BackgroundWorker on Form's Closing event?

Question

I have a form that spawns a BackgroundWorker, that should update form\'s own textbox (on main thread), hence Invoke((Action) (...)); call.
If in Handl

Answer 1

I really dont see why DoEvents is regarded as such a bad choice in this case if you are using this.enabled = false. I think it would make it quite neat.

protected override void OnFormClosing(FormClosingEventArgs e) {

    this.Enabled = false;   // or this.Hide()
    e.Cancel = true;
    backgroundWorker1.CancelAsync();  

    while (backgroundWorker1.IsBusy) {

        Application.DoEvents();

    }

    e.cancel = false;
    base.OnFormClosing(e);

}

Answer 2

Here was my solution (Sorry it's in VB.Net).

When I run the FormClosing event I run BackgroundWorker1.CancelAsync() to set the CancellationPending value to True. Unfortunately, the program never really gets a chance to check the value CancellationPending value to set e.Cancel to true (which as far as I can tell, can only be done in BackgroundWorker1_DoWork). I didn't remove that line, although it doesn't really seem to make a difference.

I added a line that would set my global variable, bClosingForm, to True. Then I added a line of code in my BackgroundWorker_WorkCompleted to check both e.Cancelled as well as the global variable, bClosingForm, before performing any ending steps.

Using this template, you should be able to close your form out at any time even if the backgroundworker is in the middle of something (which might not be good, but it's bound to happen so it might as well be dealt with). I'm not sure if it's necessary, but you could dispose the Background worker entirely in the Form_Closed event after this all takes place.

Private bClosingForm As Boolean = False

Private Sub SomeFormName_FormClosing(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.Windows.Forms.FormClosingEventArgs) Handles Me.FormClosing
    bClosingForm = True
    BackgroundWorker1.CancelAsync() 
End Sub

Private Sub backgroundWorker1_DoWork(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.ComponentModel.DoWorkEventArgs) Handles BackgroundWorker1.DoWork
    'Run background tasks:
    If BackgroundWorker1.CancellationPending Then
        e.Cancel = True
    Else
        'Background work here
    End If
End Sub

Private Sub BackgroundWorker1_RunWorkerCompleted(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.ComponentModel.RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs) Handles BackgroundWorker1.RunWorkerCompleted
    If Not bClosingForm Then
        If Not e.Cancelled Then
            'Completion Work here
        End If
    End If
End Sub

Answer 3

This won't work for everyone, but if you are doing something in a BackgroundWorker periodically, like every second or every 10 seconds, (perhaps polling a server) this seems to work well to stop the process in an orderly manner and without error messages (at least so far) and is easy to follow;

 public void StopPoll()
        {
            MyBackgroundWorker.CancelAsync(); //Cancel background worker
            AutoResetEvent1.Set(); //Release delay so cancellation occurs soon
        }

 private void bw_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
        {
            while (!MyBackgroundWorker.CancellationPending)
            {
            //Do some background stuff
            MyBackgroundWorker.ReportProgress(0, (object)SomeData);
            AutoResetEvent1.WaitOne(10000);
            }
    }

Answer 4

Firstly, the ObjectDisposedException is only one possible pitfall here. Running the OP's code has produced the following InvalidOperationException on a substantial number of occasions:

Invoke or BeginInvoke cannot be called on a control until the window handle has been created.

I suppose this could be amended by starting the worker on the 'Loaded' callback rather than the constructor, but this entire ordeal can be avoided altogether if BackgroundWorker's Progress reporting mechanism is used. The following works well:

private void backgroundWorker1_DoWork(object sender, DoWorkEventArgs e)
{
    while (!this.bgWorker.CancellationPending)
    {
        this.bgWorker.ReportProgress(Environment.TickCount);
        Thread.Sleep(1);
    }
}

private void bgWorker_ProgressChanged(object sender, ProgressChangedEventArgs e)
{
    this.textBox1.Text = e.ProgressPercentage.ToString();
}

I kind of hijacked the percentage parameter but one can use the other overload to pass any parameter.

It is interesting to note that removing the above sleep call clogs the UI, consumes high CPU and continually increases the memory use. I guess it has something to do with the message queue of the GUI being overloaded. However, with the sleep call intact, the CPU usage is virtually 0 and the memory usage seems fine, too. To be prudent, perhaps a higher value than 1 ms should be used? An expert opinion here would be appreciated... Update: It appears that as long as the update isn't too frequent, it should be OK: Link

In any case, I can't foresee a scenario where the updating of the GUI has to be in intervals shorter than a couple of milliseconds (at least, in scenarios where a human is watching the GUI), so I think most of the time progress reporting would be the right choice

Answer 5

Another way:

if (backgroundWorker.IsBusy)
{
    backgroundWorker.CancelAsync();
    while (backgroundWorker.IsBusy)
    {
        Application.DoEvents();
    }
}

Answer 6

What about Me.IsHandleCreated?

    Private Sub BwDownload_RunWorkerCompleted(sender As Object, e As System.ComponentModel.RunWorkerCompletedEventArgs) Handles BwDownload.RunWorkerCompleted
    If Me.IsHandleCreated Then
        'Form is still open, so proceed
    End If
End Sub