My Timer event crashes because the events are called on a different thread

Question

I get the error \"Cross-thread operation not valid: Control \'label1\' accessed from a thread other than the thread it was created on.\" when I run this code:

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Answer 1

I am not a winform developer. But i heard something regararding Timer class which you are using. I think you might want to set these properties and check.

T.Interval = 5000; //in Mili Seconds
T.Enabled = true;

Answer 2

Yes, events are executed in the same thread which triggered them. It just so happens that System.Timers.Timer uses a ThreadPool thread by default when raising the Elapsed event. Use the SynchronizingObject property to cause the Elapsed event handler to execute on the thread hosting the target object instead.

public partial class Form1 : Form
{
  System.Timers.Timer T = new System.Timers.Timer();

  public Form1()
  {
    InitializeComponent();
    T.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(T_Elapsed);
    T.SynchronizingObject = this;
    T.Start();
  }

  void T_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)
  {
    label1.Text = "This will not work";
  }
}

Answer 3

I'm assuming you're talking about a WinForms application.

When trying to update a Form element (which lives on the UI thread) from another thread, you need to use Control.Invoke or Control.BeginInvoke. You pass a delegate to the method you want to invoke (or pass an anonymous method in) and then that delegate gets called on the UI thread rather than the calling thread.

Answer 4

We have 3 Timer classes in NET (Timers.Timer, Threading.Timer and Windows.Forms.Timer) but only the Windows.Forms one has a Tick event.

When used normally (ie dragged to the Form in Design-Time or created in some Form Code) the event is running on the Main thread and your problem should not occur.

It is therefore most likely that you create the Timer object in another thread, you should probably Edit your question to show us how/where you create it and tell us if it is on another Thread on purpose.

Answer 5

Are you remembering to use InvokeRequired? It will allow you to update a UI element on the UI thread from the Timer thread.

Answer 6

While the "Accepted" answer is technically correct (in that this will fix the problem) this doesn't answer the question.

The ANSWER is to use

void T_Elapsed(object sender, ElapsedEventArgs e)
{
    this.BeginInvoke(new MethodInvoker(delegate(){
        label1.Text = "This will work";
    }));
}

http://jaysonknight.com/blog/archive/2007/02/14/using-anonymous-methods-for-control-invoke-control-begininvoke.aspx