Question

I have a deadlock when I invoke the UI thread from a worker thread. Indeed, the worker thread is blocked on the invoke line:

return (ucAvancementTrtFamille)mInterfaceTraitement.Invoke(d, new object[] { psFamille });

The weird thing is that the UI Thread (which, correct me if I’m wrong, is the main thread) is idle.

Is there any way to:

1. see which thread I’m actually trying to invoke?
2. see what said thread is really doing?

We can see in the image below, the worker thread (ID 3732) blocked on the Invoke line, and the MainThread is idle in the main function of the application.

Edit: Here is the stack of the main thread:

Edit2: Actually, I paused the the program a second time, and here is what the stack looks like:

Edit3: Workaround found

I finally found a workaround. The problem is apparently due to an async wrapper race
condition issue. The workaround is to use BeginInvoke and wait for it with a timeout. When it times out, invoke it again and loop until it finally returns. Most of the time, it actually works on the second call.

IAsyncResult ar = mInterfaceTraitement.BeginInvoke(d, new object[] { psFamille });
            while (!ar.AsyncWaitHandle.WaitOne(3000, false))
            {
                ar = mInterfaceTraitement.BeginInvoke(d, new object[] { psFamille });
            }
            // Async call has returned - get response
            ucAvancementTrtFamille mucAvancementTrtFamille = (ucAvancementTrtFamille)mInterfaceTraitement.EndInvoke(ar);

It’s not pretty but it’s the only solution I found.

Answer 1

The Main thread doesn’t look idle. Your screen shot shows it current location at ECM.Program.Main. That can’t be correct, if it is idle then it is inside Application.Run(), pumping the message loop. Which is required for Invoke() to complete.

Double-click the main thread and switch to the Call Stack window to find out what it is really doing.