Avoid calling Invoke when the control is disposed

Question

I have the following code in my worker thread (ImageListView below is derived from Control):

if (mImageListView != null && 
    mImageListView.IsHandleCreated &&
    !mImageListView.IsDisposed)
{
    if (mImageListView.InvokeRequired)
        mImageListView.Invoke(
            new RefreshDelegateInternal(mImageListView.RefreshInternal));
    else
        mImageListView.RefreshInternal();
}

However, I get an ObjectDisposedException sometimes with the Invoke method above. It appears that the control can be disposed between the time I check IsDisposed and I call Invoke. How can I avoid that?

Solution 1

There are implicit race conditions in your code. The control can be disposed between your IsDisposed test and the InvokeRequired test. There's another one between InvokeRequired and Invoke(). You can't fix this without ensuring the control outlives the life of the thread. Given that your thread is generating data for a list view, it ought to stop running before the list view disappears.

Do so by setting e.Cancel in the FormClosing event and signaling the thread to stop with a ManualResetEvent. When the thread completes, call Form.Close() again. Using BackgroundWorker makes it easy to implement the thread completion logic, find sample code in this post.

Solution 2

What you have here is a race condition. You're better off just catching the ObjectDisposed exception and be done with it. In fact, I think in this case it is the only working solution.

try
{
    if (mImageListView.InvokeRequired)
       mImageListView.Invoke(new YourDelegate(thisMethod));
    else
       mImageListView.RefreshInternal();
} 
catch (ObjectDisposedException ex)
{
    // Do something clever
}

Solution 3

The reality is that with Invoke and friends, you can't completely protect against invoke on a disposed component, or then getting InvalidOperationException because of the missing handle. I haven't really seen an answer yet, like the one farther below, in any of the threads that addresses the real fundamental problem, which cant be completely solved by preemptive testing or using lock semantics.

Here's the normal 'correct' idiom:

// the event handler. in this case preped for cross thread calls  
void OnEventMyUpdate(object sender, MyUpdateEventArgs e)
{
    if (!this.IsHandleCreated) return;  // ignore events if we arn't ready, and for
                                        // invoke if cant listen to msg queue anyway
    if (InvokeRequired) 
        Invoke(new MyUpdateCallback(this.MyUpdate), e.MyData);
    else
        this.MyUpdate(e.MyData);
}

// the update function
void MyUpdate(Object myData)
{
    ...
}

---

The fundemental problem:

In using the Invoke facility the windows message queue is used, which places a message in the queue to either wait or fire-and-forget the cross thread call exactly like Post or Send message. If there is a message ahead of the Invoke message that will invalidate the component and its window handle, or that got placed just after any checks you try to perform, then you are going to have a bad time.

 x thread -> PostMessage(WM_CLOSE);   // put 'WM_CLOSE' in queue
 y thread -> this.IsHandleCreated     // yes we have a valid handle
 y thread -> this.Invoke();           // put 'Invoke' in queue
ui thread -> this.Destroy();          // Close processed, handle gone
 y thread -> throw Invalid....()      // 'Send' comes back, thrown on calling thread y

There is no real way to know that the control is about to remove itself fromthe queue, and nothing really reasonable you can do to "undo" the invoke. No matter how many checks you do or extra locks you make, you cant stop someone else form issuing something like a close, or deactivate. There are tons of senarios where this can happen.

A solution:

The first thing to realize is that the invoke is going to fail, no different than how a (IsHandleCreated) check would have ignored the event. If the goal is to protect the caller on the non-UI thread you will need to handle the exception, and treat it like any other call that didn't succeed (to keep app from crashing or do whatever. And unless going to rewrite/reroll Invoke facility, the catch is your only way to know.

// the event handler. in this case preped for cross thread calls  
void OnEventMyWhatever(object sender, MyUpdateEventArgs e)
{
    if (!this.IsHandleCreated) return;
    if (InvokeRequired) 
    {
        try
        {
            Invoke(new MyUpdateCallback(this.MyUpdate), e.MyData);
        }
        catch (InvalidOperationException ex)    // pump died before we were processed
        {
            if (this.IsHandleCreated) throw;    // not the droids we are looking for
        }
    }
    else
    {
        this.MyUpdate(e.MyData);
    }
}

// the update function
void MyUpdate(Object myData)
{
    ...
}

The exception filtering can be tailored to suit whatever the needs are. Its good to be aware that worker threads often dont have all the cushy outer exception handling and logging the UI threads do, in most applicaitons, so you may wish to just gobble up any exception on the worker side. Or log and rethrow all of them. For many, uncaught exceptions on worker thread means the app is going to crash.

Solution 4

Try using

if(!myControl.Disposing)
    ; // invoke here

I had the exact same problem as you. Ever since I switched to checking .Disposing on the control, the ObjectDisposedException has gone away. Not saying this will fix it 100% of the time, just 99% ;) There is still a chance of a race condition between the check to Disposing and the call to invoke, but in the testing I've done I haven't ran into it (I use the ThreadPool and a worker thread).

Here's what I use before each call to invoke:

    private bool IsControlValid(Control myControl)
    {
        if (myControl == null) return false;
        if (myControl.IsDisposed) return false;
        if (myControl.Disposing) return false;
        if (!myControl.IsHandleCreated) return false;
        if (AbortThread) return false; // the signal to the thread to stop processing
        return true;
    }

Solution 5

You could use mutexes.

Somewhere at the start of the thread :

 Mutex m=new Mutex();

Then :

if (mImageListView != null && 
    mImageListView.IsHandleCreated &&
    !mImageListView.IsDisposed)
{
    m.WaitOne(); 

    if (mImageListView.InvokeRequired)
        mImageListView.Invoke(
            new RefreshDelegateInternal(mImageListView.RefreshInternal));
    else
        mImageListView.RefreshInternal();

    m.ReleaseMutex();
}

And whereever it is you are disposing of mImageListView :

 m.WaitOne(); 
 mImageListView.Dispose();
 m.ReleaseMutex();

This should ensure you cant dispose and invoke at the same time.

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