Do Timers Wait for Threads?

General
#1

I know that a timer will wait until code on the main thread is finished before firing.

However, does a timer wait for code on other threads?

If I create a timer on a thread, is it possible that a context switch on that thread will cause the timer to run before my thread finishes its task?

#2

Timer code always runs in the main thread during idle time. Other threads running won’t affect that, so yes, no matter where the Timer is activated, it’s entirely possible that it will run before your thread is finished.

#3

Thanks. That was my suspicion.

I added a ticket to update the documentation which isn’t clear on this or that they wait for the main thread: feedback://showreport?report_id=39773

#4

In fact, that how a thread can manipulate the UI indirectly. You put the changes into a properties, then call the method that updates the UI from a Timer started by the thread.

#5

The opposite is also true. If your thread doesn’t yield, it can block the timer. Some tuning is required to get the best/desired performance.

#6

Yes. I just ran into this. Interestingly with the same (high) priority assigned to the thread, the effect was much more pronounced on Windows than Mac.

#7

Judicious use of yield/sleep (like every 200ms) can keep the UI responsive. Adjust to taste.

#8

Think a main thread as just another thread when it comes to synchronization between threads, but just never make it very busy to avoid UI problems. For your problem of “waiting for threads”, you can use inter-threads synchronizing methods like CriticalSection.TryEnter() or Semaphore.TrySignal() to check for some task condition flagged in another thread like “the thread ended his last job and is waiting”.
Also you can do some tricks too, like inside the thread calling Suspend() to signalize some stop condition and checking for ThatThread.State = 2 in the main thread. Then releasing it later with thatThread.Resume() later to do another loop or end.

#9