Surviving TPL, Delegates, Threads, and Invokes - winforms

Question

I'm facing a serious problem of deadlock in a multithreaded desktop/windows application. I fear I'm not using the correct approach to delegates in a very async environment. Also, even though I "sink" my events into the calling UI thread, if possible, I still have to Invoke on the UI thread to see some action. Follows, is the details.
The application is basically a client for users of an online file storage service. That service exposes functionality through REST calls. I first created a managed code wrapper DLL for such calls that allows for a .NET consumer to create a static instance of this DLL and call the functions. I'll take the file upload operation as an example.
Now, in the wrapper, here is the public interface for a file upload:
public Int32 UploadFile(FileSystemObject FolderToUploadTo, FileInfo LocalFileAndPath, OperationProgressReportEventHandler onOperationProgressReport, FileSystemObjectUploadCompletedEventHandler onOperationCompleted) {
Int32 ReplyNumber = 0;
try {
var TheOperation = new UploadFileObjectOperation(FolderToUploadTo, LocalFileAndPath, _User.APIKey) {
onProgressReport = onOperationProgressReport,
onUploadCompleted = onOperationCompleted
};
//Add it to the pool of operations
OperationPool.Add(TheOperation);
//Start the operation through the factory
OperationFactory.StartNew(() => {
TheOperation.Start();
});
//Chain the *actual* TPL Task to flush after usage
TheOperation.InnerTask.ContinueWith(t => {
t.Dispose(); //Dispose the inner task
OperationPool.Remove(TheOperation); //Remove the operation from the pool
TheOperation = null; //Nullify the Operation
});
ReplyNumber = TheOperation.TaskId;
}
catch {
ReplyNumber = 0;
}
return ReplyNumber;
}
As you can see, the actual UI application, that will refer this DLL, will be sending delegates for progress and completed to the operation(s). Now, the body of the operation itself:
public class UploadFileObjectOperation : BaseOperation, IDisposable {
//Store
public FileSystemObjectUploadCompletedEventHandler onUploadCompleted;
//Constructors
//Disposing stuff
protected override void PerformWork() {
try {
//Init the WebClient
UploadClient.UploadProgressChanged += (UploadProgressChanged_s, UploadProgressChanged_e) => {
//This is my event in base class being raised
ReportProgress(UploadProgressChanged_e.ProgressPercentage, UploadProgressChanged_e);
};
UploadClient.UploadFileCompleted += (UploadFileCompleted_s, UploadFileCompleted_e) => {
if (UploadFileCompleted_e.Error != null) {
throw new ApplicationException("Upload failed. " + UploadFileCompleted_e.Error.Message);
}
JObject JSONLiveObject = JObject.Parse(Encoding.UTF8.GetString(UploadFileCompleted_e.Result));
if (String.Compare((String)JSONLiveObject["status"], Constants._CONST_RESTRESPONSE_STATUS_VALUE_FAIL, false) == 0) {
throw new ApplicationException("Upload response failed. " + (String)JSONLiveObject["result"]["message"]);
}
//Eureka! Success! We have an upload!
//This is my event being raised
UploadTaskCompleted(new UploadFileObjectOperationEventArg {
Error = null,
ResultSource = OperationResultSource.Fresh,
Status = OperationExitStatus.Success,
TaskId = TaskId,
UploadedFileSystemObject = _UploadedFile
});
};
//Start the async upload
UploadClient.UploadFileAsync(AddressOfRESTURI, UploadingMethod, _FileToUpload.FullName);
}
catch (OperationCanceledException exp_Canceled) {
UploadTaskCompleted(new UploadFileObjectOperationEventArg {
Error = exp_Canceled,
ResultSource = OperationResultSource.Fresh,
Status = OperationExitStatus.Canceled,
TaskId = TaskId,
UploadedFileSystemObject = _UploadedFile
});
// To ensure that the calling code knows the task was canceled
//throw;
}
catch (Exception exp) {
UploadTaskCompleted(new UploadFileObjectOperationEventArg {
Error = exp,
ResultSource = OperationResultSource.Fresh,
Status = OperationExitStatus.Error,
TaskId = TaskId,
UploadedFileSystemObject = _UploadedFile
});
// If the calling code also needs to know.
//throw;
}
}
protected void UploadTaskCompleted(UploadFileObjectOperationEventArg arg) {
if (onUploadCompleted == null)
return;
//Sinking into calling UI thread, if possible
if (onUploadCompleted.Target is Control) {
Control targetForm = onUploadCompleted.Target as Control;
targetForm.Invoke(onUploadCompleted, new object[] { arg });
}
else {
onUploadCompleted(arg);
}
Status = OperationRunningStatus.Completed;
}
}
The PerformWork() raises the two events: Progress reporting and completion. Note that while raising an event, I check if can get a route to the calling thread and push the event directly so to avoid invokes at UI.
Now, lets see how I'm using all of the above in a desktop client:
private void UploadFile(FileInfo DraggedFileInfo, FileSystemObject ParentDefination) {
SessionLifetimeStuff.APICore.UploadFile(ParentDefination, DraggedFileInfo,
(PercentageCompleted) => {
#region Progress
this.InvokeEx(f => {
UpdateTaskProgress(newTaskQueue.OID, PercentageCompleted.Progress, PercentageCompleted);
});
#endregion
}, (Result) => {
#region Completion
this.InvokeEx(f => {
switch (Result.Status) {
case OperationExitStatus.Success:
Console.WriteLine(String.Format("File: {0} uploaded to {1}", Result.UploadedFileSystemObject.DocumentFullname, Result.UploadedFileSystemObject.FolderId));
break;
case OperationExitStatus.Canceled:
DialogManager.ShowDialog(DialogTypeEnum.Warning, "Dropbox", "Upload canceled.", null, this);
break;
case OperationExitStatus.Error:
DialogManager.ShowDialog(DialogTypeEnum.Error, "Dropbox", "Upload failed.", Result.Error, this);
break;
}
});
#endregion
});
}
I'm using an extension method I found on Stackoverflow for adding the Invoking functionality:
public static class InvokeExtensions {
public static void InvokeEx<T>(this T #this, Action<T> action) where T : Control {
if (#this.InvokeRequired) {
#this.Invoke(action, new object[] { #this });
}
else {
if (!#this.IsHandleCreated)
return;
if (#this.IsDisposed)
throw new ObjectDisposedException("#this is disposed.");
action(#this);
}
}
public static IAsyncResult BeginInvokeEx<T>(this T #this, Action<T> action)
where T : Control {
return #this.BeginInvoke((Action)(() => #this.InvokeEx(action)));
}
public static void EndInvokeEx<T>(this T #this, IAsyncResult result)
where T : Control {
#this.EndInvoke(result);
}
}
In my code, i have commented out the invokes as I though i don't need then as the events being raised are coming in sinked. However, i realized that my UI was not doing anything at all. So, I added the InvokeEx({ code; }) and my UI started to shoe activity.
Now, why do I need to invoke?
If I attempt different operations from UI, eventually, my UI freezes although the application still behaves as normally functioning.
I found an old article at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff649143.aspx#scag-ch06_topic4 that described the usage of delegates and I see that there is a IAsyncResult involved.
Could someone point me as to where I'm going wrong here?
Update:
Ok, with the invoking code commented on the UI, I get no activity at all. But upon using the this.InvokeEx or wrapping a work in this.BeginInvokeEx, I get UI updates but after a while, here are the two exceptions occurring (in this order):
Invoke or BeginInvoke cannot be called on a control until the window handle has been created.
A Task's exception(s) were not observed either by Waiting on the Task or accessing its Exception property. As a result, the unobserved exception was rethrown by the finalizer thread.