QtMobility access from multiple threads?

[henranto]

Hi

I'm having problem using QtMobility from multiple threads.

Main-thread A starts and creates a QSystemDeviceInfo
A creates thread B
B then freeze when it tries to create QSystemNetworkInfo

However if I just create and delete a QSystemNetworkInfo in thread A, thread B is working correctly. This worked until I wanted to use QNetworkSession, I can create an instance of this session but I don't get any signals from it, unless I remove the QSystemDeviceInfo access in main-thread.

I think the problem could be the s60-implementation in QtMobility, as it uses static member of DeviceInfo which is used in both QSystemDeviceInfo and QSystemNetworkInfo but I'm not sure. I'm thinking of create a bug report for this but I wanted to check if anyone else have encountered this, or maybe if I'm doing something wrong.

Thanks
anton

[divanov]

It's hard to say anything definitive on the basis of so vague description. However, if there is a singleton data and multiple threads, you should be using mutexes.

[Sorcery-ltd]

When you say your thread freezes, what do you mean - crashes, panics, blocks?

Most likely you're running into the common problem for Symbian that most resource handles are not shared between threads by default. The easiest thing to do here is create a minimal app to reproduce this and raise a bug on Qt Mobility with the project attached. They'll either sort out the necessary handle sharing within Qt Mobility, or hopefully sort out the docs to say that multi-threaded access is not supported.

[henranto]

My first thought it was hanging but more I just realized that it was the thread that crashed. I tested it on win32 and get some warnings when just creating QSystemNetworkInfo from other thread than main-thread:

QObject: Cannot create children for a parent that is in a different thread.
(Parent is WorkerThread(0x17a2310), parent's thread is QThread(0x15c7b50), current thread is WorkerThread(0x17a2310)

Think I will build a test-app and report it.

You say that it is a common problem in Symbian with resources, what is the best practice to go around such an issue?

Thanks
anton

[henranto]

Follow bug on

http://bugreports.qt.nokia.com/browse/QTMOBILITY-1058

/anton

[danhicksbyron]

Not a bug, I don't think. Objects are "owned" by threads. The message "QObject: Cannot create children for a parent that is in a different thread." is telling you that you're directly or indirectly creating an object in one thread and specifying a parent in a different thread. This is a no-no, since the parent can't safely delete the child.

[henranto]

Yes I agree about the parent and child must be in same thread but isn't it strange that this warning is given even if I only create it in the worker-thread? Seems like the resource-objects are created by the main-thread at startup (win32)?

And still it is unclear to me how to solve the issue of using mobility objects in another threads, as the different classes (in my case QSystemNetworkInfo and QSystemDeviceInfo) are using same static members in the underlying implementation. If the solution is to only use these objects from same thread it should at least be documented somewhere. Or is it something I have missed?

[danhicksbyron]

How did you construct the QSystemNetworkInfo?

[henranto]

QSystemNetworkInfo *netInfo = new QSystemNetworkInfo(this);

Even without "this" will not work. Complete code example is included in bug report if you are interested.

[danhicksbyron]

Well, it certainly will not work with "this", if the "this" object was constructed in another thread.

[lpotter]

I have commented on this in the bug report.
http://bugreports.qt.nokia.com/browse/QTMOBILITY-1058