Develop Reference

Problems getting QTimer to start when using QThread

I'm trying to implement a webcam using PyQt5 from an example I found (here, but not really relevant).
Getting the example to work wasn't an issue, but I wanted to modify some things and I am stuck on one particular problem.
I have two classes, one QObject Capture which has a QBasicTimer that I want to start, and a QWidget MyWidget with a button that is supposed to start the timer of the Capture object, which is inside a QThread.
If I directly connect the button click to the method that starts the timer, everything works fine.
But I want to do some other things when I click the button, so I connected the button to a method of MyWidget first and call the start method of Capture from there. This, however, doesn't work: the timer doesn't start.
Here is a minimal working example:
from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtWidgets
import sys
class Capture(QtCore.QObject):
def __init__(self, parent=None):
super(Capture, self).__init__(parent)
self.m_timer = QtCore.QBasicTimer()
def start(self):
print("capture start called")
self.m_timer.start(1000, self)
def timerEvent(self, event):
print("time event")
class MyWidget(QtWidgets.QWidget):
def __init__(self, parent=None):
super(MyWidget, self).__init__(parent)
lay = QtWidgets.QVBoxLayout(self)
self.btn_start = QtWidgets.QPushButton("Start")
lay.addWidget(self.btn_start)
self.capture = Capture()
captureThread = QtCore.QThread(self)
captureThread.start()
self.capture.moveToThread(captureThread)
# self.btn_start.clicked.connect(self.capture.start) # this works
self.btn_start.clicked.connect(self.startCapture) # this doesn't
# self.capture.start() # this doesn't either
self.show()
def startCapture(self):
self.capture.start()
def run_app():
app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
mainWin = MyWidget()
mainWin.show()
app.exec_()
run_app()
It is some problem with the QThread, because if I don't use threading it works. I thought maybe it has something to do with the thread not being in some way available when called from a different method than the one it was created in, but calling self.capture.start() directly from the init does not work either.
I only have a very basic grasp of threads. Can someone tell me how I can properly call self.capture.start() from MyWidget and why it works without problems when directly connecting it to the button click?

If you connect the button's clicked signal to the worker's start slot, Qt will automatically detect that it's a cross-thread connection. When the signal is eventually emitted, it will be queued in the receiving thread's event-queue, which ensures the slot will be called within the worker thread.
However, if you connect the button's clicked signal to the startCapture slot, there's no cross-thread connection, because the slot belongs to MyWidget (which lives in the main thread). When the signal is emitted this time, the slot tries to create the timer from within the main thread, which is not supported. Timers must always be started within the thread that creates them (otherwise Qt will print a message like "QBasicTimer::start: Timers cannot be started from another thread").
A better approach is to connect the started and finished signals of the thread to some start and stop slots in the worker, and then call the thread's start and quit methods to control the worker. Here's a demo based on your script, which shows how to implement that:
from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtWidgets
import sys
class Capture(QtCore.QObject):
def __init__(self, parent=None):
super(Capture, self).__init__(parent)
self.m_timer = QtCore.QBasicTimer()
def start(self):
print("capture start called")
self.m_timer.start(1000, self)
def stop(self):
print("capture stop called")
self.m_timer.stop()
def timerEvent(self, event):
print("time event")
class MyWidget(QtWidgets.QWidget):
def __init__(self, parent=None):
super(MyWidget, self).__init__(parent)
lay = QtWidgets.QVBoxLayout(self)
self.btn_start = QtWidgets.QPushButton("Start")
lay.addWidget(self.btn_start)
self.capture = Capture()
self.captureThread = QtCore.QThread(self)
self.capture.moveToThread(self.captureThread)
self.captureThread.started.connect(self.capture.start)
self.captureThread.finished.connect(self.capture.stop)
self.btn_start.clicked.connect(self.startCapture)
self.show()
def startCapture(self):
if not self.captureThread.isRunning():
self.btn_start.setText('Stop')
self.captureThread.start()
else:
self.btn_start.setText('Start')
self.stopCapture()
def stopCapture(self):
self.captureThread.quit()
self.captureThread.wait()
def closeEvent(self, event):
self.stopCapture()
def run_app():
app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
mainWin = MyWidget()
mainWin.show()
app.exec_()
run_app()

PySide2 Non-Blocking QMessageBox doesn't show text

While my application does some time-consuming stuff, I want to display a message box to the user while the applications is busy. I don't want any buttons (like OK or Cancel) and I can't call exec_() on the message box because that is blocking.
I checked a number of qt sites and the code I need seems to boil down to:
message_box = QMessageBox()
message_box.setText(str('Reading Device, Please Wait...'))
message_box.show()
# do work here
message_box.close()
When I run the code, I get the message box, but without the text. What am I doing wrong?
I've included a working example below:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
import sys
import time
from PySide2.QtWidgets import (QLineEdit, QPushButton, QApplication,
QVBoxLayout, QDialog, QMessageBox)
class Form(QDialog):
def __init__(self, parent=None):
super(Form, self).__init__(parent)
self.button = QPushButton("Click Me")
layout = QVBoxLayout()
layout.addWidget(self.button)
self.setLayout(layout)
# Add button signal to dowork slot
self.button.clicked.connect(self.dowork)
def dowork(self):
message_box = QMessageBox()
message_box.setText(str('Reading Device, Please Wait...'))
message_box.show()
delay = 2.5
while delay:
sys.stdout.write('Working...\n')
time.sleep(0.5) # do some time-consuming stuff...
delay -= 0.5
message_box.close()
if __name__ == '__main__':
app = QApplication(sys.argv)
form = Form()
print('starting app...')
form.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())
If you click the button, the message box pops up and is shown while the 'work' is being done. When the 'work' is finished, the message box disappears again - as it should. But no text is shown in the message box.
There is a similar question here: qmessagebox-not-show-text-when-call-show, but that does not answer my question.

You can not have a task that consumes a lot of time (more than 30 ms) since it blocks the GUI eventloop preventing Qt from doing its job normally, instead it uses a thread next to the signals to update the GUI from the other thread:
import sys
import threading
import time
from PySide2 import QtCore, QtWidgets
class Form(QtWidgets.QDialog):
started = QtCore.Signal()
finished = QtCore.Signal()
def __init__(self, parent=None):
super(Form, self).__init__(parent)
self.button = QtWidgets.QPushButton("Click Me")
layout = QtWidgets.QVBoxLayout(self)
layout.addWidget(self.button)
# Add button signal to dowork slot
self.button.clicked.connect(self.on_clicled)
self._message_box = QtWidgets.QMessageBox()
self._message_box.setText(str('Reading Device, Please Wait...'))
self._message_box.setStandardButtons(QtWidgets.QMessageBox.NoButton)
self.started.connect(self._message_box.show)
self.finished.connect(self._message_box.accept)
#QtCore.Slot()
def on_clicled(self):
thread = threading.Thread(target=self.dowork, daemon=True)
thread.start()
def dowork(self):
delay = 2.5
self.started.emit()
while delay:
sys.stdout.write('Working...\n')
time.sleep(0.5) # do some time-consuming stuff...
delay -= 0.5
self.finished.emit()
if __name__ == '__main__':
app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
form = Form()
print('starting app...')
form.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())

You should almost certainly be using QProgressDialog. Set minimum and maximum to zero for an 'indeterminate' look.
https://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qprogressdialog.html
Although forcing a redraw after your setText() will probably work:
self._message_box.repaint()
QtWidgets.QApplication.processEvents()

PyQt5: Timer in a thread

Problem Description
I'm trying to make an application that collects data, processes it, displays it, and some actuation (open/close valves, etc). As a practice for future applications where I have some stricter time constraints, I want to run the data capture and processing in a separate thread.
My current problem is that it's telling me I cannot start a timer from another thread.
Current code progress
import sys
import PyQt5
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import *
from PyQt5.QtCore import QThread, pyqtSignal
# This is our window from QtCreator
import mainwindow_auto
#thread to capture the process data
class DataCaptureThread(QThread):
def collectProcessData():
print ("Collecting Process Data")
#declaring the timer
dataCollectionTimer = PyQt5.QtCore.QTimer()
dataCollectionTimer.timeout.connect(collectProcessData)
def __init__(self):
QThread.__init__(self)
def run(self):
self.dataCollectionTimer.start(1000);
class MainWindow(QMainWindow, mainwindow_auto.Ui_MainWindow):
def __init__(self):
super(self.__class__, self).__init__()
self.setupUi(self) # gets defined in the UI file
self.btnStart.clicked.connect(self.pressedStartBtn)
self.btnStop.clicked.connect(self.pressedStopBtn)
def pressedStartBtn(self):
self.lblAction.setText("STARTED")
self.dataCollectionThread = DataCaptureThread()
self.dataCollectionThread.start()
def pressedStopBtn(self):
self.lblAction.setText("STOPPED")
self.dataCollectionThread.terminate()
def main():
# a new app instance
app = QApplication(sys.argv)
form = MainWindow()
form.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
Any advice on how to get this to work would be appreciated!

You have to move the QTimer to the DataCaptureThread thread, in addition to that when the run method ends, the thread is eliminated so the timer is eliminated, so you must avoid running that function without blocking other tasks. QEventLoop is used for this:
class DataCaptureThread(QThread):
def collectProcessData(self):
print ("Collecting Process Data")
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
QThread.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)
self.dataCollectionTimer = QTimer()
self.dataCollectionTimer.moveToThread(self)
self.dataCollectionTimer.timeout.connect(self.collectProcessData)
def run(self):
self.dataCollectionTimer.start(1000)
loop = QEventLoop()
loop.exec_()

Python pyqt pulsing progress bar with multithreading

Please bear with my question as I am a beginner. I have been having problems implementing the progress bar in pyqt and all of the example I have seen doesn't really explain on how to implement it properly and from this example and this example I somewhat partially made it work but it still hangs. I have this code:
class Window(QtGui.QMainWindow):
def __init__(self):
super(Window, self).__init__()
self.setGeometry(750, 450, 400, 200)
self.setFixedSize(self.size())
btn1 = QtGui.QPushButton("Convert", self)
btn1.move(210,171)
btn1.clicked.connect(self.progbar)
def progbar (self):
self.prog_win = QDialog()
self.prog_win.resize(400, 100)
self.prog_win.setFixedSize(self.prog_win.size())
self.prog_win.setWindowTitle("Processing request")
self.lbl = QLabel(self.prog_win)
self.lbl.setText("Please Wait. . .")
self.lbl.move(15,18)
self.progressBar = QtGui.QProgressBar(self.prog_win)
self.progressBar.resize(410, 25)
self.progressBar.move(15, 40)
self.progressBar.setRange(0,1)
self.myLongTask = TaskThread()
#I think this is where I am wrong
#because all of the answers here is very specific
#or just not for beginners
self.prog_win.show()
self.myLongTask.taskFinished.connect(self.onStart)
self.output_settings()
def onStart(self):
self.progressBar.setRange(0,0)
self.myLongTask.start()
def output_convert(self):
#very long process to convert a txt file to excel
#My Thread
class TaskThread(QtCore.QThread):
taskFinished = QtCore.pyqtSignal()
def run(self):
time.sleep(3)
self.taskFinished.emit()
def run():
app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
GUI = Window()
app.exec_()
run()
All of the examples and posts here have been very helpful on understanding progress bar implementation but with all the example having specific answers for a specific problem I can't understand the implementation of progress bar in a standard pyqt app. could you guys at least point me in the right direction? Would be appreciated.

This is a very basic progress bar that only uses what is needed at the bare minimum.
It would be wise to read this whole example to the end.
import sys
import time
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import (QApplication, QDialog,
QProgressBar, QPushButton)
TIME_LIMIT = 100
class Actions(QDialog):
"""
Simple dialog that consists of a Progress Bar and a Button.
Clicking on the button results in the start of a timer and
updates the progress bar.
"""
def __init__(self):
super().__init__()
self.initUI()
def initUI(self):
self.setWindowTitle('Progress Bar')
self.progress = QProgressBar(self)
self.progress.setGeometry(0, 0, 300, 25)
self.progress.setMaximum(100)
self.button = QPushButton('Start', self)
self.button.move(0, 30)
self.show()
self.button.clicked.connect(self.onButtonClick)
def onButtonClick(self):
count = 0
while count < TIME_LIMIT:
count += 1
time.sleep(1)
self.progress.setValue(count)
if __name__ == "__main__":
app = QApplication(sys.argv)
window = Actions()
sys.exit(app.exec_())
The progress bar is first imported like so from PyQt5.QtWidgets import QProgressBar
Then it is initialized like any other widget in QtWidgets
The line self.progress.setGeometry(0, 0, 300, 25) method defines the x,y positions on the dialog and width and height of the progress bar.
We then move the button using .move() by 30px downwards so that there will be a gap of 5px between the two widgets.
Here self.progress.setValue(count) is used to update the progress. Setting a maximum value using .setMaximum() will also automatically calculated the values for you. For example, if the maximum value is set as 50 then since TIME_LIMIT is 100 it will hop from 0 to 2 to 4 percent instead of 0 to 1 to 2 every second. You can also set a minimum value using .setMinimum() forcing the progress bar to start from a given value.
Executing this program will produce a GUI similar to this.
As you can see, the GUI will most definitely freeze and be unresponsive until the counter meets the TIME_LIMIT condition. This is because time.sleep causes the OS to believe that program has become stuck in an infinite loop.
QThread
So how do we overcome this issue ? We can use the threading class that PyQt5 provides.
import sys
import time
from PyQt5.QtCore import QThread, pyqtSignal
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import (QApplication, QDialog,
QProgressBar, QPushButton)
TIME_LIMIT = 100
class External(QThread):
"""
Runs a counter thread.
"""
countChanged = pyqtSignal(int)
def run(self):
count = 0
while count < TIME_LIMIT:
count +=1
time.sleep(1)
self.countChanged.emit(count)
class Actions(QDialog):
"""
Simple dialog that consists of a Progress Bar and a Button.
Clicking on the button results in the start of a timer and
updates the progress bar.
"""
def __init__(self):
super().__init__()
self.initUI()
def initUI(self):
self.setWindowTitle('Progress Bar')
self.progress = QProgressBar(self)
self.progress.setGeometry(0, 0, 300, 25)
self.progress.setMaximum(100)
self.button = QPushButton('Start', self)
self.button.move(0, 30)
self.show()
self.button.clicked.connect(self.onButtonClick)
def onButtonClick(self):
self.calc = External()
self.calc.countChanged.connect(self.onCountChanged)
self.calc.start()
def onCountChanged(self, value):
self.progress.setValue(value)
if __name__ == "__main__":
app = QApplication(sys.argv)
window = Actions()
sys.exit(app.exec_())
Let's break down these modifications.
from PyQt5.QtCore import QThread, pyqtSignal
This line imports Qthread which is a PyQt5 implementation to divide and run some parts(eg: functions, classes) of a program in the background(also know as multi-threading). These parts are also called threads. All PyQt5 programs by default have a main thread and the others(worker threads) are used to offload extra time consuming and process intensive tasks into the background while still keeping the main program functioning.
The second import pyqtSignal is used to send data(signals) between worker and main threads. In this instance we will be using it to tell the main thread to update the progress bar.
Now we have moved the while loop for the counter into a separate class called External.
class External(QThread):
"""
Runs a counter thread.
"""
countChanged = pyqtSignal(int)
def run(self):
count = 0
while count < TIME_LIMIT:
count +=1
time.sleep(1)
self.countChanged.emit(count)
By sub-classing QThread we are essentially converting External into a class that can be run in a separate thread. Threads can also be started or stopped at any time adding to it's benefits.
Here countChanged is the current progress and pyqtSignal(int) tells the worker thread that signal being sent is of type int. While, self.countChanged.emit(count) simply sends the signal to any connections in the main thread(normally it can used to communicate with other worker threads as well).
def onButtonClick(self):
self.calc = External()
self.calc.countChanged.connect(self.onCountChanged)
self.calc.start()
def onCountChanged(self, value):
self.progress.setValue(value)
When the button is clicked the self.onButtonClick will run and also start the thread. The thread is started with .start(). It should also be noted that we connected the signal self.calc.countChanged we created earlier to the method used to update the progress bar value. Every time External::run::count is updated the int value is also sent to onCountChanged.
This is how the GUI could look after making these changes.
It should also feel much more responsive and will not freeze.

The answer to my own question. It is not that hard if you can understand the concept of threading and passing variables through classes. My first mistake was really the lack of knowledge about Worker threads, second is I thought that once you declare the Thread it means that you just have to call it so that it would run the function inside the main class so I was searching on how you would implement that and all I thought was wrong.
Solution
All the hard/Long processes SHOULD be in the subclassed QThread under def run and should be called in your class Window(QtGui.QMainWindow): or main loop and this is what my code look like now
class Window(QtGui.QMainWindow):
def __init__(self):
super(Window, self).__init__()
self.setGeometry(750, 450, 400, 200)
self.setFixedSize(self.size())
btn1 = QtGui.QPushButton("Convert", self)
btn1.move(210,171)
btn1.clicked.connect(self.progbar)
def progbar (self):
self.prog_win = QDialog()
self.prog_win.resize(400, 100)
self.prog_win.setFixedSize(self.prog_win.size())
self.prog_win.setWindowTitle("Processing request")
self.lbl = QLabel(self.prog_win)
self.lbl.setText("Please Wait. . .")
self.lbl.move(15,18)
self.progressBar = QtGui.QProgressBar(self.prog_win)
self.progressBar.resize(410, 25)
self.progressBar.move(15, 40)
self.progressBar.setRange(0,1)
self.myLongTask = TaskThread(var = DataYouWantToPass) #initializing and passing data to QThread
self.prog_win.show()
self.onStart() #Start your very very long computation/process
self.myLongTask.taskFinished.connect(self.onFinished) #this won't be read until QThread send a signal i think
def onStart(self):
self.progressBar.setRange(0,0)
self.myLongTask.start()
#added this function to close the progress bar
def onFinished(self):
self.progressBar.setRange(0,1)
self.prog_win.close()
#My Thread
class TaskThread(QtCore.QThread):
taskFinished = QtCore.pyqtSignal()
#I also added this so that I can pass data between classes
def __init__(self, var, parent=None):
QThread.__init__(self, parent)
self.var = var
def run(self):
#very long process to convert a txt file to excel
def run():
app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
GUI = Window()
app.exec_()
run()
If something in this answer is wrong then please correct me as it would be a great help to understand it more or maybe some dos and don't

PyQt5 GUI only updates when screen is clicked off and back on

I am running into an issue when I am taking in values over serial and then attempting to update my Gui with those values. Unfortunately, even though the values update correctly, I am unable to get to the screen to refresh unless I click off of it and then back on to it. I have tried repaint, update, and processEvents() but have been unable to solve the problem.
Here is the code I am working with:
import sys
import serial
import time
import requests
import PyQt5
from PyQt5.QtWidgets import *
from PyQt5.QtCore import*
from PyQt5.QtGui import *
import mainwindow_auto
CUSTOM_EVENT = 1000
ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyACM0', 9600)
class TestThread(QThread):
def __init__(self, target):
QThread.__init__(self)
self.target = target
def run(self):
while True:
QApplication.postEvent(self.target, QEvent(QEvent.Type(CUSTOM_EVENT)))
QApplication.processEvents()
QThread.sleep(15)
class MainWindow(QMainWindow, mainwindow_auto.Ui_MainWindow):
def __init__(self):
super(self.__class__, self).__init__()
self.setupUi(self)# gets defined in the UI file
self.thread = TestThread(self)
self.thread.start()
def event(s, e):
if(e.type() == CUSTOM_EVENT):
print("Readline: ",int(ser.readline()))
SOC = int(ser.readline())
s.lcdNumber.display(SOC)
s.progressBar.setValue(SOC)
print("SOC: ",SOC)
print(s.lcdNumber.value())
return True
def main():
app = QApplication(sys.argv)
form = MainWindow()
form.lcdNumber.display(30)
form.progressBar.setValue(30)
form.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
Thanks in advance!

Since you already have an I/O thread, let it handle the I/O and sent the received value to the main thread via a signal.
No need for a custom event, no I/O on the main thread.
Just adding a signal to the thread subclass and connecting a slot to that before starting the thread.

Rather than rewriting the code that I had above, I ended up fixing it by force redrawing using s.hide() and s.show() after updating the values in the event code. It forced a redraw that otherwise refused to work.
s.lcdNumber.display(SOC)
s.progressBar.setValue(SOC)
s.hide()
s.show()

As suggested by #KevinKrammer, this is simple to do with a custom signal:
class TestThread(QThread):
serialUpdate = pyqtSignal(int)
def run(self):
while True:
QThread.sleep(1)
value = int(ser.readline())
self.serialUpdate.emit(value)
class MainWindow(QMainWindow, mainwindow_auto.Ui_MainWindow):
def __init__(self):
super(MainWindow, self).__init__()
self.setupUi(self)
self.thread = TestThread(self)
self.thread.serialUpdate.connect(self.handleSerialUpdate)
self.thread.start()
def handleSerialUpdate(self, value):
print("Readline: ", value)
self.lcdNumber.display(value)
self.progressBar.setValue(value)