[winforms] Invoke or BeginInvoke cannot be called on a control until the window handle has been created

I have a SafeInvoke Control extension method similar to the one Greg D discusses here (minus the IsHandleCreated check).

I am calling it from a System.Windows.Forms.Form as follows:

public void Show(string text) {
    label.SafeInvoke(()=>label.Text = text);
    this.Show();
    this.Refresh();
}

Sometimes (this call can come from a variety of threads) this results in the following error:

System.InvalidOperationException occurred

Message= "Invoke or BeginInvoke cannot be called on a control until the window handle has been created."

Source= "System.Windows.Forms"

StackTrace:
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.MarshaledInvoke(Control caller, Delegate method, Object[] args, Boolean synchronous)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.Invoke(Delegate method, Object[] args)
at System.Windows.Forms.Control.Invoke(Delegate method)
at DriverInterface2.UI.WinForms.Dialogs.FormExtensions.SafeInvoke[T](T control, Action`1 action) 
in C:\code\DriverInterface2\DriverInterface2.UI.WinForms\Dialogs\FormExtensions.cs:line 16

What is going on and how do I fix it? I know as much as it is not a problem of form creation, since sometimes it will work once and fail the next time so what could the problem be?

PS. I really really am awful at WinForms, does anyone know a good series of articles that explains the whole model and how to work with it?

Reference the handle of the associated control in its creator, like so:

Note: Be wary of this solution.If a control has a handle it is much slower to do things like set the size and location of it. This makes InitializeComponent much slower. A better solution is to not background anything before the control has a handle.

Add this before you call method invoke:

while (!this.IsHandleCreated) 
   System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(100)

I had this problem with this kind of simple form:

public partial class MyForm : Form
{
    public MyForm()
    {
        Load += new EventHandler(Form1_Load);
    }

    private void Form1_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        InitializeComponent();
    }

    internal void UpdateLabel(string s)
    {
        Invoke(new Action(() => { label1.Text = s; }));
    }
}

Then for n other async threads I was using new MyForm().UpdateLabel(text) to try and call the UI thread, but the constructor gives no handle to the UI thread instance, so other threads get other instance handles, which are either Object reference not set to an instance of an object or Invoke or BeginInvoke cannot be called on a control until the window handle has been created. To solve this I used a static object to hold the UI handle:

public partial class MyForm : Form
{
    private static MyForm _mf;        

    public MyForm()
    {
        Load += new EventHandler(Form1_Load);
    }

    private void Form1_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        InitializeComponent();
        _mf = this;
    }

    internal void UpdateLabel(string s)
    {
        _mf.Invoke((MethodInvoker) delegate { _mf.label1.Text = s; });
    }
}

I guess it's working fine, so far...

If you're going to use a Control from another thread before showing or doing other things with the Control, consider forcing the creation of its handle within the constructor. This is done using the CreateHandle function.

In a multi-threaded project, where the "controller" logic isn't in a WinForm, this function is instrumental in Control constructors for avoiding this error.

var that = this; // this is a form
(new Thread(()=> {

    var action= new Action(() => {
       something
    }));

    if(!that.IsDisposed)
    {
        if(that.IsHandleCreated)
        {
            //if (that.InvokeRequired)
                that.BeginInvoke(action);
            //else
            // action.Invoke();
        }
        else
            that.HandleCreated+=(sender,event) => {
                action.Invoke();
            };
    }


})).Start();

What about this :

    public static bool SafeInvoke( this Control control, MethodInvoker method )
    {
        if( control != null && ! control.IsDisposed && control.IsHandleCreated && control.FindForm().IsHandleCreated )
        {
            if( control.InvokeRequired )
            {
                control.Invoke( method );
            }
            else
            {
                method();
            }
            return true;
        }
        else return false;
    }

Here is my answer to a similar question:

I think (not yet entirely sure) that this is because InvokeRequired will always return false if the control has not yet been loaded/shown. I have done a workaround which seems to work for the moment, which is to simple reference the handle of the associated control in its creator, like so:

var x = this.Handle; 

(See http://ikriv.com/en/prog/info/dotnet/MysteriousHang.html)

The method in the post you link to calls Invoke/BeginInvoke before checking if the control's handle has been created in the case where it's being called from a thread that didn't create the control.

So you'll get the exception when your method is called from a thread other than the one that created the control. This can happen from remoting events or queued work user items...

EDIT

If you check InvokeRequired and HandleCreated before calling invoke you shouldn't get that exception.

I found the InvokeRequired not reliable, so I simply use

if (!this.IsHandleCreated)
{
    this.CreateHandle();
}