QObject: Cannot create children for a parent that is in a different thread

Question

EDIT:

I tried doing what you guys told me in comments ... :

Citizen * c = new Citizen(this);

QThread thread;
c->moveToThread(&thread);

connect(&thread, SIGNAL(started()), c, SLOT(ProcessActions()));
thread.start();

This produces even more errors:

QThread: Destroyed while thread is still running
ASSERT failure in QThread::setTerminationEnabled(): "Current thread was not started with QThread.", file c:\ndk_buildrepos\qt-desktop\src\corelib\thread\qthread_win.cpp, line 542
Invalid parameter passed to C runtime function.
Invalid parameter passed to C runtime function.
QObject::killTimers: timers cannot be stopped from another thread

I am having problems with this error ... I'm stuck on this for 2 days already and can't get a solution.

Header:

class Citizen : public QThread
{
Q_OBJECT    
    QNetworkAccessManager * manager;

private slots:
    void onReplyFinished(QNetworkReply* net_reply);

public:
    Citizen(QObject * parent);

    void run();
};

Implementation:

Citizen::Citizen(QObject * parent)
{
    manager = new QNetworkAccessManager;
    connect(_net_acc_mgr, SIGNAL(finished(QNetworkReply*)),
            this, SLOT(onReplyFinished(QNetworkReply*)));
}

void Citizen::onReplyFinished(QNetworkReply* net_reply)
{
    emit onFinished(net_reply);
}

void Citizen::run()
{
    manager->get(QNetworkRequest(QUrl("http://google.com"));

    QEventLoop eLoop;
    connect(manager, SIGNAL( finished( QNetworkReply * ) ), &eLoop, SLOT(quit()));
    eLoop.exec(QEventLoop::ExcludeUserInputEvents);

    qDebug() << "loaded google!";

    exec();
}

When manager->get() gets executed, I get the following error:

QObject: Cannot create children for a parent that is in a different thread.
(Parent is QNetworkAccessManager(0xc996cf8), parent's thread is QThread(0xaba48d8), current thread is Citizen(0xca7ae08)

When eLoop.exec() gets executed:

QObject::startTimer: timers cannot be started from another thread

I start this thread in the following manner:

Citizen * c = new Citizen(this);
c->start();

Why does this happen? How to solve this?

Answer 1

QObject: Cannot create children for a parent that is in a different thread.

You get this because you are creating the QNetworkAccessmanager in the constructor of Citizen, which is being called in the "original" thread. When the Citizen object is moved to the new thread the QNetworkAccessmanager still has its thread affinity set to the original thread but in the run call it will attempt to create the QNetworkReply object ( and probably other objects aswell ) in the new thread. Which produces the warning above.

If you create the manager in the run slot(or at any point after the Citizen object is moved to the new thread) that will not happen.

However you still have some issues. For instance, the Citizen class really doesn't need to be a QThread. It needlessly complicates it. It will suffice for your purpose(afaict) to subclass a QObject. Just make a normal slot and connect that to the QThread::started() signal. And as OrcunC pointed out you need to make sure that the QThread instance is properly scoped.

For more on threading: http://blog.qt.io/blog/2010/06/17/youre-doing-it-wrong/

Example:

QThread *thread = new QThread;
thread->start();
Citizen *worker = new Citizen;
worker->moveToThread(thread);

//startWorking can be equivalent of the run function
//in your current implementation and this is where you should
//create the QNetworkAccessManager
QMetaObject::invokeMethod(worker,"startWorking");