Background process hangs application vb.net

Question

I have a background process:

Public Shared Function CheckForInternetConnection() As Boolean
    Try
        Using client = New WebClient()
            Using stream = client.OpenRead("http://www.google.com")
                Return True
            End Using
        End Using
    Catch
        Return False
    End Try
End Function

This process ties up my application, causing it to hang until completed.

I'm trying to incorporate this into a "BackGroundWorker" and tie it to a progress bar.

However, though the application no longer hangs when the process is running, the progress bar does.

I'd like the progress to progress from 0 - 50% during the above function, however currently, the progress bar sits at 0% until the process is complete, them jumps to 50%.

Private Sub bgwLongTask_DoWork(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.ComponentModel.DoWorkEventArgs) Handles bgwLongTask.DoWork
    For i As Integer = 1 To 10
        ' If we should stop, do so.
        If (bgwLongTask.CancellationPending) Then
            ' Indicate that the task was canceled.
            e.Cancel = True
            Exit For
        End If

        CheckForInternetConnection()
        LoadingScreen.CheckForIllegalCrossThreadCalls = False
        Me.Text = i

        ' Notify the UI thread of our progress.
        bgwLongTask.ReportProgress(i * 10)
    Next i
End Sub

Private Sub bgwLongTask_ProgressChanged(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.ComponentModel.ProgressChangedEventArgs) Handles bgwLongTask.ProgressChanged
    If e.ProgressPercentage >= 0% And e.ProgressPercentage <= 50% Then
        lblStatus.Text = "Checking Netowrk ..."
    Else
        lblStatus.Text = "Loading ..."
    End If
    prgPercentComplete.Value = e.ProgressPercentage
End Sub

By using:

LoadingScreen.CheckForIllegalCrossThreadCalls = False
Me.Text = i

I can see that the progress bar doesn't even start until CheckForInternetConnection() has completed.

Can someone please help me sort this out?

Much appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

You're looping from 1 to 10 calling CheckForInternetConnection() in every iteration, that doesn't makes sense. In this case the long-running process is CheckForInternetConnection() method, so you need to somehow "report progress" while the method is executing.

Possible way to notify user that the program is processing something when we can't calculate progress percentage of the process is using progress bar in indeterminate mode (by setting Style to Marquee in WinForm or setting IsIndeterminate to True in WPF).