Having a StreamReader running makes the application unresponsive

Question

I have a bot which connects to an IRC channel and reads the chat with a StreamReader. Everything works fine, the bot can read and response, but the problem is the Windows Form is freezing while the StreamReader is active.

while(true)
{
    string message = irc.readMessage();
    if (message.Contains("!test"))
    {
        irc.sentChatMessage("answer");
    }
}

I tried putting it on a timer instead of the while loop that ticks every 100ms with no change.

the method

public string readMessage()
    {
        string message = inputStream.ReadLine();
        return message;
    }

Answer 1

This is because inputStream.ReadLine(); is blocking the UI Thread. If you use the async overload StreamReader.ReadLineAsync this will run asynchronously and therefore not block the UI thread.

Sample:

async void StartBot()
{
  while(true)
  {
    string message = await irc.readMessageAsync();
    if (message.Contains("!test"))
    {
        irc.sentChatMessage("answer");
    }
  }
}

public async Task<string> readMessageAsync()
{
   string message = await inputStream.ReadLineAsync();
   return message;
}

You can find more information aswell as samples about async and await here.