GtkTreeView stops updating unless I change the focus of the window

Question

I have a GtkTreeView object that uses a GtkListStore model that is constantly being updated as follows:

1. Get new transaction
2. Feed data into numpy array
3. Convert numbers to formatted strings, store in pandas dataframe
4. Add updated token info to GtkListStore via GtkListStore.set(titer, liststore_cols, liststore_data), where liststore_data is the updated info, liststore_cols is the name of the columns (both are lists).

Here's the function that updates the ListStore:

# update ListStore
titer = ls_full.get_iter(row)
liststore_data = []
[liststore_data.append(df.at[row, col])
 for col in my_vars['ls_full'][3:]]
# check for NaN value, add a (space) placeholder is necessary
for i in range(3, len(liststore_data)):
    if liststore_data[i] != liststore_data[i]:
        liststore_data[i] = " "
liststore_cols = []
[liststore_cols.append(my_vars['ls_full'].index(col) + 1)
 for col in my_vars['ls_full'][3:]]
ls_full.set(titer, liststore_cols, liststore_data)

Class that gets the messages from the websocket:

class MyWebsocketClient(cbpro.WebsocketClient):
    # class exceptions to WebsocketClient
    def on_open(self):
        # sets up ticker Symbol, subscriptions for socket feed
        self.url = "wss://ws-feed.pro.coinbase.com/"
        self.channels = ['ticker']
        self.products = list(cbp_symbols.keys())

    def on_message(self, msg):
        # gets latest message from socket, sends off to be processed
        if "best_ask" and "time" in msg:
            # checks to see if token price has changed before updating
            update_needed = parse_data(msg)
            if update_needed:
                update_ListStore(msg)
        else:
            print(f'Bad message: {msg}')

When the program first starts, the updates are consistent. Each time a new transaction comes in, the screen reflects it, updating the proper token. However, after a random amount of time - seen it anywhere from 5 minutes to over an hour - the screen will stop updating, unless I change the focus of the window (either activate or inactive). This does not last long, though (only enough to update the screen once). No other errors are being reported, memory usage is not spiking (constant at 140 MB).

How can I troubleshoot this? I'm not even sure where to begin. The data back-ends seem to be OK (data is never corrupted nor lags behind).

Answer 1

As you've said in the comments that it is running in a separate thread then i'd suggest wrapping your "update liststore" function with GLib.idle_add.

from gi.repository import GLib
GLib.idle_add(update_liststore)

I've had similar issues in the past and this fixed things. Sometimes updating liststore is fine, sometimes it will randomly spew errors.

Basically only one thread should update the GUI at a time. So by wrapping in GLib.idle_add() you make sure your background thread does not intefer with the main thread updating the GUI.