I had a discussion the other day: https://stackoverflow.com/a/42156860/937125
where I didn't quite understand why an Abort was better than calling Exit in that situation. I tend not to use it in my code flow. I consider it a bad practice and bad for code flow.
but #David's statement in the comments made me wonder if maybe I was missing something:
Without a silent exception, how would you abort an operation when deep
down the call stack. For instance how would you abort a file copy
operation with a 10 deep call stack? Isn't that exactly what
exceptions are designed for? Sure you can code it without exceptions
but it is much more verbose and error prone.
I can't imagine such situation. Can someone give me an example of such code/scenario, and convince me that Abort in the above case is really a good thing and "much more verbose and error prone". (3-4 deep call stack is enough to illustrate)
The simplest scenario that illustrates my point is like so:
procedure MethodA;
begin
MethodB;
MethodC;
end;
procedure MethodB;
begin
// ... do stuff
end;
procedure MethodC;
begin
// ... do stuff
end;
That's fine as it is. Now suppose that MethodB asks the user for some input, and if the user presses the Cancel button, that no further work should be carried out. You could implement that like this:
procedure MethodA;
begin
if MethodB then
MethodC;
end;
function MethodB: Boolean;
begin
Result := MessageDlg(...)=mrOK;
if not Result then
exit;
// ... do stuff
end;
procedure MethodC;
begin
// ... do stuff
end;
That works fine, but imagine that you in the real world code, there was deeper nesting. The boolean returned by MethodB might need to be passed on up a great many levels. This would become cumbersome.
Or consider what happens if MethodB needs to return a value to its caller. In that scenario the original code might be like so:
procedure MethodA;
begin
MethodC(MethodB);
end;
function MethodB: string;
begin
Result := ...;
end;
procedure MethodC(Value: string);
begin
// ... do stuff with Value
end;
Now once more consider what happens if the user gets a chance to cancel. How can we return both a boolean and a string from MethodB? Using an out parameter for one of the return values? Using a compound structure like a record to wrap both values. The latter obviously involves lots of boilerplate so let us explore the former.
procedure MethodA;
var
Value: string;
begin
if MethodB(Value) then
MethodC(Value);
end;
function MethodB(out Value: string): Boolean;
begin
Result := MessageDlg(...)=mrOK;
if not Result then
exit;
Value := ...;
end;
procedure MethodC(Value: string);
begin
// ... do stuff with Value
end;
For sure you can do this, but this is beginning to look like the sort of code that exceptions were designed to simplify. And at this point, let us consider the existence of a silent exception, EAbort, raised by calling Abort, that does not result in a message being shown by the top level exception handler. That last point is what is meant by silent.
Now the code becomes:
procedure MethodA;
begin
MethodC(MethodB);
end;
function MethodB: string;
begin
if MessageDlg(...)<>mrOK then
Abort;
Result := ...;
end;
procedure MethodC(Value: string);
begin
// ... do stuff with Value
end;
The advantage is that MethodA does not need to worry about cancellation. And if the call stack was deeper, none of the methods between MethodA at the top, and MethodB at the point of user input, would need to know anything about cancellation.
A further benefit is that MethodB can retain its natural signature. It returns a string. In case of failure, either from a more traditional exception, or from user cancellation, an exception is thrown.
This very simple example isn't that much more compelling than the previous one that does not use Abort. But imagine what the code would look like if MethodB were 4 or 5 deep in the call stack?
I am absolutely not saying that Abort should always be used in place of exit. My belief is that both have their place. Where Abort shines is when the user opts to cancel an operation and you don't want any more processing to take place in the current event handler. Furthermore, since the user expressly opted to cancel, no further UI needs to be presented to them. You don't need a message box telling the user that they cancelled, they already know that.
Assume your program is doing a lengthy operation either in a separate thread or (even though it's frowned upon) calling Application.ProcessMessages. Now, you want the user to be able to abort that operation in a safe manner (that is: All resources are cleaned up, the data is in a consistent state etc.). So, the UI sets a flag somewhere and in your code you periodically check for that flag. If it is set, you call Abort or explicitly raise EAbort. This will cause all your carefully crafted try / except / finally blocks to be execute and making sure aborting the operation is safe.
// in the main thread:
procedure TMyProgressDialog.b_AbortClick(Sender: TObject);
begin
if AskUserIfHeIsSure then begin
gblAbortedFlag := true;
b_Abort.Enabled := false;
b_Abort.Caption := _('Aborting');
end;
end;
// call this repeatedly during the lenghty operation:
procecdure CheckAborted;
begin
// If you are in the main thread, you might want to call
// Application.ProcessMessages;
// here. If not, definitely don't.
if gblAbortedFlag then
Abort;
end;
Of course this could be done with a different exception, but I can't think of any other way to safely exit from a deep call stack without having to program lots of ifs and exits.
How can I run tasks without TOmniEventMonitor? If I start them without it the main thread freezes. Which makes no sense because OmniThreadLibrary is supposed to be based on TThread. UnObserved doesn't really fix this because it just makes an internal copy of the same thing.
type
TWorker = class(TOmniWorker)
function Initialize: Boolean; override;
constructor Create;
end;
begin
var
Task: IOmniTaskControl;
begin
Task := CreateTask(TWorker.Create()).Run; // blocks main thread
Task := CreateTask(TWorker.Create()).UnObserved.Run; // will create internal monitor each time
Task := CreateTask(TWorker.Create()).OnTerminated().Run; // will create internal monitor each time
end.
If I create a TThread it doesn't need any kind of "Monitors" and it doesn't block the main thread either. I am not sending any kind of messages so why the need for a "Monitor"?
You are doing exactly that thing mentioned chapter 4.4 in the book Parallel Programming with OmniThreadLibrary as
The simplest example of the wrong approach can be written in one line:
CreateTask(MyWorker).Run;
As a solution you can assign the result of CreateTask to a variable with a scope that covers the runtime of the process.
The other solution (as you found yourself) is to use a monitor.
I created a class that opens a COM port and handles overlapped read and write operations. It contains two independent threads - one that reads and one that writes data. Both of them call OnXXX procedures (eg OnRead or OnWrite) notifying about finished read or write operation.
The following is a short example of the idea how the threads work:
TOnWrite = procedure (Text: string);
TWritingThread = class(TThread)
strict private
FOnWrite: TOnWrite;
FWriteQueue: array of string;
FSerialPort: TAsyncSerialPort;
protected
procedure Execute; override;
public
procedure Enqueue(Text: string);
{...}
end;
TAsyncSerialPort = class
private
FCommPort: THandle;
FWritingThread: TWritingThread;
FLock: TCriticalSection;
{...}
public
procedure Open();
procedure Write(Text: string);
procedure Close();
{...}
end;
var
AsyncSerialPort: TAsyncSerialPort;
implementation
{$R *.dfm}
procedure OnWrite(Text: string);
begin
{...}
if {...} then
AsyncSerialPort.Write('something');
{...}
end;
{ TAsyncSerialPort }
procedure TAsyncSerialPort.Close;
begin
FLock.Enter;
try
FWritingThread.Terminate;
if FWritingThread.Suspended then
FWritingThread.Resume;
FWritingThread.WaitFor;
FreeAndNil(FWritingThread);
CloseHandle(FCommPort);
FCommPort := 0;
finally
FLock.Leave;
end;
end;
procedure TAsyncSerialPort.Open;
begin
FLock.Enter;
try
{open comm port}
{create writing thread}
finally
FLock.Leave;
end;
end;
procedure TAsyncSerialPort.Write(Text: string);
begin
FLock.Enter;
try
{add Text to the FWritingThread's queue}
FWritingThread.Enqueue(Text);
finally
FLock.Leave;
end;
end;
{ TWritingThread }
procedure TWritingThread.Execute;
begin
while not Terminated do
begin
{GetMessage() - wait for a message informing about a new value in the queue}
{pop a value from the queue}
{write the value}
{call OnWrite method}
end;
end;
When you look at the Close() procedure, you will see that it enters the critical section, terminates the writing thread and then waits for it to finish.
Because of the fact that the writing thread can enqueue a new value to be written when it calls the OnWrite method, it will try to enter the same critical section when calling the Write() procedure of the TAsyncSerialPort class.
And here we've got a deadlock. The thread that called the Close() method entered the critical section and then waits for the writing thread to be closed, while at the same time that thread waits for the critical section to be freed.
I've been thinking for quite a long time and I didn't manage to find a solution to that problem. The thing is that I would like to be sure that no reading/writing thread is alive when the Close() method is left, which means that I cannot just set the Terminated flag of those threads and leave.
How can I solve the problem? Maybe I should change my approach to handling serial port asynchronously?
Thanks for your advice in advance.
Mariusz.
--------- EDIT ----------
How about such a solution?
procedure TAsyncSerialPort.Close;
var
lThread: TThread;
begin
FLock.Enter;
try
lThread := FWritingThread;
if Assigned(lThread) then
begin
lThread.Terminate;
if lThread.Suspended then
lThread.Resume;
FWritingThread := nil;
end;
if FCommPort <> 0 then
begin
CloseHandle(FCommPort);
FCommPort := 0;
end;
finally
FLock.Leave;
end;
if Assigned(lThread) then
begin
lThread.WaitFor;
lThread.Free;
end;
end;
If my thinking is correct, this should eliminate the deadlock problem. Unfortunately, however, I close the comm port handle before the writing thread is closed. This means that when it calls any method that takes the comm port handle as one of its arguments (eg Write, Read, WaitCommEvent) an exception should be raised in that thread. Can I be sure that if I catch that exception in that thread it will not affect the work of the whole application? This question may sound stupid, but I think some exceptions may cause the OS to close the application that caused it, right? Do I have to worry about that in this case?
Yes, you should probably reconsider your approach. Asynchronous operations are available exactly to eliminate the need for threads. If you use threads, then use synchronous (blocking) calls. If you use asynchronous operations, then handle everything in one thread - not necessarily the main thread, but it doesn't make sense IMO to do the sending and receiving in different threads.
There are of course ways around your synchronization problem, but I'd rather change the design.
You can take the lock out of the Close. By the time it returns from the WaitFor, the thread body has noticed it has been terminated, completed the last loop, and ended.
If you don't feel happy doing this, then you could move setting the lock just before the FreeAndNil. This explicitly lets the thread shutdown mechanisms work before you apply the lock (so it won't have to compete with anything for the lock)
EDIT:
(1) If you also want to close the comms handle do it after the loop in the Execute, or in the thread's destructor.
(2) Sorry, but your edited solution is a terrible mess. Terminate and Waitfor will do everything you need, perfectly safely.
The main problem seems to be that you place the entire content of Close in a critical section. I'm almost sure (but you'll have to check the docs) that TThread.Terminate and TThread.WaitFor are safe to call from outside the section. By pulling that part outside the critical section you will solve the deadlock.
Perhaps, it is very easy for you, but I am hard working on a project (for educational purposes) that is querying adsi with TADSISearch component, for several days. I'm trying to show a 'Working, Please wait..' splash screen with a man worker animated gif on Form2 while TADSISearch is searching the Active Directory. Although i tried every possibilities according to me, but i couldn't succeed. I tried to use TADSISearch in a thread, but thread is terminating before ADSIsearch finishes. I think TADSISearch is not thread safe. What do you think? Also, another way that I created Form2 and used a thread for updating it but the animated gif is stopping while main form gone adsi searching. What can you say about these? How can i make a please wait screen while ADSISearch is working and keep main form responding. Application.ProcessMessages or timer is not a way too. Thanks a lot for reading and answers.
The graphical user interface should be updated by the main thread. You should put your search code into a separate thread, and while the searcher thread is working, your main thread can show the animation along with "Please wait" message.
Your searcher thread can notify the main thread when search is done by any of the available synchronization techniques. The simplest one is to define a method in your thread class which stops the animation in user interface, and pass that method to Synchronize at the end of Execute method of your searcher thread.
Your searcher thread code will be something like this:
type
TMyThread = class(TThread)
private
procedure NotifyEndOfThread;
protected
procedure Execute; override;
end;
implementation
uses MainFormUnit;
procedure TMyThread.NotifyEndOfThread;
begin
MainForm.ShowAnimation := False;
end;
procedure TMyThread.Execute;
begin
try
{Add your search code here}
finally
Synchronize(NotifyEndOfThread);
end;
end;
And your main thread's code will be like this:
TMainForm = class(TForm)
...
private
FShowAnimation : Boolean;
procedure SetShowAnimation(Value: Boolean);
public
property ShowAnimation : Boolean read FShowAnimation write SetShowAnimation;
end;
procedure TMainForm.SetShowAnimation(Value: Boolean);
begin
FShowAnimation := Value;
if FShowAnimation then
{Add animation code here}
else
{Stop animation}
end;
Maybe you can try this:
Threaded Splashscreen for Delphi
http://cc.embarcadero.com/Item/20139
I use this on a touchscreen/terminal application (thin client, Wifi, RemObjects, etc) and it works nice!
Also got an animated gif working.
How can the thread terminate before the search is finished? If the search is executed in the thread and you have only one instance of the thread it should work.
Can you not just do a
f := TMyWaitForm.Create(self);
try
f.Show();
...start the TADSISearch...
finally
FreeAndNil(f);
end;
Putting an animated GIF on the TMyWaitForm (which displays itself) ?
I have a progress form when building websites in my web creation program, and this works like a charm.
You even may consider showing some state information on the wait form (if the TADSISearch component/software has a call back function or event which can be assigned).
Displaying a running clock showing the amount of time the process is taking, is also a nice touch.
There is a problem I am unable to solve. I created two service applications in Delphi and tried to post messages within them. Of course, there are no windows in such applications and PostMessage needs a window handle parameter to send a message.
Therefore, I created a window handle using the AllocateHWnd(MyMethod: TWndMethod) function and passed, as the 'MyMethod' parameter, a procedure I want to be called when a message is received. If it was a windowed application, PostMessage() called using the handle returned by the AllocateHWnd method would certainly send a message that would then be received by the 'MyMethod' procedure.
The situation, however, is different in my service applications. I do not understand why, but in one of them posting messages this way works fine, whereas in the second one it does not (the messages are not received at all). Only when the service is being stopped do I notice that two messages are received by 'MyMethod': WM_DESTROY and WM_NCDESTROY. The messages I send using PostMessage are never received by this procedure. On the other hand, the first service always receives all messages I send.
Could you please give me a clue that would help me find the reason of the second service not receiving my messages? I do not know in what way they can differ. I checked the settings of the services and they seem to be identical. Why then one of them works fine and the second one does not (as far as sending messages is concerned)?
Thanks for any advice.
Mariusz.
Without more information it will be difficult to help you debug this, especially why it works in one service but not in the other. However:
Instead of trying to fix the problem in your code you might want to remove the windows altogether, and use PostThreadMessage() instead of PostMessage(). For the posting of messages to work correctly you need a message loop, but not necessarily receiving windows.
Edit: I'm trying to reply to all your answers in one go.
First - if you want to make your life easy you should really check out OmniThreadLibrary by gabr. I don't know whether it does work in a Windows service application, I don't even know whether that has been tried yet. You could ask in the forum. It has however a lot of great features and is worth looking into, if only for the learning effect.
But of course you can also program this for yourself, and you will have to for Delphi versions prior to Delphi 2007. I will simply add some snippets from our internal library, which has evolved over the years and works in several dozen programs. I don't claim it to be bug-free though. You can compare it with your code, and if anything sticks out, feel free to ask and I'll try to clarify.
This is the simplified Execute() method of the worker thread base class:
procedure TCustomTestThread.Execute;
var
Msg: TMsg;
begin
try
while not Terminated do begin
if (integer(GetMessage(Msg, HWND(0), 0, 0)) = -1) or Terminated then
break;
TranslateMessage(Msg);
DispatchMessage(Msg);
if Msg.Message = WM_USER then begin
// handle differently according to wParam and lParam
// ...
end;
end;
except
on E: Exception do begin
...
end;
end;
end;
It is important to not let exceptions get unhandled, so there is a top-level exception handler around everything. What you do with the exception is your choice and depends on the application, but all exceptions have to be caught, otherwise the application will get terminated. In a service your only option is probably to log them.
There is a special method to initiate thread shutdown, because the thread needs to be woken up when it is inside of GetMessage():
procedure TCustomTestThread.Shutdown;
begin
Terminate;
Cancel; // internal method dealing with worker objects used in thread
DoSendMessage(WM_QUIT);
end;
procedure TCustomTestThread.DoSendMessage(AMessage: Cardinal;
AWParam: integer = 0; ALParam: integer = 0);
begin
PostThreadMessage(ThreadID, AMessage, AWParam, ALParam);
end;
Posting WM_QUIT will cause the message loop to exit. There is however the problem that code in descendant classes could rely on Windows messages being properly handled during shutdown of the thread, especially when COM interfaces are used. That's why instead of a simple WaitFor() the following code is used to free all running threads:
procedure TCustomTestController.BeforeDestruction;
var
i: integer;
ThreadHandle: THandle;
WaitRes: LongWord;
Msg: TMsg;
begin
inherited;
for i := Low(fPositionThreads) to High(fPositionThreads) do begin
if fPositionThreads[i] <> nil then try
ThreadHandle := fPositionThreads[i].Handle;
fPositionThreads[i].Shutdown;
while TRUE do begin
WaitRes := MsgWaitForMultipleObjects(1, ThreadHandle, FALSE, 30000,
QS_POSTMESSAGE or QS_SENDMESSAGE);
if WaitRes = WAIT_OBJECT_0 then begin
FreeAndNil(fPositionThreads[i]);
break;
end;
if WaitRes = WAIT_TIMEOUT then
break;
while PeekMessage(Msg, 0, 0, 0, PM_REMOVE) do begin
TranslateMessage(Msg);
DispatchMessage(Msg);
end;
end;
except
on E: Exception do
// ...
end;
fPositionThreads[i] := nil;
end;
end;
This is in the overridden BeforeDestruction() method because all threads need to be freed before the destructor of the descendant controller class begins to free any objects the threads might use.
I'd suggest you consider using named pipes for IPC. That is what they are designed to do:
Looking for an alternative to windows messages used in inter-process communication
As Mghie mentioned, you need a message processing loop. That's why PeekMessage returns the messages correctly. It's not that the messages aren't there, it's that you aren't processing them. In a standard application, Delphi creates a TApplication class and calls Application.Run. This IS the message processing loop for a normal app. It basically consists of:
repeat
try
HandleMessage;
except
HandleException(Self);
end;
until Terminated;
If you want your service application to handle messages, you'll need to perform the same kind of work.
There's an example of using a service and handling PostThreadMessage dispatches here. Keep in mind, as Mick mentioned, you cannot use message handling between applications of differing security contexts (particularly in Vista). You should use named pipes or similar. Microsoft discusses this here.
Edit:
Based on the code snippet that you posted, you may just be fighting a threading issue. AllocHWnd is not thread safe. See here for a really detailed explanation of the issue and a version that works correctly in threads.
Of course, this still leads us back to why you aren't using PostThreadMessage instead. The way your code sample is structured, it would be trivial to make the message handling a function of the thread and then pass it down into the class for disposition.
Thanks for all your answers. I think we can forget about the problem. I created a new service application and performed quick post message tests. The messages were delivered correctly, so I hope I can now state that normally everything works fine and something is wrong only with this one service I described. I know it is stupid, but I will just try to copy one fragment of code after another from the 'bad' service to a new one. Maybe this will help me find the reason of the problem.
I hope I can now consider the message-waiting loop unnecessary as long as everything works fine without it, can't I?
If it comes to the privileges, Microsoft says: "UAC uses WIM to block Windows messages from being sent between processes of different privilege levels.". My Vista's UAC is off and I did not set any privileges for those services I described. Apart from that I do not send messages between different processes. Messages are sent within one process.
To give you the idea of what I am doing, I'll show you a code snippet from a test service application.
uses ...;
type
TMyThread = class;
TMyClass = class
private
FThread: TMyThread;
procedure ReadMessage(var Msg: TMessage);
public
FHandle: HWND;
constructor Create;
destructor Destroy; override;
end;
TMyThread = class(TThread)
private
FMyClass: TMyClass;
protected
procedure Execute; override;
constructor Create(MyClass: TMyClass); reintroduce;
end;
implementation
{ TMyClass }
constructor TMyClass.Create;
begin
inherited Create;
FHandle := AllocateHWnd(ReadMessage);
FThread := TMyThread.Create(Self);
end;
destructor TMyClass.Destroy;
begin
FThread.Terminate;
FThread.WaitFor;
FThread.Free;
DeallocateHWnd(FHandle);
inherited Destroy;
end;
procedure TMyClass.ReadMessage(var Msg: TMessage);
begin
Log.Log('message read: ' + IntToStr(Msg.Msg));
end;
{ TMyThread }
constructor TMyThread.Create(MyClass: TMyClass);
begin
inherited Create(True);
FMyClass := MyClass;
Resume;
end;
procedure TMyThread.Execute;
begin
while not Terminated do
begin
//do some work and
//send a message when finished
if PostMessage(FMyClass.FHandle, WM_USER, 0, 0) then
Log.Log('message sent')
else
Log.Log('message not sent: ' + SysErrorMessage(GetLastError));
//do something else...
Sleep(1000);
end;
end;
This is only an example, but functioning of my real code bases on the same idea. When you create an object of this class, it will create a thread that will start sending messages to that class. Log.Log() saves data into a text file. When I use this code in a new service application, everything works fine. When i put it into the 'broken' service, it does not. Please note that I do not use any message-waiting loop to receive messages. I created a new service and just put the code above into it, then created an object of the class. That's all.
If I get to know why this does not work in the 'broken' service, I'll write about it.
Thanks for the time you devoted me.
Mariusz.
Here's what I would try:
Check the return value and GetLastError of PostMessage
Is this a Vista/2008 machine? If yes, check if the sending application have sufficient priviliges to do send the message.
I have to have more information to help you further.
I spent long hours trying to find the reason of the messages not being received. As I showed in my code snippet, the constructor of the class creates a window handle which I used to send messages to. As long as the class was constructed by the main thread, everything worked fine for the window handle (if I understand it correctly) existed in the context of the main thread which, by default, awaits messages. In the 'broken' service, as I called it by mistake, my class was created by another thread, so the handle must have existed in the context of that thread. Therefore, when I sent messages using this window handle, they were received by that thread, not by the main one. Because of the fact that this thread did not have any message-waiting loop, my messages were not received at all.
I just did not know it worked this way. To solve the problem in an easy way, I create and destroy the class in the main thread even though I use it in the second one.
Thanks for your time and all the information you gave me.
Mghie, I think you are absolutely right. I implemented a message waiting loop this way:
procedure TAsyncSerialPort.Execute;
var
Msg: tagMSG;
begin
while GetMessage(Msg, 0, 0, 0) do
begin
{thread message}
if Msg.hwnd = 0 then
begin
case Msg.message of
WM_DATA_READ: Log.Log('data read');
WM_READ_TIMEOUT: Log.Log('read timeout');
WM_DATA_WRITTEN: Log.Log('data written');
WM_COMM_ERROR: Log.Log('comm error');
else
DispatchMessage(Msg);
end;
end
else
DispatchMessage(Msg);
end;
end;
I'm doing it for the first time, so please, could you check the code whether it is correct? In fact, this is my real class code snippet (the logs will be substituted with a real code). It handles overlapped comm port. There are two threads that send thread messages to the thread above, informing it that they wrote or received some data from comm port, etc. When the thread gets such a message, it takes an action - it gets the received data from a queue, where the threads first put it and then calls an external method that, lets say, analyses the received data. I don't want to go into details for it is unimportant :). I send thread messages like this: PostThreadMessage(MyThreadId, WM_DATA_READ, 0, 0).
This code works properly as I checked, but I would like to be sure everything is correct, so I'm asking you about that. I would be grateful if you answered.
To free the thread I do the following:
destructor TAsyncSerialPort.Destroy;
begin
{send a quit message to the thread so that GetMessage returns false and the loop ends}
PostThreadMessage(ThreadID, WM_QUIT, 0, 0);
{terminate the thread but wait until it finishes before the following objects
(critical sections) are destroyed for the thread might use them before it quits}
Terminate;
if Suspended then
Resume;
WaitFor;
FreeAndNil(FLock);
FreeAndNil(FCallMethodsLock);
inherited Destroy;
end;
I hope this is the proper way to end the message loop.
Thank you very much for your help.
BTW, I hope my English language is understandable, isn't it? :) Sorry if you have difficulties understanding me.
There's one trick in message loops in threads. Windows won't create a message queue for a thread immediately so there will be some time when posting messages to a thread will fail. Details are here. In my msg loop thread I use the technique MS proposes:
constructor TMsgLoopThread.Create;
begin
inherited Create(True);
FEvMsgQueueReady := CreateEvent(nil, True, False, nil);
if FEvMsgQueueReady = 0 then
Error('CreateEvent: '+LastErrMsg);
end;
procedure TMsgLoopThread.Execute;
var
MsgRec: TMsg;
begin
// Call fake PeekMessage for OS to create message queue for the thread.
// When it finishes, signal the event. In the main app execution will wait
// for this event.
PeekMessage(MsgRec, 0, WM_USER, WM_USER, PM_NOREMOVE);
SetEvent(FEvMsgQueueReady);
...
end;
// Start the thread with waitinig for it to get ready
function TMsgLoopThread.Start(WaitInterval: DWORD): DWORD;
begin
inherited Start;
Result := WaitForSingleObject(FEvMsgQueueReady, WaitInterval);
end;
But in your case I'd strongly recommend using other means of IPC.