Async.TryCancelled doesn't work with Async.RunSynchronously

Question

I try to create an agent that updates UI based on user interaction. If user clicks on a button, the GUI should be refreshed. The preparation of model takes a long time, so it is desirable that if user clicks on other button, the preparation is cancelled and the new one is started.

What I have so far:

open System.Threading
type private RefreshMsg = 
    | RefreshMsg of AsyncReplyChannel<CancellationTokenSource>

type RefresherAgent() =  
    let mutable cancel : CancellationTokenSource = null

    let doSomeModelComputation i =
        async { 
          printfn "start %A" i
          do! Async.Sleep(1000)
          printfn "middle %A" i
          do! Async.Sleep(1000)
          printfn "end %A" i
        }
    let mbox = 
        MailboxProcessor.Start(fun mbx ->
            let rec loop () = async {
                let! msg = mbx.Receive()
                match msg with
                | RefreshMsg(chnl) ->
                    let cancelSrc = new CancellationTokenSource()
                    chnl.Reply(cancelSrc)
                    let update = async {
                                    do! doSomeModelComputation 1
                                    do! doSomeModelComputation 2
                                    //do! updateUI // not important now
                                 }
                    let cupdate = Async.TryCancelled(update, (fun c -> printfn "refresh cancelled"))
                    Async.RunSynchronously(cupdate, -1, cancelSrc.Token)
                    printfn "loop()"
                    return! loop()
            }
            loop ())
    do
        mbox.Error.Add(fun exn -> printfn "Error in refresher: %A" exn)
    member x.Refresh() = 
        if cancel <> null then
            // I don't handle whether the previous computation finished
            // I just cancel it; might be improved
            cancel.Cancel()
            cancel.Dispose()
        cancel <- mbox.PostAndReply(fun reply -> RefreshMsg(reply))
        printfn "x.Refresh end"

//sample  
let agent = RefresherAgent()
agent.Refresh()
System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(1500)
agent.Refresh()

I return a CancellationTokenSource for each request and store it in a mutable variable (the x.Refresh() is thread safe, it is called on UI thread). If Refresh() is called for the first time, the cancellation source is returned. If Refresh() is called for the second time, I call Cancel which should abort the async task that I run through Async.RunSynchronously.

However, an exception is raised. The output from my sample is

x.Refresh end
start 1
middle 1
end 1
refresh cancelled
Error in refresher: System.OperationCanceledException: The operation was canceled.
   at Microsoft.FSharp.Control.AsyncBuilderImpl.commit[a](Result`1 res)

Now as I think about this, it might make sense, because the thread on which the agent runs, was interrputed, right? But, how do I achieve the desired behaviour?

---

I need to cancel async workflow inside the agent, so that the agent can continue consuming new messages. Why do I use the mailbox processor? Cause it is guaranteed that only one thread is trying to create UI model, so I save resources.

Let's suppose I create UI model by downloading data from several web services, that's why I use async call. When user changes a combo and select other option, I want to stop querying the webservices (= cancel the async calls) with old value and want to create new model base od web services call with new value.

Any suggestion that I can use instead of my solution and will solve my problem, is also welcome.

Answer 1

I have difficulties in trying to understand what you want to achieve. But maybe this does not matter - the error just says that the workflow you are executing with RunSynchronously was canceled (RunSynchronously will throw the exception) - so you can wrap this call into a try-match block and just ignore the OC-Exception

a better option might be to refactor your cupdate and to the try-match inside of this - you can even bring the in TryCancelled into it if you catch the OC-Exceptions directly ;)

let update = 
   async {
      try
         do! doSomeModelComputation 1
         do! doSomeModelComputation 2
      with
      | :? OperationCanceledException -> 
           printfn "refresh cancelled"
   }
Async.RunSynchronously(update, -1, cancelSrc.Token)

But I still don't get the part why you want this Synchronously