QThread/Signal Logic

I'm trying to write a notifier for a forum. I'm trying to use a QThread with a QTimer for checking for new replies periodically. But, my check() function in my thread don't run in thread, it blocks the GUI. Can you say what is wrong with that?

I am suspecting of signals, I'm using the QTimer's timeout signal for running check method, but creating and connecting timeout signal to check function is outside of run method. But when I move self.timer=QTimer(); timer.timeout.connect(self.check) inside run method, self.check never triggered. Anyway, can you tell me where am I wrong?

class Worker(QtCore.QThread):
    check_started = QtCore.pyqtSignal()
    check_successful = QtCore.pyqtSignal()
    check_failed = QtCore.pyqtSignal()

    def __init__(self, user="", password="", check_frequency=5):
        QtCore.QThread.__init__(self)
        self.login_info = {"user": user, "password": password}
        self.check_frequency = check_frequency
        self.last_check_time = 0

        self.timer = QtCore.QTimer()
        self.timer.timeout.connect(self.check) #Would it run in thread or not?

        self.unreads = {}

    def run(self):
        #When I do timer initialization here, it never triggers
        self.check()
        self.timer.start(self.check_frequency * 1000 * 60)

    def check(self):
        print "checking"
        self.last_check_time = time.time()
        self.check_started.emit()
        check_result = self.check_f开发者_C百科or_unreads()
        if check_result:
            self.check_successful.emit()
        else:
            self.check_failed.emit()

    def check_for_unreads(self):
        frm = Forum(self.login_info["user"], self.login_info["password"])
              #This class just uses Mechanize to fetch some pages;
              #Not calculation or CPU-intensive actions.
        if frm.login(): #returns true if successful login, else false
            frm.get_unread_replies()
            self.unreads=frm.unreads
            return True
        else:
            return False

Sorry for kind of multiple questions. I will try to explain more if something is unclear.

Edit: This is how I start thread in my gui code:

self.checker = Worker()

self.checker.login_info["user"] = self.settings["user"]
self.checker.login_info["password"] = self.settings["password"]
self.checker.check_frequency = self.settings["time"]

self.checker.check_started.connect(self.check_started)
self.checker.check_successful.connect(self.check_successful)
self.checker.check_failed.connect(self.check_failed)

self.checker.start()

It looks like the main problem is that you're calling time.sleep(). I don't see where time is defined, but if that's the normal time module for python that will make the python interpreter pause which I expect is the cause of the problem.

Since you don't want to mix python threads and qt threads, I'd recommend that you use QThread.wait(). It should make everything much simpler:

def run(self):
    while True:
        self.check()
        self.wait(self.check_frequency) # or do necessary unit conversion