Why am I getting this error:“Cross-thread operation not valid: Control lbFolders accessed from a thread other than the thread it was created on.”?

Question

This is baffling me, maybe somebody can shine the light of education on my ignorance. This is in a C# windows app. I am accessing the contents of a listbox from a thread.

Answer 1

prgAll.Maximum = lbFolders.SelectedItems.Count;

On that line you perform an assignment (set/add), which by default is not thread-safe.

On the second line it's just a get operation, where thread-safety merely doesn't matter.

EDIT: I don't mean access to the prgAll element.

Accessing the Count property changes the internal state of the ListBox inner collection, that is why it throws the exception.