Progress Bar Does not Render Until Job is Complete

Question

I am trying to make a progress bar for copying large files. However, currently the Dialog window goes black until the process is finished. I now understand I probably have t

Answer 1

Heavy tasks should not run on the main thread, you should use a thread. In this case I have replaced your logic, so there is a class that is in charge of copying the files informing through signs of progress, error, etc. An object of that class will live in another thread notifying the GUI through signals, in this case I will use QProgressDialog to show the progress.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import os
import sys
import shutil
import threading
from PyQt5 import QtCore, QtGui, QtWidgets

class MainWindow(QtWidgets.QMainWindow):
    startMoveFilesSignal = QtCore.pyqtSignal(str, str)

    def __init__(self):
        super(MainWindow, self).__init__()
        srcdir = "/media/zachlab/Windows/LinuxStorage/old/embryos"
        dstdir = "/media/zachlab/Windows/LinuxStorage/old/out"
        self.le_src = QtWidgets.QLineEdit(srcdir)
        self.le_dst = QtWidgets.QLineEdit(dstdir)
        self.button = QtWidgets.QPushButton("Copy")
        self.button.clicked.connect(self.archiveEntry)

        central_widget = QtWidgets.QWidget()
        self.setCentralWidget(central_widget)
        lay = QtWidgets.QFormLayout(central_widget)
        lay.addRow("From: ", self.le_src)
        lay.addRow("To: ", self.le_dst)
        lay.addRow(self.button)

        self.progressbar = QtWidgets.QProgressDialog(self)
        self.progressbar.hide()

        thread = QtCore.QThread(self)
        thread.start()
        self.helper = MoveFileHelper()
        self.startMoveFilesSignal.connect(self.helper.moveFilesWithProgress)
        self.helper.progressChanged.connect(self.progressbar.setValue)
        self.helper.finished.connect(self.on_finished)
        self.helper.started.connect(self.progressbar.show)
        self.helper.errorOccurred.connect(self.on_errorOcurred)
        self.helper.moveToThread(thread)

    @QtCore.pyqtSlot()
    def archiveEntry(self):
        self.startMoveFilesSignal.emit(self.le_src.text(), self.le_dst.text())
        self.progressbar.hide()

    @QtCore.pyqtSlot()
    def on_finished(self):
        self.button.setText('Finished')

    @QtCore.pyqtSlot(str)
    def on_errorOcurred(self, msg):
        QtWidgets.QMessageBox.critical(self, "Error Ocurred", msg)

class MoveFileHelper(QtCore.QObject):
    progressChanged = QtCore.pyqtSignal(int)
    started = QtCore.pyqtSignal()
    finished = QtCore.pyqtSignal()
    errorOccurred = QtCore.pyqtSignal(str)

    def calculateAndUpdate(self, done, total):
        progress = int(round((done / float(total)) * 100))
        self.progressChanged.emit(progress)

    @staticmethod
    def countFiles(directory):
        count = 0
        if os.path.isdir(directory):
            for path, dirs, filenames in os.walk(directory):
                count += len(filenames)
        return count

    @staticmethod
    def makedirs(dest):
        if not os.path.exists(dest):
            os.makedirs(dest)

    @QtCore.pyqtSlot(str, str)
    def moveFilesWithProgress(self, src, dest):
        numFiles = MoveFileHelper.countFiles(src)
        if os.path.exists(dest):
            self.errorOccurred.emit("Dest exist")
            return 
        if numFiles > 0:
            self.started.emit()
            MoveFileHelper.makedirs(dest)
            numCopied = 0
            for path, dirs, filenames in os.walk(src):
                for directory in dirs:
                    destDir = path.replace(src, dest)
                    MoveFileHelper.makedirs(os.path.join(destDir, directory))

                for sfile in filenames:
                    srcFile = os.path.join(path, sfile)
                    destFile = os.path.join(path.replace(src, dest), sfile)
                    shutil.copy(srcFile, destFile)
                    numCopied += 1
                    self.calculateAndUpdate(numCopied, numFiles)
            self.finished.emit()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    app = QtWidgets.QApplication(sys.argv)
    ex = MainWindow()
    ex.resize(640, ex.sizeHint().height())
    ex.show()
    sys.exit(app.exec_())