Bug #48912 Connecting to a database from the home screen blocks workbench's UI
Submitted: 19 Nov 2009 16:00 Modified: 3 Jun 2011 2:30
Reporter: Craig Fowler Email Updates:
Status: Closed Impact on me:
None 
Category:MySQL Workbench Severity:S4 (Feature request)
Version:5.2.8 OS:Linux (Debian Squeeze x86/Ubuntu 9.04 .deb package)
Assigned to: CPU Architecture:Any
Tags: Connection, ssh, UI

[19 Nov 2009 16:00] Craig Fowler
Description:
When connecting to a database server using the 'recently used' list of database connections on the home screen (under the "SQL Development" heading, for the mysql-query-browser-style functionality), the connection blocks Workbench's user interface with no "please wait" warning.

How to repeat:
Create a new connection to a database server.  To make the issue obvious, try a connection that will take some time to establish (such as a connection using ssh, via the Internet), or maybe even one that will never connect properly and will time-out.

After double-clicking the connection in the recently-used/available-connections list on the home screen, the workbench user interface is blocked until the connection has completed (or timed out).

Suggested fix:
When opening a connection to a database server, fork the connection away to a new thread so that the user interface is not blocked (IE: the user could continue with other tasks such as working on a model).  To prevent user confusion ("Did anything happen?  I double-clicked but is it connecting or not?") perhaps pre-open the database connection tab at this point and show a "connecting to host XXX, please wait" style message.
[19 Jul 2010 10:41] Craig Fowler
I've tried this on WB 5.2 GA Linux/32-bit and I see that there is now a "Connecting, please wait" message that displays while connecting.  This is a pretty good workaround.

Perhaps in the future it might be nice if the ssh connection could be forked away to another thread, so that other workbench functionality is still available whilst the user is waiting for the connection (perhaps display a message in the status bar like "Connecting to hostname ..." with a little spinner so that the user knows that they are waiting for the connection.  Also, perhaps the new tab could be opened but its content replaced with "still connecting to the server"?  Again, it would let the user know that WB is still connecting but not stop them from continuing their work?

Anyway - the immediate problem of this bug (WB's UI is blocked without any message) is resolved by the dialog that appears in 5.2GA so I am happy for this bug to be closed.
[3 Jun 2011 2:30] Paul DuBois
Noted in 5.2.34 changelog.

Opening a connection from the list of recently used connections
caused the user interface to become unresponsive while wanting for
the connection to open. Now a "Connecting, please wait" message
appears and there is a Cancel button to enable the connection request
to be canceled.