StatusIcon with threaded loop: loop does not loop

Question

I have created a simple status icon. Its purpose is to check the existence of files in a given time interval.

The status icon shows, and the thread is started. However, the loop does not loop: it enters the loop, but on event.wait it halts, and never continues.

I've tried to replace with time.sleep(5), but that had the same result.

I've searched anywhere, but I couldn't find an answer. What am I missing?

#! /usr/bin/env python3
#-*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from gi.repository import Gtk
import threading


class CheckStatus(threading.Thread):

    def __init__(self):
        threading.Thread.__init__(self)
        self.event = threading.Event()

    def run(self):
        cnt = 0
        while not self.event.is_set():
            cnt += 1
            print((">>> check %d" % cnt)) # This shows just once
            self.event.wait(5)
        print(">>> done")

    def stop(self):
        self.event.set()


class MyStatusIcon(object):

    def __init__(self):
        self.statusIcon = Gtk.StatusIcon()
        self.statusIcon.set_from_stock(Gtk.STOCK_ABOUT)

        # Build status icon menu
        menu = Gtk.Menu()
        menuQuit = Gtk.MenuItem("Quit")
        menuQuit.connect('activate', self.quit_tray)
        menu.append(menuQuit)

        self.statusIcon.connect('popup-menu', self.popup_menu, menu)

        # Start thread
        self.check = CheckStatus()
        self.check.start()

    def popup_menu(self, widget, button, time, data):
        data.show_all()
        data.popup(None, None, None, None, button, time)

    def quit_tray(self, widget):
        # Stop the thread and quit
        self.check.stop()
        self.check.join()
        Gtk.main_quit()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    # Create an instance of our GTK application
    try:
        MyStatusIcon()
        Gtk.main()
    except:
        pass

[EDIT 1]

I've replaced the while loop with a counter loop (while cnt < 10), although this didn't change the behavior, it showed the printed counter every 5 seconds as soon as I quit the status icon.

It seems that the thread is waiting for an event from the status icon.

[EDIT 2] I needed to look at this from a different angle, and wondered if GObject.timeout_add could solve this issue...well, it did, but I don't know if it's the most elegant way to do so.

#! /usr/bin/env python3
#-*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from gi.repository import Gtk, GObject


class MyStatusIcon(object):

    def __init__(self):
        self.quit = False
        self.counter = 0
        self.service = GObject.timeout_add(5000, self.checkStatus)

        self.statusIcon = Gtk.StatusIcon()
        self.statusIcon.set_from_stock(Gtk.STOCK_ABOUT)

        # Build status icon menu
        menu = Gtk.Menu()
        menuQuit = Gtk.MenuItem("Quit")
        menuQuit.connect('activate', self.quit_tray)
        menu.append(menuQuit)

        self.statusIcon.connect('popup-menu', self.popup_menu, menu)

    def checkStatus(self):
        self.counter += 1
        if not self.quit:
            print((">>> check %d" % self.counter))
            return True
        print("Done")
        return False

    def popup_menu(self, widget, button, time, data):
        data.show_all()
        data.popup(None, None, None, None, button, time)

    def quit_tray(self, widget):
        # Stop the thread and quit
        self.quit = True
        Gtk.main_quit()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    # Create an instance of our GTK application
    try:
        MyStatusIcon()
        Gtk.main()
    except:
        pass