Application freeze in 3rd party library call - c++

Question

I am working on a c++ measurement software which uses a 3rd party API for the interface all sensors are connected to. This API is not open source and no debug library is available.
In some occasions, the software freezes when starting to read a value from the interface. While I could not determine what criterions cause the problem and why it only happens sometimes so far, I'd like to intercept the freezing and implement some error handling, which would also allow me to better debug the issue.
In my code, I simply have a call
BOOL result = false;
result = pciadioAIStartConversion(board_index, channel_nr, range);
where, if the error occurs, pciadioAIStartConversion never returns. I am looking for some simple functionality to keep the software running and return if the call takes to long.
I am using the Qt framework (4.8.6) so a possible solution would be using the event system and a QTimer, but therefore the call would need its own thread if I'm not mistaken and that seems like overkill to me.

Answer 1

piezol is right You need a separate thread which can be quite a mess but the good news is that Qt thread framework (which is called QtConcurrent) is really helpful.
Here is an example for running a standard function in a separate thread mantaining control of it.
#include <QDebug>
#include <QThread>
#include <QString>
#include <qtconcurrentrun.h>
#include <QApplication>
using namespace QtConcurrent;
void hello(QString name)
{
qDebug() << "Hello" << name << "from" << QThread::currentThread();
}
int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
QApplication app(argc, argv);
QFuture<void> f1 = run(hello, QString("Alice"));
QFuture<void> f2 = run(hello, QString("Bob"));
f1.waitForFinished();
f2.waitForFinished();
}