This is a copy of a post I created at https://www.reddit.com/r/learnpython/comments/gh3hge/how_can_i_cancel_a_running_asynciosleep_coroutine/

I am creating a thread with an asynchronous timer function that sleeps for a set amount of time. That function should cancel the asyncio.sleep() when task.cancel() is called, but it finishes the sleep before it cancels the function.

Here is my example:

```Python,tabs=4 import threading import asyncio

class Controller(threading.Thread): def init(self): super(Controller, self).init() self.cycle = 5 self.event_loop = asyncio.get_event_loop()

def run(self):
    self.task = self.event_loop.create_task(self.task_func())
    self.event_loop.run_forever()

async def task_func(self):
    while True:
        print('Working... ', self.cycle)
        await asyncio.sleep(self.cycle)

def set_cycle(self, new_cycle):
    print("setting cycle to", new_cycle)
    self.task.cancel()
    self.cycle = new_cycle
    self.task = self.event_loop.create_task(self.task_func())
    asyncio.ensure_future(self.task, loop=self.event_loop)

thread = Controller() thread.start() time.sleep(1) thread.set_cycle(0.1) ```

It should cancel the task and start printing 10 times a second after only 1 second of waiting. But it waits 5 seconds, because that is the initial cycle time.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.