Progressbar on separate form freezes/crashes when updating - vb.net

Question

I have a weird exception that I can't seem to debug. For anyone about to suggest worker threads I am prohibited from using them at my work... I asked why not myself and received a vague answer and clear directions to avoid it... anyways...
I decided I wanted to have a progress bar on a separate form that is initialized and shown directly from my library class (independent of the main form and executing on a different thread). Even though this class initializes the form itself, I am using control.InvokeRequired and control.Invoke anyway so I can reuse the form elsewhere.
The following is for initializing the progress bar:
Public Sub InitializePB(ByVal _Maximum As Integer, ByVal _Step As Integer, ByVal _StartValue As Integer, ByVal _Style As Windows.Forms.ProgressBarStyle)
If Me.InvokeRequired Then
'Different thread - invoke delegate
pb_Progress.Invoke(Sub() InitializePB(_Maximum, _Step, _StartValue, _Style))
Else
'Same thread - set values
pb_Progress.Minimum = 1
pb_Progress.Maximum = _Maximum
pb_Progress.Step = _Step
pb_Progress.Value = _StartValue
pb_Progress.Style = _Style
Me.Refresh()
End If
End Sub
Now for the step function:
Public Sub PerformStepPB()
If Me.InvokeRequired Then
'Different thread - invoke delegate
pb_Progress.Invoke(Sub() PerformStepPB())
Else
'Same thread - perform step
pb_Progress.PerformStep()
Me.Refresh()
End If
End Sub
Now the following is test code from where I launch form containing the progress bar and then send step calls:
pbForm = New frmProgress(_OwnerDesktopLoc)
pbForm.Show()
pbForm.InitializePB(100, 1, 1, Windows.Forms.ProgressBarStyle.Blocks)
Dim msElapsedVals As Integer = 0
While msElapsedVals <= 100
pbForm.PerformStepPB()
Thread.Sleep(100)
msElapsedVals += 1
End While
pbForm.Close()
pbForm.Dispose()
While Not pbForm.IsDisposed
Thread.Sleep(100)
End While
Exit Sub
So far so good... you will notice that I call the Form.Refresh method for the progress bar form every time the step method is called. I ended up doing this because when the form launched it would crash after several progress bar steps. At this point in time the form does show without crashing (because of the refresh) except that if I click the form it crashes (and no exception is caught by Visual Studio). The weird thing is that the code from the library class for updating the progress bar continues without any problems as if the problem is simply with the Win32 window. Here is the Windows message associated with the crash:
Description:
A problem caused this program to stop interacting with Windows.
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: AppHangB1
Application Name: DL_RDS_Sort.vshost.exe
I tried launching the form from the main form thread but with the same results. I have no clue what's going on... any help would be greatly appreciated =D
Update on exactly how things are being called:
From MainForm a thread is started with the address of a subroutine defined within a library class :
Private Sub but_Sort_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles but_Sort.Click
Me.Sorter.OwnerDesktopLoc = New Drawing.Point(Me.DesktopLocation.X + CInt(Me.DesktopBounds.Width / 6), Me.DesktopLocation.Y + CInt(Me.DesktopBounds.Height / 2))
'Start sorting thread
Me.sortThread = New Threading.Thread(AddressOf Me.Sorter.Sort)
Me.sortThread.Start()
Then in this thread's routine I am testing the initialization of the form and calling the methods (shown earlier) I wrote for updating the performance bar properties:
Public Sub Sort()
Try
IIf(_OwnerDesktopLoc = Nothing, useProgressBar = False, useProgressBar = True)
'TESTING//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
pbForm = New frmProgress(_OwnerDesktopLoc)
pbForm.Show()
pbForm.InitializePB(100, 1, 1, Windows.Forms.ProgressBarStyle.Blocks)
Dim msElapsedVals As Integer = 0
While msElapsedVals <= 100
pbForm.PerformStepPB()
Thread.Sleep(100)
msElapsedVals += 1
End While
pbForm.Close()
pbForm.Dispose()
While Not pbForm.IsDisposed
Thread.Sleep(100)
End While
Exit Sub
'TESTING//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Note that there is a lot more code following the testing area but it never gets called and does not play a part in this issue because I exit the subroutine. I normally use ShowDialog but this halts the execution which is not what I want.
Some things worth mentioning:
-the frmProgress has the ControlBox property set to false.
-the frmProgress has the FormBorderStyle set to FixedDialog
Also: When I use the Show() method, the Windows "busy circle" cursor appears when I hover my mouse over the shown form. ShowDialog() does not have this behaviour... It's as if the form is waiting for something... Hope this clarifies my problem.