Often it is useful to run some function that tries to do something, then run a check to see if it was done, and if not, try again and keep trying for some amount of time t. These functions can help.

TryUntilTimeout.py

import time

#
#  Often it is useful to run some function that tries to do something,
#  then run a check to see if it was done, and if not, try again and
#  keep trying for some amount of time t.  This function is designed
#  to accomplish that.
#
def loop_func1_until_func2_or_timeout(func1,func2,args1=None,args2=None,
                                      message=None,pause=10,timeout=120):
    """
    Continue to call func1 until func2 returns True, and then return True.  If
    the loop times out, return False.
    
    Parameters
    ==========
      func1 - The action function to loop
      args1 - Arguments to pass to the action function
      func2 - The query function to check after each call to func1
      args2 - Arguments to pass to the query function
      message - A message to print to the screen on each iteration
      pause - How long to puase between each iteration (seconds)
      timeout - How long to allow this loop to run before terminating (seconds)
    """
    timeout_time = time.time() + timeout
    while time.time() < timeout_time:
        if message: print(message)
        func1() if not args1 else func1(*args1)
        if (func2() if not args2 else func2(*args2)):
            return True
        time.sleep(pause)
    return False

#
#  This is basically a common case of the previous function - often you
#  just have one function that does stuff and returns True if successful
#  and False if failed.  Say you want to keep looping that function until
#  it returns True.  Enter this guy:
#
def loop_func_until_true_or_timeout(func,args=None,message=None,pause=10,
                                    timeout=120):
    """
    Continue to call the given function until it returns True, and then return
    True.  If the loop times out, return False.

    Parameters
    ==========
      func - The function
      args - Arguments to pass to the function
      message - A message to print to the screen on each iteration
      pause - How long to puase between each iteration (seconds)
      timeout - How long to allow this loop to run before terminating (seconds)
    """
    
    #
    #  Split up func into action and query methods:
    #    execute() calls func() and then stores its result in self.result
    #    check() checks result of execute() by returning self.result
    #
    class FuncSplitter(object):
        def __init__(self,func,args):
            self.func = func
            self.args = args
        def execute(self):
            if not self.args:
                self.result = func()
            else:
                self.result = func(*args)
        def check(self):
            return self.result
    
    split = FuncSplitter(func,args)
    execute = split.execute
    check = split.check
    
    return loop_func1_until_func2_or_timeout(execute,check,message=message,
                                             pause=pause,timeout=timeout)