Without seeing all the code, I suspect that the problem is that you are not running the main gtk loop while the work is being done. Thus, gtk cannot make any changes to the screen. Try adding this loop after the $statusbar->show();:

while (Gtk->events_pending) {
        Gtk->main_iteration;
}
[download]

You may also want to use that code insideContactFromDevice and LoadFileToText if you want the GUI to be responsive while those routines are running (if they run more than a second or so, say).

HTH, --traveler