Gnome Shell crash with places-status extension when you plug an USB device

This issue has been first reported to Kali here: https://bugs.kali.org/view.php?id=4488

With gnome 3.26 as in Debian testing/unstable, if you have the places-status extension enabled and if you plug an USB device, the entire session crashes. It does not happen every time, but on my test VM it happens half of the time (50% of my tests show a session crash).

We tracked this down to a regression in gjs. This problem started with the 1.50.2-3 version in Debian which cherry-picked a few commits from 1.50.3. The version 1.50.2-2 of Debian was fine. Then new version 1.50.3-1 currently in Debian unstable is also affected.

Here are the patches which were cherry-picked in that earlier version: https://salsa.debian.org/gnome-team/gjs/tree/debian/1.50.2-3/debian/patches

I tried to run gnome-shell under gdb but I don't get a backtrace... the process seems to "exit(1)". I will happily test any patch or provide further information on request.

Unfortunately the systemd log doesn't seem to show anything useful. I still paste it here for you to double check (messages between the kernel detecting the new device and the confirmation that the GNOME Shell is gone):

Jan 23 18:08:43 kali-rolling gnome-shell[3431]: GNOME Shell started at Tue Jan 23 2018 18:08:41 GMT+0100 (CET)
Jan 23 18:08:47 kali-rolling kernel: usb 2-3: new high-speed USB device number 9 using ehci-pci
Jan 23 18:08:48 kali-rolling kernel: usb 2-3: New USB device found, idVendor=090c, idProduct=1000
Jan 23 18:08:48 kali-rolling kernel: usb 2-3: New USB device strings: Mfr=1, Product=2, SerialNumber=0
Jan 23 18:08:48 kali-rolling kernel: usb 2-3: Product: USB DISK
Jan 23 18:08:48 kali-rolling kernel: usb 2-3: Manufacturer: SMI Corporation
Jan 23 18:08:48 kali-rolling kernel: usb-storage 2-3:1.0: USB Mass Storage device detected
Jan 23 18:08:48 kali-rolling kernel: scsi host2: usb-storage 2-3:1.0
Jan 23 18:08:48 kali-rolling mtp-probe[3472]: checking bus 2, device 9: "/sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:06.7/usb2/2-3"
Jan 23 18:08:48 kali-rolling mtp-probe[3472]: bus: 2, device: 9 was not an MTP device
Jan 23 18:08:48 kali-rolling upowerd[612]: unhandled action 'bind' on /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:06.7/usb2/2-3/2-3:1.0
Jan 23 18:08:48 kali-rolling upowerd[612]: unhandled action 'bind' on /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:06.7/usb2/2-3
Jan 23 18:08:48 kali-rolling dbus-daemon[343]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.Avahi' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.Avahi.service' requested by ':1.328' (uid=127 pid=3473 comm="/usr/lib/colord/colord-sane ")
Jan 23 18:08:48 kali-rolling dbus-daemon[343]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.Avahi.service': Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.Avahi.service not found.
Jan 23 18:08:49 kali-rolling kernel: scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access              MIMOBOT          1100 PQ: 0 ANSI: 4
Jan 23 18:08:49 kali-rolling kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg1 type 0
Jan 23 18:08:49 kali-rolling kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] 15360000 512-byte logical blocks: (7.86 GB/7.32 GiB)
Jan 23 18:08:49 kali-rolling kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
Jan 23 18:08:49 kali-rolling kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 43 00 00 00
Jan 23 18:08:49 kali-rolling kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] No Caching mode page found
Jan 23 18:08:49 kali-rolling kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
Jan 23 18:08:49 kali-rolling kernel:  sda: sda1 sda2
Jan 23 18:08:49 kali-rolling kernel: sd 2:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI removable disk
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling dbus-daemon[343]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.Avahi' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.Avahi.service' requested by ':1.329' (uid=127 pid=3473 comm="/usr/lib/colord/colord-sane ")
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling dbus-daemon[343]: [system] Activation via systemd failed for unit 'dbus-org.freedesktop.Avahi.service': Unit dbus-org.freedesktop.Avahi.service not found.
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling kernel: FAT-fs (sda1): Volume was not properly unmounted. Some data may be corrupt. Please run fsck.
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling udisksd[934]: Failed to setup systemd-based mount point cleanup: Process reported exit code 5: Failed to start clean-mount-point@media-root-P1-FAT32.service: Unit media-root-P1-FAT32.mount not found.
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling udisksd[934]: Mounted /dev/sda1 at /media/root/P1-FAT32 on behalf of uid 0
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling kernel: EXT4-fs (sda2): recovery complete
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling kernel: EXT4-fs (sda2): mounted filesystem with ordered data mode. Opts: (null)
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling udisksd[934]: Failed to setup systemd-based mount point cleanup: Process reported exit code 5: Failed to start clean-mount-point@media-root-P2-EXT4.service: Unit media-root-P2-EXT4.mount not found.
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling udisksd[934]: Mounted /dev/sda2 at /media/root/P2-EXT4 on behalf of uid 0
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling polkitd(authority=local)[403]: Unregistered Authentication Agent for unix-session:11 (system bus name :1.323, object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8) (disconnected from bus)
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling gnome-session[3000]: gnome-session-binary[3000]: WARNING: App 'org.gnome.Shell.desktop' exited with code 1
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling gnome-session-binary[3000]: WARNING: App 'org.gnome.Shell.desktop' exited with code 1
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling gnome-session[3000]: gnome-session-binary[3000]: WARNING: App 'org.gnome.Shell.desktop' respawning too quickly
Jan 23 18:08:50 kali-rolling gnome-session-binary[3000]: WARNING: App 'org.gnome.Shell.desktop' respawning too quickly