That's indeed how it is supposed to work. What version are you using? Is there anything that indicates an error in ~/.xsession-errors or ~/.cache/gdm/session.log?

I am using gnome remix 12.10. Gnome shell 3.6.1
I do not have .xsession-errors file, so I guess thats fine. Session.log also seemed okay to me, if you want it I can paste it here.

But unfortunately I upgraded to the shell 3.7.1 version and none of the extensions are working anymore (even after updating metadata). So how to go about this, may be close the bug and reopen it if I can reproduce it again?

Created attachment 227347 [details]
3.7.1 compatible sample extension

(In reply to comment #2)
> I do not have .xsession-errors file, so I guess thats fine.

Yes, it's the old location of .cache/gdm/session.log.

> Session.log also seemed okay to me, if you want it I can paste it here.

Maybe that's a good idea - I wrote a quick 3.7.1-compatible extension as test case, and I could actually reproduce the issue due to a shell bug (patch coming). It did show up rather prominently on stderr/session.log though.

Created attachment 227348 [details] [review]
panelMenu: Fix exception when destroying menuless button

There's explicit API to create PanelMenu.Buttons with no menu, so
guard against this case in destroy().

Created attachment 227349 [details]
Session log

With your extension, I reproduced the bug and see that panelMenu exception in the session.log. Attached those lines for any ref.

.....and the patch is working fine... :)

(In reply to comment #0)
> There are extensions that add itself to the top panel, like window buttons.

... which happens to not have an associated menu, so this is likely the same issue the patch is fixing.

Review of attachment 227348 [details] [review]:

Indeed.

Attachment 227348 [details] pushed as 6f5e567 - panelMenu: Fix exception when destroying menuless button