dev_status and dangling pointer

Hi,

When I override dev_status in PyTango 8 as

def dev_status(self):
    st = PyTango.Device_4Impl.dev_status(self)
    return st

and I call on the client side

dp = PyTango.DeviceProxy("p09/pystate/01") 
dp.status()

I get

'Got exception\twhen trying to build device status'

However, the following code

def dev_status(self):
    self.st = PyTango.Device_4Impl.dev_status(self)
    return self.st

works OK.

Is there any reference counting problem?

Bests, Jan