catch (...) across shared library boundary on gcc mingw

I am a Windows developer with some knowledge of C++ EH and SEH implementation in VC++ but new to MinGW. I have built an open source application on MinGW where a dll throws a C++ exception and a client .exe catches it with two catch clauses. One catch clause is "catch (std::exception &e)" and the subsequent one is "catch(...)".

My application terminates with a call to abort despite the latter catch handler.

From searching the web, I understand that gcc exception handling uses pointer comparison to determine whether that type of a thrown exception matches a catch clause. Which can cause problems if the RTTI type descriptor instance used in the throwing and the catching modules differ. In VC++ a catch handler with ellipsis type ("catch (...)") does not do any type matching. However, for my mingw application the ellipsis catch is not determined as handling the thrown exception. I tried to set a breakpoint on ___gxx_personality_v0 to debug this but gdb says that symbol is undefined even though "nm executable.exe" built with debugging shows the symbol as defined.

Any ideas about how "catch (...)" is handled by the personality routine ? Any pointers on how to debug and/or fix this would be appreciated. I really would like the app to terminate cleanly without a popup saying "The application has requested to be terminated in an unusual way".

Thanks for any help,

--Patrick