xvnc session grabs hot-plug

i’m running 12.3 with an xvnc server process running in the
background under my login. the console desktop is kde and
the xvnc desktop is xfce. the xvnc is for a remote desktop.

when the xvnc desktop is running and i plug in a usb device,
the xvnc session seems to catch the hot-plug request first
causing the console (kde) session not to be able to mount
the device. the xvnc session holds while waiting with an
authentication request. this is not a problem, of course,
if i kill the xvnc process prior to plugging in anything usb.

is there a way to disable the xvnc/xfce desktop from
trying to process the mount request?