I had this issue on a mid 2014, 15” MacbookPro (11,2), under OS X 10.11, 12 and 13.
Both renaming the kernel extension and running the python script worked.
However, just inactivating the service also worked for me.
In the Network control panel, select the thunderbolt bridge connection(s) and make the service(s) inactive from the options drop-down menu, at the bottom of the frame.
Whenever you need a wired connection through thunderbolt, activate the service and do your work (running the python script at these times to avoid crashes). When done, inactivate again.
BTW if you boot to recovery partition (CMD+R), renaming AppleThunderboltNHI.kext does not require inactivation of the system integrity protection through csrutil or issuing commands as sudo (since you run as root). I you just need to navigate (with the `cd’ command) to your main HD extensions folder (usually /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/System/Library/Extensions/) and rename (with the `mv’ command) AppleThunderboltNHI.kext . If you can boot your mac from another partition, internal or external, you can do that through the Finder.