As there is no general issue with Samba - something else must be causing your issue and I had to think hard to get an idea of what may be happening.
I renamed the topic to make clear that Manjaro VMware guest is an important key and - as you have been around for quite some time - you know VMware is unsupported in every possible aspect.
All communication to and from a virtual guest - goes through the host - using a set of virtual components provided by the host.
When you the update your guest Manjaro OS, the software communicating with the virtual components changes and this could create an inconsistency between the virtual components provided by the host and the virtual machine OS.
host
You make no mention of your host system so I will just say - ensure your host is fully up-to-date.
guest
I note that you run you vm on stable branch - and in doing so you may inadvertently be causing the issue.
So for the guest I suggest you change to use Manjaro unstable. Then fully sync the system with an up-to-date mirror and restart the guest.
Then recheck if the issue persist.