VPN problems under Manjaro Plasma

Other than the above - no.

What you are trying to achieve is split tunneling - allowing local services to be available while connected to a vpn.

If your institution provides internet access when connected using VPN - then you need to reconfigure your system,

  • unmount your share before changing network
  • mount when new network is up

This could possibly be achieved using some smart scripting and a systemd user service.

I revisited your initial post and realized you have mounted a network share using Samba over the internet - I expect that your connection is encrypted somehow - usually using SSH or VPN - otherwise that share is being bruteforced 24/7.

If you are using some kind of tunnel to access the share - then that tunnel is disconnected when you activate VPN.

Despite cifs being old and unmaintained - the linux mount type is still cifs and the utils is still named cifs-utils.

As your issue is availablitiy while on different networks - whereever you are - and your institutional workplace - the only thing I can suggest is to unmount before changing network - then remount when new network is up.

I cannot provide a turnkey solution, only ideas - like the gio mount utility script

[root tip] [Utility Script] GIO mount samba share

The gio mount is more flexible than a systemd mount unit - and it should be possible to handle the network change in a flexible manner - but that is speculation; in fact I did a search and found that the scenario you describe is a common issue when switching networks.