Samba share symlinks don't work anymore

Hello comrades!

I had my RPi4 with LibreELEC (the last version before failure was 10.0.2) on it for about a year - set up and running perfectly, until some data got corrupted on SD card, so I ended up installing LE to an SD card from scratch.

A couple words on my previous setup:

1. Samba server running on LE to access it from Win10 PC to manage files etc. Password authentication turned on (most likely, don't remember exactly) for Samba service.

2. Didn't change anything in samba.conf from the sample except from adding the share I'd want to access from PC:

[Library]
path = /storage/library
available = yes
browseable = yes
public = yes
writeable = yes

3. A symlink was created from external drive to this library folder:

ln -s /var/media/sda1-usb-Mass_Storage_Dev/TVshows /storage/library/TVshows

This combination worked perfectly, I was able to exchange files between PC and external storage connected to RPi.

After the reinstall I tried to make the same steps to restore all this configuration with no luck. Whenever I try to access \\LibreELEC\Library\TVshows, I get the following error:
Windows cannot access \\LibreELEC\Library\TVshows

You do not have permission to access \\LibreELEC\Library\TVshows. Contact your network administrator to request access.

> \\LibreELEC\Library and other folders created directly inside it are accessible.

> It doesn't matter what folder I choose as a target for symlink - even local folders are inaccessible.

> It doesn't matter if Samba service has password authentication or not.

What am I missing here and what could I have done during the first setup that could make this configuration work? Why the symlinks don't work out of the box?

Quote from Da Flex

That's a known issue: Click!

I've seen this post and it has an issue with creating symlinks on server that is not Kodi and then accessing it within Kodi.

My situation is the opposite. Besides, is was working before the reinstall.

Quote from Da Flex

Theory: LE's Samba server has moved from SMB1 to SMB2 version. Since SMB2 file browsing doesn't work anymore: Click!

Since SMB1 is not enabled on Win10 client, I'm sure I didn't set Minimum supported protocol to SMB1 in LE settings (just tried to set min/max to SMB1 - can't even connect to the share).

Quote from chewitt

Absorb those bits ^ to the custom samba.conf then reboot and try to connect again. Working?

Yeah, I tried adding these lines before with no results - can't access Library folder with the following error:
Windows cannot access \\LibreELEC\Library

Check the spelling of the name. [...]

Quote from chewitt

Nothing changed in Samba or our Samba config for aeons but if this is a removable drive, is it NTFS formatted? .. because we switched from using FUSE to native in-kernel NTFS drivers since LE9.2 and that may explain the difference in behaviour.

Removable drive is ext4 formatted. And as I said in the first post, it doesn't matter what folder I choose as a target for symlink - even local folders are inaccessible.