VLC 3.0.8 doesn't play videos from samba share. Downgrading to earlier version works.
On Kubuntu 18.04 system with kernel 4.15.0-62, VLC stopped playing videos from network shares (samba), after a package upgrade to vlc package 3.0.8-0ubuntu18.04.1. Earlier version worked fine before the update. It was also confirmed by downgrading the vlc package to 3.0.1-3build1, and the same videos were able to be played on samba shares.
By enabling logging in VLC, only the following error was spotted.
vlc smb error: read failed (software caused connection abort)
No other relevant information was available. This error doesn't show in vlc's earlier version logs. I have tested the problem on two separate systems.