macOS File Sharing: Can't Connect as Guest

Hello! I have a problem with file sharing in macOS. I want to connect from other devices via SMB to my Mac as a guest and access the "Public" folder in my home directory. Most often I only get a "Connection Failed" message. Sometimes one share, named "nobody", is available, but I can't connect to it or it is empty. Connecting as a user works fine, only the guest user has this problem.

I searched all over the internet and checked the following settings:

1. "Allow guest users to connect to shared folders" is activated (System Settings → Users & Groups → Guest User)
2. Firewall for "smbd" and "sharingd" is set to "Allow incoming connections" (System Settings → Network → Firewall → Options …)
3. Full disk access for "smbd" is activated (System Settings → Privacy & Security → Full Disk Access)
4. File sharing is turned on (System Settings → General → Sharing → File Sharing)
5. My "Public" folder is listed under "Shared Folders" (System Settings → General → Sharing → File Sharing)
6. Access rights are set to "Read Only" for "Everyone" for my "Public" folder (System Settings → General → Sharing → File Sharing)
7. "Allow guest users" is activated for my "Public" folder (System Settings → General → Sharing → File Sharing → Right-click on the shared folder → Advanced options…)

I tried the common trouble shooting step of turning file sharing off, restarting the Mac and turning file sharing back on. - Did not fix the problem.

I set up a new virtual machine running macOS Sequoia and enabled file sharing and the guest account. I was able to connect as a user of the virtual machine, but not as a guest. So it is not a problem specific to my macOS installation …

The "sharing" command line tool lists the shared folder correctly:

myuser@macbook ~ % sharing -l

			List of Share Points
name:		MyUser's Public Folder
path:		/Users/myuser/Public
	smb:	{
    		name:	MyUser's Public Folder
    		shared:	1
    		guest access:	1
    		read-only:	0
    		sealed:	0
	}

I tried to reset file permissions with "diskutil":

sudo diskutil resetUserPermissions / $(id -u)

Didn't help … I tried restoring file permissions in recovery mode with "repairHomePermissions". This actually destroyed my whole home directory. The file owner for everything in my home folder was set to "root". I had to restore from a Time Machine backup.

After that gut punch I gave up and now I'm asking here. Is there any way to get guest shares to work? Thanks for reading this wall of text. I hope this gets the conversation started and maybe wakes up some Apple engineers.

Cheers!