I have a PC with opensuse leap 15.5 + KDE + bitcoin core 26.0 (/usr/local/bin/bitcoind -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root) the /home/bitcoin/.bitcoin (lrwxrwxrwx 1 bitcoin bitcoin) directory is a symlink to an external disk (/run/media/ibm/BB/BTCbc/ (drwxrwx--- 6 bitcoin bitcoin).
Have you checked whether your external disk always mounted on exactly same path? If that external disk always mounted when you turn on your PC, consider editing
fstab file to make sure your external disk always mounted on same path.