How can I figure out if MakerAPI changed recently?

You can check the platform release notes to see what has changed:

For your specific question, there were two minor additions to Maker API in 2.3.8 point releases, but nothing that would have broken existing compatibility.

Without more information, it's hard to say where to start troubleshooting, but if you are using a popular custom component on the other end, make sure you are up-to-date there. Recently, there were some fixes for things that broke with recent updates if I recall correctly.

I think the easiest is to navigate to Logs, then select the Hub Events tab and look for (or search/filter to make it easier) the systemStart events (name in the first column). The description and value columns will show you the version number; when this changes, it means you must have just done an upgrade (or downgrade), as that also reboots the hub.