Auto compile on file change not working

[dev-bjoern]

After upgrading from CRA 4.0.3 to 5.0.0 the auto compile on file change is not working anymore.

My setup:
I have all my files locally and edit them in Vscode.
On file save, the file is automatically uploaded to the server (FreeBSD 12.3) via sftp plugin
On the server the app is running via normal npm run start command.

Somehow the upload change is not registered on the server. But the remote file content is definitely changed (I can see the changes in vim).
If however I edit the file directly via vim on the server, auto compile works. So it must be something with the sftp upload changing the file differently than changing it directly? Did something in chokidar change?

I already tried setting CHOKIDAR_USEPOLLING to true with no success.