--watch not working after updateing from webpack 4 to 5

I have been migrating a project from Webpack 4 up to 5 and have hit a snag. The --watch option is no longer working with my configuration, and I've tried everything I can find.

const webpack = require('webpack');
const path = require('path');

const PATHS = {
  build: path.join(__dirname, "dist")
}

const baseConfig = {
  entry: {
    main: './js/router.js',
  },
  output: {
    path: PATHS.build,
    filename: `[name].[chunkhash].js`,
    chunkFilename:`[name].[chunkhash].js`,
    publicPath: '/dist'
  }
  //loaders and stuff
}

module.exports = baseConfig;

webpack --watch --progress --mode development

This is what the config can be boiled down to cause the issue. Webpack builds initially fine and I can view the page locally.

But any further changes to the entry point or any modules it imports does not recompile. The progress option I added to the start command has no effect.

I suspect the issue lies with WSL. When I upgraded to webpack 5, I encountered this issue For some reason webpack 5 tries to scan system files if it is located in /mnt/c and gets locking errors. I ended up settling on this answer and moving where my project was located from /mnt/c/dev to /usr/local/dev. This solved the locking issue, and here I am now.

I have also tried adding to my webpack config:

watchOptions: {
    poll: true
}

and also tried playing around with different polling times. Nothing gave me different results.