Laravel database queues not firing at all

We use multiple queues (SQS, redis and database). We use Laravel Vapor that allows a maximum processing time of 15 minutes, so smaller jobs are executed there and it works.

So to process longer queues, I created an EC2 instance using the same codebase, connected to the common RDS instance, it all works. I can also see that there are jobs pending in the jobs table using tinker in the EC2 instance. Now here's the problem:

Running php artisan queue:work database --queue=queueName is not working at all! It just keeps on listening for any activity even when there are entries in the jobs table.

How do I know that the code is working? Because I used the remote DB credentials in the local development .env and fired the same command and it processed the queue.

I've tried deleting and reinstalling composer packages but none of it works.