Why .pot/.po files are not generated or updated?

One of the reasons for that is that your sources are already cached by babel. To avoid this situation it's better to disable caching for extract or resolve step.

Troubleshooting:

General case

Consider using env var BABEL_DISABLE_CACHE=1 to disable babel cache.

webpack

You can set cacheDirectory option to false in babel-loader settings.

You can check this issue for more details.