SP 2013 - Page Layout changes not reflected - O365

I'm trying to create a customer page layout using Design Manager on a 2013 on Ofice 365 site.

I created the page layout using a custom content type, opened the html in VS 2013 and added all snippets I required, saved and published it.

None of the changes are reflected on to the associated aspx page. This happens many times but usually I used to delete the page layout and recreate it and publish would work.

I have tried to check out and publish multiple times but resultant aspx page doesn't have any webpart snippets but only the webpart zones I copied are saved on to aspx.

I have no clue why it does behave this way, any comments would be appreciated.