Why empty cells throw error ElementNotFound?

Hey guys,

I recently upgraded my codeceptjs from 2.3 (webdriverio 5) to 3.04 (with webdriverio 6.12). I have scripts failing with the ElementNotFound error when reading empty cells in regular html .
This used to work without a problem. Anyone have any input on this? Is this related to webdriverio changes? I am open for workarounds, please suggest one

  at new ElementNotFound (node_modules\codeceptjs\lib\helper\errors\ElementNotFound.js:14:11)
  at assertElementExists (node_modules\codeceptjs\lib\helper\WebDriver.js:2770:11)
  at WebDriver.grabTextFrom (node_modules\codeceptjs\lib\helper\WebDriver.js:1111:5)