SPI via libmraa not working with ADS1256

I am trying to communicate with an A/D converter (ADS1256) via spi1 but not having any luck (Rock Pi 4 v1.3) I am able to get the wiki example (test spi) working with no problems. Using the example code to initialize the spi works fine. But when I try to read the ADS1256 registers the mraa_spi_write() return -1. Has anyone else had any success talking to and A/D converter?
Below is a the code I am using (after initializing the spi bus as shown in the test spi code).
for (i = 0; i <= 0x0A; i++) {
sndData[0] = 0x10;
sndData[0] |= i;
sndData[1] = 0;
s = mraa_spi_write(spi, sndData[0]);
s2 = mraa_spi_write(spi, sndData[1]);
status = mraa_spi_transfer_buf(spi, ((void*)0), &registers[i], 1);

    fprintf(stdout, "\nsndData: %#hhX, write status: %d, %d, read status: %d, registers: %#hhX", sndData[0], s, s2, status, registers[i]);
}

The output look like:
53 mraa_spi_init success.
59 mraa_spi_frequency success.
66 mraa_spi_lsbmode success.
sndData: 0x10, write status: 255, 255, read status: 0, registers: 0xFF
sndData: 0x11, write status: 255, 255, read status: 0, registers: 0xFF
sndData: 0x12, write status: 255, 255, read status: 0, registers: 0xFF
sndData: 0x13, write status: 255, 255, read status: 0, registers: 0xFF
sndData: 0x14, write status: 255, 255, read status: 0, registers: 0xFF
sndData: 0x15, write status: 255, 255, read status: 0, registers: 0xFF
sndData: 0x16, write status: 255, 255, read status: 0, registers: 0xFF
sndData: 0x17, write status: 255, 255, read status: 0, registers: 0xFF
sndData: 0x18, write status: 255, 255, read status: 0, registers: 0xFF
sndData: 0x19, write status: 255, 255, read status: 0, registers: 0xFF
sndData: 0x1A, write status: 255, 255, read status: 0, registers: 0xFF

Does your board has SPI Flashing for booting? If yes, you need to remove it if you want to use the SPI on 40P header.

No SPI Flashing for booting.