Algorithm for determining max increasing sequence in an array

I am taking a C language course at Coursera where I came across an assignment asking me to write a piece of code that can tell the maximum increasing sequence in an array. For example, for an array{3,5,0,7,8,9} it should return me three as the max. I wrote two pieces of code which I assume should both be able to pass. However, only one of them did and I couldn't figure out why.

Here is the first piece of code that pass:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
size_t maxSeq(int*array, size_t n){
  size_t maxLength = 0;
  size_t counter = 1;
  if(n == 0){
    return maxLength;
  }
  if(n == 1){
    maxLength = 1;
    return maxLength;
  }
  for(int i = 1;i < n;i++){
    if((array[i]-array[i-1])>0){
      counter += 1;
    }else{
      if(maxLength < counter){
        maxLength = counter;
      }
      counter = 1;
    }
  }
  if(maxLength < counter){
    maxLength = counter;
  }
  return maxLength;
}

And here is the second piece of code which didn't pass:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
size_t maxSeq(int*array, size_t n){
  int maxLength = 0;
  int counter = 1;
  if( n== 0){
    return maxLength;
  }
  if(n == 1){
    maxLength = 1;
    return maxLength;
  }
  for(size_t i = 1;i < n;i++){
    if((array[i]-array[i-1])>0){
      counter += 1;
      if(counter >= maxLength){
        maxLength = counter;
      }
    }else if((array[i]-array[i-1])<=0){
      counter = 1;
    }
  }
  return maxLength;
}