Long ago, I had %thirst% on my board. I just tried to add it again, but thirst reports the value -1 (after server reboot, since /sidebar reload does not always do the needful wrt changes in the variables list). My config.yml seems straightforward, but no joy. Spigot 1.11.2 and SS 0.10.1:

compatibilityMode: false

disabled-worlds-whitelist: true

disabled-worlds:
 - world

Scoreboard:
  Title: '&8BlackDog Bonus'
  Update-delay: 2
  Items:
    '&8points': '%money%'
    '&8thirst': '%thirst%'

Any ideas why that doesn't work?

Six more reboots, and it (magically) works. The file looks the same to me, although I cannot guarantee.

%thirst% is very unstable. A few more reboots, and I'm back to -1. Later, it will display correctly. There seems no rhyme or reason (although probably there is). No changes to configuration.

Through all of this, %money% has tracked consistently correctly. Any ideas why thirst is so sporadic?

Is there any way to debug this on my test server?

Is there anybody home?

This fails with both the General %thirst% and the PlaceHolderAPI %thirst_level%. It appears to fail when Thirst in enabled after ScoreboardStats. So it appears that ScoreboardStats is looking for variables before Thirst is loaded, so the latter cannot be found. Is that possible?

Please add Thirst to soft dependency list.

If this is still relevant. This is something the author should fix.