MW 1.27.1
PHP 7.0.16

Expected behavior:
Create a new page, expect to insert the page_id with a page_counter count of 0 (or 1) as a starting number of page views into hit_counter table.

Output at bottom of page -> This page has been accessed once. (if 1 is used as a starting number of views)
Page added to Special page, popular pages, with a count.
The hit_counter_extension table starts to accumulate page views.

Actual behavior:
Create a new page, no page_id with a count is inserted into the hit_counter table.

Output at bottom of page -> {count is missing}
Page is missing from Special page, popular pages.
The hit_counter_extension table starts to accumulate page views to add to the page_counter field.

Work around:
Manually add the page_id to the hit_counter table and set a count in the page_count field as a starting point. The hit_counter_extension table will start accumulating page views. I have not seen the page counts populate to the actual hit_count table from the hit_counter_extension table yet.