Problem with linking tokens to character sheets

I've read the wiki, I had it working but now I can't get it to work. I place a rat token I go into the token settings, set the 3 markers to the value of 2 (for game stats) I set the token to associate with the rat character sheet. I save I drag the rat character entry from the journal to the map. the rat icon is shown, but the value in the bubbles are lost. I have the same problem with characters - if I drag a character to the map, I get the avatar, not the token, and none of the bubbles are linked. What's going on?  What am I doing wrong?

You need to make sure you do the linking in the proper order. Set up the token as desired (You've done this above) Then set the token as the default token for the character

I thought I did it that way - I've done it so many times I might have gotten confused - I think I got the PC token working - I went to another map and dragged it from the journal and it setup right this time.

So it looks like if I resize or change the token in any way, I have to then unlink and relink from the character sheet

That's expected behavior.  The size of the token is stored with the Default Token on the Character.  If you change the size of a Token on the table top, it won't change the Default Token.  Ditto anything else about the Token (tint, auras, status markers, name (if it isn't pulled from the represented Character), bar values (if they aren't representing Attributes on the represented Character), etc).  There are ways around that using an API script (Pro subscriber perk).

To understand it better: when you set a default token, you store all the properties of the token at that time . When you drag a token onto the map, you are dragging a copy of the default token. Any changes you make to a copy after dragging it to the map only apply to that copy. The default token remains unchanged. The only way to update the default token (without API) is to delete the current default token, and set it again, using the changed token.

Got it worked out - thanks for your suggestions - turns out that I was getting confused when I changed something slightly on the token and had to re-link it every time. Everything seems to be working now... except... When I apply damage to the bubbles everything wroks fine - until a player closes then reopens their sheet - then the bubbles reset to their original status - probably something i did wrong when I linked the character sheet - maybe to the wrong fields.. I'll see if I can fix that and I'll report back.