Hi,
There is a known bug with global Var elements which will be fixed with the release of PennController 1.7—I am not quite ready to make that release yet, but if you’re in a hurry I just published a version 1.7 alpha, you can sync it to your project following the steps described here and typing 1.7alpha in the branch field
Also, did you make sure to also call .settings.global() on the getVar just before you use set?
Jeremy