Custom fields always empty
Hard to confirm why yours are not showing. If I am comparing like with like then I have built some Views and used Search API to give the custom data in the View columns and to provide blocks showing the count for each of the sub-types of that custom data.

Thing is there is so many steps involved I don't really know how to provide a clear recipe for you to follow assuming of course that would be better thank Mark's since I know I used that as part of my own journey on this.