When you do an operation between 2 'empty'* scores the first score will receive a score of 0, even though you get an error message: "No <name> score for <player> found". This score won't show up on the sidebar until you reopen the world or update the display slot.
*: when you created a score but you didn't set any value for an entity
Steps to reproduce:
Create 2 new scores
/scoreboard objectives add test1 dummy /scoreboard objectives add test2 dummy
Display the first score
/scoreboard objectives setdisplay sidebar test1
Do an operation (notice that the sidebar didn't change)
/scoreboard players operation @p test1 = @p test2
Update sidebar (notice that now your score appeared on the sidebar)
/scoreboard objectives setdisplay sidebar /scoreboard objectives setdisplay sidebar test1
Currently it's fixed, but it may reappear after MC-121752 is fixed