variables for colordiffuse broken in Nexus 20.1?

Is anyone else seeing issues with the colordiffuse tag on their textures using a variable in Nexus 20.1?

All of a sudden this doesn't work:

<control type="image">

   <texture colordiffuse="$VAR[Home_Artwork_Diffuse]">texture</texture>

</control>



<variable name="Home_Artwork_Diffuse">

  <value>ff808080</value>

</variable>

But this does:

<control type="image">

   <texture colordiffuse="ff808080">texture</texture>

</control>

Just wanted to check it's not just me before flagging it