Played 6 times, all successfully. Board tells me max streak is 5, current streak is 1. Why isn't my..

That means you missed playing a few days. Wordle produces a new word at midnight, every day. If you forget to play a day, your winning streak will represent that. I wish they didn't do that. I didn't realize that was the case & my winning streak doesn't match my 100% wins. Oh well.

It sounds like you achieved one score five times in a row, and the sixth time achieved a different score.

Like a streak of five "6" scores, followed by a score of "5".

(Congrats on the improvement.)

That said, I find max streak to be unreliable.

I thought my reply would post, but they don't seem to. I read both answers above and have since been paying attention. The 2nd answer is correct. For some reason, it counts the number of times you get the SAME score, whether or not you miss 1 or 2 days, as "a streak". Then it resets when you get a different score. Maybe it's a British use of the term. I guess in America (since we value "winning" by any measure), most people would think that the streak is in "Not Losing" no matter what the score is. (Not having a "winning" streak means you can't guess in the 6 tries, and you "lose".)