Hi,
yes, this one is going to be tricky because along the way, PlayMaker started support some of the action that were before on the ecosystem.
I think you need to first update PlayMaker while in 5.3, make it work there and then update to 2017 or 2018. It should work on 5.3, but you have to use the latest playmaker if you want to then update unity.
try to clean up the custom actions ( which is why I always put them in PlayMaker Custom Actions/ I can quickly take them out ) and use the built in PlayMaker actions
Bye,
Jean