This is a follow-up to https://sourceforge.net/p/pgfplots/bugs/109/ :
The following minimal shows that the first plot works whereas the second merely produces garbage:
\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{report}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.13}
\usepackage{pgfplotstable}
\begin{document}
\pgfplotstableread[col sep=space]{
x y w1 w2
1 1 2 A
2 2 1 B
3 3 4 C
4 4 3 D
}\data
\pgfplotstablesave{\data}{pgfplotstempout.dat}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[]
\addplot[
scatter,
only marks,
scatter src=explicit,
visualization depends on=value \thisrow{w2}\as\wtwo,
nodes near coords=\wtwo,
]
table[x=x,y=y,meta=w1]{pgfplotstempout.dat};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[]
\addplot[
scatter,
only marks,
scatter src=explicit,
visualization depends on=value \thisrow{w2}\as\wtwo,
nodes near coords=\wtwo,
]
table[x=x,y=y,meta=w1]{\data}; %error
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}