I'd now say they were almost certainly connected. When the error appears, player persistence fails, the mission takes ages to load, and it all goes a bit wrong.
So the error is:
'...=([] call BIS_fnc_listplayers) + (call |#|Alive_fnc_allCurators);
_anyInRange - f...'
Error undefined variable in expression: alive_fnc_allCurators
File x\alive\addons\x_lib\functions\units\fnc_anyPlayersInRangeIncludeAir.sqf
This error happens in Vanilla, with the latest Arma update, latest CBA (the hotfix version) and latest ALiVE.
To reproduce, place the following modules on Altis:
Repro 1:
Military OPCOM synced to a civ placement module (place units, medium filters, shouldn't matter too much), a logistics module, and an IED module.
- Alive (required)
- Alive Data
- Player Options
- Virtual AI
- Alive AI Skill
- Alive Ambient Weather
- Civilian Population
- Civilian Placement
Then add a player. All of these things set to no debug.
Repro 2:
Military OPCOM synced to a civ placement module (place units, medium filters, shouldn't matter too much), a logistics module, and an IED module.
- Alive (required)
- Alive Data
- Player Options
- Virtual AI
Then add a player. Only civ military placement set to debug.
Repro 3:
Military OPCOM synced to a placement module (place units, medium filters, shouldn't matter too much), a logistics module, and an IED module.
- Alive (required)
- Alive Data
- Player Options
- Virtual AI
Then add a player. Only military placement set to debug.
The key symptoms of shit going wrong are the following:
Loading screen > Player loads briefly > jumps back to loading screen for a while
This usually happens with the error, but with only a few modules placed, it seems to happen so quickly you can't see the error. All you see is a brief flicker of the player loaded and then it jumps back to the loading screen. Missions take much longer to load. Take away the civilian population, the mission loads as normal.
However, as the second repro shows, even with the civ population modules taken out, if you turn on debug in the military civ placement module, you'll get the error back along with the weird loading.
Another thing I noticed was that the ambient dynamic weather seems to make the mission jump back into the loading screen, which can interfere with player persistence too.
UPDATE: I can also confirm that player persistence does work when the error isn't present, and fails when the error is present. This is based on a cold start on the server (if the server is up and running and has already had somebody on it, persistence will work fine).
With EDEN, I think they introduced automatic error reporting so you'll only see the error come up in the editor unless you have show errors enabled in the startup parameters.
