This might be some type of timing issue with the startup of the game. I would suggest moving the code to main () and including a wait to make sure the client connection to the server has completed. Something like this:

Code:

---

  
function sv_player
{	
	file_cpy("testfile", "player.mdl"); //create a file on harddisk to see if the function were started
}



function main () 
{


  level_load("map1.wmb");
		
  wait(-0.5);  // make sure the level is fully loaded 

  ifdef client;
   while(connection== 0) {wait(1);} // make sure we have a connection to the server	
  endif;
	
  if(connection == 2)
  {		
	
      player = ent_create("player.mdl", vector(0,0,20), sv_player); // now it should start the sv_player function on the server, but it doesn't
  }
}

---