strange behavior in Node.getAssociations()?

[esource]

I'm using org.alfresco.web.bean.repository.Node.getAssociations() to get a list of associations on a Node.  It had been behaving pretty consistently for the past week, returning the associations of a node.  Today however, it has suddenly started behaving strangely.  Sometimes, it will return all associations, and sometimes it will return nothing.  I've looked in the debugger and sometimes the node will have associations and that same node, the next time the method is called will not have any associations.  What is causing this strange behavior?

[esource]

I think the behavior I am seeing is the result that getAssociations() only displays associations that have been created.  I was expecting it to return not only created associations but also associations that have been applied to nodes without having been created for instance through an aspect.