Why I get 500 Error while on XAMPP while loading CodeIgniter 3 database library? - codeigniter-3

Question

I have gone through number of threads on stackoverflow and on other forums to find the answer but could not find relevant answer. People have applied different approaches but none has worked for me thus far.
I am using CI 3 on XAMPP and whenever I load database library in the model, I run into 500 Error.
Here is my CI database config info:
'hostname' => 'localhost',
'username' => 'my_user',
'password' => 'my_pass',
'database' => 'prod_db',
'dbdriver' => 'mysqli',
'dbprefix' => '',
'pconnect' => FALSE,
PHP ini db libraries are as below:
extension=php_bz2.dll
extension=php_curl.dll
extension=php_fileinfo.dll
;extension=php_ftp.dll
extension=php_gd2.dll
extension=php_gettext.dll
;extension=php_gmp.dll
;extension=php_intl.dll
;extension=php_imap.dll
;extension=php_interbase.dll
;extension=php_ldap.dll
extension=php_mbstring.dll
extension=php_exif.dll ; Must be after mbstring as it depends on it
extension=php_mysqli.dll
;extension=php_oci8_12c.dll ; Use with Oracle Database 12c Instant Client
;extension=php_openssl.dll
;extension=php_pdo_firebird.dll
extension=php_pdo_mysql.dll
;extension=php_pdo_oci.dll
;extension=php_pdo_odbc.dll
;extension=php_pdo_pgsql.dll
extension=php_pdo_sqlite.dll
;extension=php_pgsql.dll
;extension=php_shmop.dll
; The MIBS data available in the PHP distribution must be installed.
; See http://www.php.net/manual/en/snmp.installation.php
;extension=php_snmp.dll
My model code is as below:
class loginmodel extends CI_Model {
public function validate_login($username, $password) {
$this->load->database();
$var = 0;
return $var;
}
}
Whenever I remove $this->load->database(); from the model, my code runs and i am able to redirect to a "Login Failed" page. BUT, whenever I load my database library in autoload.php or load it in above model, code fails.
Autoload.php
$autoload['libraries'] = array('database');
Apache error logs showed below errors but I could not figure as why this was happening.
PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'C:\\php\\ext\\php_mysqli.dll' - The specified module could not be found.\r\n in Unknown on line 0
PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'C:\\php\\ext\\php_pdo_mysql.dll' - The specified module could not be found.\r\n in Unknown on line 0
Please advise.
EDIT:
I verified all config to be OK and as stated in the comments, I added environment variables to windows and verified through PHPInfo that mysqli and mysqlnd were loaded.

Answer 1

Despite getting all the config right, error still persisted and I did a clean install of CI to reproduce library load failure. This time CI returned an error that db access was denied.
I then realized that after migration, database user was not created in the new environment. So once I created the desired user and assigned it required privileges, I was able to run the code just fine.
Therefore, if anyone encounters such issue in future, below steps might help:
First and foremost, verify if your desired user can access the
database.
Modify your .htaccess to use your desired URL schemes only after
verifying that database connection is working
Then verify that absolute path is available in PHP.ini on XAMPP.
Plus, verify that PHP is added in the environment variables. My
Values on Windows 10 are as follows: Variable Name: PHP , Variable
Value: C:\xampp\php\ext
In CI, mysqli is selected as database driver
In PHP.ini mysqli extension is enabled. i.e. php_mysqli.dll
Echo PHPInfo to verify that mysqli and mysqlnd are available in your
installation.
If nothing works, do a clean install of CI on a separate directory and load database library after setting up your database configuration and before setting up .htaccess until you can reproduce the error.
Hope that error will be eliminated!