Codeigniter database help? PHP connect works - php

Question

I'm using PHP 5.3.3 because I do not control the server. I'm also using CodeIgniter 3.1.0. I'm trying to use CI to connect to an Oracle server, Oracle 11g release 11.2.0.4.0.
I can connect just fine using php's oracle_connect:
$connect_string = "(DESCRIPTION = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = HOSTNAME)(PORT = 1521))(CONNECT_DATA =(SERVER = DEDICATED)(SID = MYSID)))";
$oconnect = oci_connect(USERNAME, PASSWORD, $connect_string );
$query = "select * from DB.TABLE";
$stid=oci_parse($oconnect, $query);
$r = oci_execute($stid);
while ($row = oci_fetch_array($stid, OCI_RETURN_NULLS+OCI_ASSOC)) {
print_r($row);
}
But when I try to set up the db connection from within CodeIgniter, I get an error that the TNS name is not known, or that it can't connect, or that the service is unknown. Depends on how I tweak it.
Note that the examples on CodeIgniter may be wrong. The dsn uses SID= where the examples have SERVICE=; it wasn't until I read the user comments in the php manual that they suggested SID= for php's oci_connect.
Here's what I have for CodeIgniter:
$dsn_string = "(DESCRIPTION = (ADDRESS = (PROTOCOL = TCP)(HOST = HOSTNAME)(PORT = 1521))(CONNECT_DATA =(SERVER = DEDICATED)(SID = MYSID)))";
$db['default'] = array(
'dsn' => $dsn_string,
'hostname' => 'HOSTNAME',
'username' => 'USERNAME',
'password' => 'PASSWORD',
'database' => 'DB',
'dbdriver' => 'oci8',
'dbprefix' => '',
'pconnect' => FALSE,
'db_debug' => (ENVIRONMENT !== 'production'),
'cache_on' => FALSE,
'cachedir' => '',
'char_set' => 'utf8',
'dbcollat' => 'utf8_general_ci',
'swap_pre' => '',
'encrypt' => FALSE,
'compress' => FALSE,
'stricton' => FALSE,
'failover' => array(),
'save_queries' => TRUE
);
Any ideas about what may be happening? I'm going to try a few other things as well. I could just ignore CI's db connection, but since I'm using it mainly as an api provider for an angular front end, the db is the biggest reason I'm even using CI.
Thanks!

Answer 1

#Tpojka - I have to use the server I'm given, but turns out this wasn't the issue.
The problem was the .htaccess file. I used an existing .htaccess and it had the following line:
DirectoryIndex index.php
I didn't think anything of it at first since that's a pretty normal line, but then I realized that I had changed my config.php to remove index.php from the url. As soon as I removed that line from .htaccess everything started working again.
Sheesh. I didn't think that could result in database errors, but that was the ultimate fix to get rid of the last of the errors.