stopping infinite loop - php

Question

I am building a social network via code igniter. Upon registration, the potential member get's stored in the db, and their status get's marked to pending. I then send them a confirmation email with a hashed token link. When they hit the link it marks their account as active and takes them to a welcome page that has a sign in.
When I go to the link it sets of an infinite loop and freezes my computer when I'm working on my MAMP. ( or I'm suspicious that it's an infinite loop )
Here is my pertinent code:
auth CONTROLLER that sends the email:
function varification_email()
{
$query = $this->db->query('SELECT * FROM users order by id desc LIMIT 1');
$token = sha1($user->email.$user->salt).dechex($user->id);
$domain = "clci.dev/index.php";
$link = "http://www.".$domain."/account/confirmation/?token=$token";
foreach ($query->result() as $user)
{
$this->load->library('email');
$this->email->from('noreply#cysticlife.org', 'CysticLife');
$this->email->to($user->email);
$this->email->subject('Welcome to CysticLife!');
$this->email->message("Thanks for signing up for CysticLife! To complete the registration process please go to the following web address:\n\n$link\n\n-Your friends at CysticLife\n\nPlease remember to add the cysticlife.org domain to your address book to ensure that you receive your CysticLife e-Notifications as requested.eh");
$this->email->send();
}
account CONTROLLER that the user is linked back to from the email:
public function confirmation() {
$data['main_content'] = 'account/confirmation';
$this->load->view('includes/templates/main_page_template', $data);
$this->load->library('encrypt');
$this->load->helper('url');
$this->load->library('session');
$this->load->model('user_model', 'um');
$login = $this->input->post('submit');
//IF THE SUBMIT BUTTON IS TRIGGERED THE POST DATA IS SENT TO THE VALIDATE FUNCTION IN THE MODEL VIA VARIABLES CREATED
if($login) {
$user = $this->um->validate(array('email' => $this->input->post('email')));
if( $user ) {
// CHECK THE USER'S PASSWORD AGAINST THE ONE FROM THE LOGIN FORM
if($user->password == $this->encrypt->sha1( $user->salt . $this->encrypt->sha1($this->input->post('password')))) {
$this->session->set_userdata('logged_in', TRUE);
$this->session->set_userdata(array(
'email' => $this->input->post('email')
));
$this->session->userdata('logged_in');
redirect('account/dashboard');
exit;
}
}
}
$this->index();
}
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

varification_email()
In varification_email(), $user is used before it is defined. I assume the real code doesn't have this issue.
Your method for selecting the user in the DB in prone to concurrency errors (wrong user returned).
confirmation()
I already had encountered browser hangs because of too large cookies, exceeding something like 4 kB. Have a look at that.
The problem might be in user_model->validate(). Comment out the following of the code and check if it works.