There is a bug in codeigniter. Inserting one line into a class will fix the whole thing. Here is the original source: http://koorb.wordpress.com/2007/11/16/codeigniter-connect-to-multiple-databases/
** This fix does not apply to PostgreSQL
Here is a copy just in case that site goes down.
The line number has changed. Here is the bug fix from codeigniter:
start bugfix
Description
all of the database calls go to the same database (last one initialized)
To fix the problem change the simple_query function in /system/database/DB_driver.php:
function simple_query($sql)
{
if ( ! $this->conn_id)
{
$this->initialize();
}
$this->db_select(); //<----------------- Added this line
return $this->_execute($sql);
}
This completely fixes the problem, so you can do stuff like this in a model
$this->legacy_db = $this->load->database('legacy', true);