ciblog | Simple blog built on Codeigniter | Web Framework library

I am having problem autoloading the form_validation library in Codeigniter. I have a controller Posts with a create function which works great.

I am working on a basic blog application with Codeigniter 3.1.8. and Bootstrap 4. The application has a search posts functionality.

The form in the header view:

I am working on a basic blog application in Codeigniter 3.1.8.

The posts are diaplayed on the homepage and also filtered by categories.

Whenever I try to view a post from a category page its url has the category id at the end, instead of the post id. All post in the category with id 1 link to http://localhost/ciblog/posts/post/1.

In the Posts_model model there is:

I am working on a basic blog application in Codeigniter 3.1.8.

There is a create post and an update post functionality.

When a post is created, there is the option to upload a post thumbnail, else a default image is displayed. In the post controller there is the method for creating posts:

I'm new to PHP and CodeIgniter, and I'm having trouble setting up the routing of static pages in my CodeIgniter app.

I have the ciblog/pages/views/about and it works.
I want to change it into ciblog/about.
I already have in the routes.php the $route['(:any)'] = 'pages/view/$1';
and it doesn't work it says in the browser:

page not found..

Please please help me I want to learn how to set up a static page....

Here is the code in the routes.php

So here is what I had before. If I'd go to ciblog/categories/posts/5/, it would take me to a page showing all posts with a category with the id of 5.

And here is what I want to do. I want to go to ciblog/categories/posts/5 and it would show be 5 posts lets say. Then when I go to ciblog/categories/posts/5/3 it would offset by 3 so now I have the next 3 posts.

Currently I have 4 posts, just for testing. If I directly through my url go to ciblog/categories/posts/5 it shows 3 posts, and if I go to ciblog/categories/posts/5/3 it shows my one other post, so the amount of posts I am getting is correct based on the url.

BUT at the bottom it always shows that I am on page 2. When I use F12 and look at the elements both my pagination links show ciblog/categories/posts/5 So its not adding on the number at the end

Here is what I have for the pagination for this page. I used print_r and everything in $config is correct.