So I'm using CodeIgniter to build a website and I've made it so that all my specific settings are stored in a config file that's automatically loaded. I've also built a page that loads the settings file, makes a nice little table and allows me to edit everything from that page, afterwards it saves the entire page again (I know I could've done the same with a database but I want to try it this way).

My problem is that I can't seem to use this bit when autoloading of my config file is enabled, but when I disable autoloading I can't seem to manually load it, it never finds my variables. So what I'm doing here is just taking all values from the config file and putting them in a single array so I can pass this array onto my settings administration page (edit/show all settings).

$this->config->load('site_settings', TRUE);
$data['settings'] = $this->config->item('site_settings');
...
$this->load->view('template', $data);

config/site_settings.php

 <?php
    if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');
    $config['header_img'] = './img/header/';
    $config['copyright_text'] = 'Copyright Instituto Kabu';
    $config['copyright_font'] = './system/fonts/motoroil.ttf';
    $config['copyright_font_color'] = 'ffffff';
    $config['copyright_font_size'] = '32';