Loading CI instance inside helper, causes problem in library?

[eluser]WanWizard[/eluser]
$this actually points to the CI loader, this is how you can access all libraries, models, etc.
You call the User() method of the customlib before loading the view, so the view is not the issue.

I think the issue here is that you declare the variable $user, but you don't assign it a value so it doesn't actually exist (use isset(), you will see it returns false).