Confusing Session Class change

I'm running CI v.3.03 confusing is an understatement. I have the session library autoloaded, I get the session set but it's not holding through the site. I have a login, once you are authenticated it sets session variables to state your logged in. but once you redirect to the page the person logged in from the sessions are gone? I've done everything I can think of, I check session state through every line of code right up to where it redirects then the session variables get dropped. CI's own session handler in these later versions is a real pain. I understand the theory of why they have changed it, but it doesn't make the session class any easier to work with.