Is input->post meant to strip tabs?

You could try this, not tested.

PHP Code:

$this->input->post(htmlspecialchars('tabbed_content')); 


Yes, that worked, but it's still confusing because htmlspecalcharacters reportedly doesn't perform translations on backslashes.

But anyway, thanks for the remedy.

Edit: does htmlspecialchars() act as a good replacement for xss_clean, because I just found I am having the same issue with that too. I could of course run some tests, but perhaps you already know the answer