"mi volt a tesztkörnyezet"
Itt eléggé pontatlan volt, amit írtam, mert nem csak a konfiguráció érdekelt volna, hanem a konkrét kód.

A Kohanás kódra:
igazából abbahagytam a bemásolást, és nem raktam be azt, amit még kellett volna: a _load_result() függvényt:

..............
/**
* Loads a database result, either as a new record for this model, or as
* an iterator for multiple rows.
*
* @chainable
* @param bool $multiple Return an iterator or load a single row
* @return ORM|Database_Result
*/
protected function _load_result($multiple = FALSE)
{
$this->_db_builder->from(array($this->_table_name, $this->_object_name));

if ($multiple === FALSE)
{
// Only fetch 1 record
$this->_db_builder->limit(1);
}

// Select all columns by default
$this->_db_builder->select($this->_object_name.'.*');

if ( ! isset($this->_db_applied['order_by']) AND ! empty($this->_sorting))
{
foreach ($this->_sorting as $column => $direction)
{
if (strpos($column, '.') === FALSE)
{
// Sorting column for use in JOINs
$column = $this->_object_name.'.'.$column;
}

$this->_db_builder->order_by($column, $direction);
}
}

if ($multiple === TRUE)
{
// Return database iterator casting to this object type
$result = $this->_db_builder->as_object(get_class($this))->execute($this->_db);

$this->reset();

return $result;
}
else
{
// Load the result as an associative array
$result = $this->_db_builder->as_assoc()->execute($this->_db);

$this->reset();

if ($result->count() === 1)
{
// Load object values
$this->_load_values($result->current());
}
else
{
// Clear the object, nothing was found
$this->clear();
}

return $this;
}
}
.....

Sk8erPeter