I'm new to Codegniter so go easy on me. I'm building a simple login form and I have successfully redirected to a page when the login credentials are correct. However, if I submit an empty form I get no error messages. I'm also using set_value in the form field and codeigniter does not refill what the user inputted once the form is submitted. Somehow that data is being cleared. Here are a few things i've done for clarity sake.

1. Auto-loaded the form_validation library
2. Auto-loaded form helper
3. Echoed validation_errors above form

account.php (controller)

<?php if ( ! defined('BASEPATH')) exit('No direct script access allowed');

  class Account extends CI_Controller {

    public function __construct()
    {
      parent::__construct();
      $this->load->model('User_model', 'user');
    }

    public function index() {
      $this->load->view('home');
    }

    public function validate() {

      $this->form_validation->set_rules('username', 'username', 'xss_clean|required');
      $this->form_validation->set_rules('password', 'password', 'xss_clean|required|md5');

      $user_data = array(
        'username' => $this->input->post('username'),
        'password' => MD5($this->input->post('password'))
      );

      if ($this->form_validation->run() == FALSE)
      {
        $data['title'] = "Login Fool";
        $this->load->view('templates/header', $data);
        $data['contents'] = $this->load->view('login_view', $data, TRUE);
        $this->load->view('page', $data);
        $this->load->view('templates/footer');
      }
      else
      {
        $validated = $this->user->validate($user_data['username'], $user_data['password']);
        if($validated){
          redirect(base_url() . 'account');
        }
        else{
          $this->session->set_flashdata('LoginError', 'Sorry, your credentials are incorrect.');
          redirect(base_url() . 'account/login');
        }

       }

    }

  public function login() {

    $data['title'] = "Login Fool";
    $this->load->view('templates/header', $data);
    $data['contents'] = $this->load->view('login_view', NULL, TRUE);
    $this->load->view('page', $data);
    $this->load->view('templates/footer');

  }

}

login_view.php (view)

<h1>Login Now</h1>
<?php
  if(validation_errors() != false) {
    echo "<div id='errors'>" . validation_errors() . "</div>" ;
  }
?>
<?= ($this->session->flashdata('LoginError')) ? '<p class="LoginError">' . $this->session->flashdata('LoginError') . '</p>' : NULL ?>

<?php echo form_open('account/validate'); ?>
   <label for="username">Username:</label>
   <input type="text" size="20" id="username" name="username" value="<?php echo set_value('username'); ?>"/>
   <br/>
   <label for="password">Password:</label>
   <input type="password" size="20" id="passowrd" name="password" value="<?php echo set_value('password'); ?>"/>
   <br/>
   <input type="submit" value="Login"/>
 </form>

Any ideas why the errors won't show above the form?