Is my Codeigniter .htaccess messed up?

Ok so i have this in my .httaccess

DirectoryIndex index.php
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond $1 !^(index\.php|image开发者_StackOverflows|css|js|robots\.txt|favicon\.ico)
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ ./index.php/$1 [L,QSA]

and this in my config

$config['index_page'] = "";

which seems to allow me to do this

http://localhost/ci_example/site

instead of this..which is good so far

http://localhost/ci_example/index.php/site

but now when i try to visit my welcome controller with

http://localhost/ci_example/welcome 

it redirects me to

http://localhost/

why the redirect and what can i do to stop that ....the welcome controller has this

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

Use RewriteBase

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /ci_example/

Methinks that your rewrite rule should be
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /ci_example/index.php/$1 [L,QSA]

I use this:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteBase /CodeIgniter/

    #Removes access to the system folder by users.
    #Additionally this will allow you to create a System.php controller,
    #previously this would not have been possible.
    #'system' can be replaced if you have renamed your system folder.
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^system.*
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]

    #When your application folder isn't in the system folder
    #This snippet prevents user access to the application folder
    #Submitted by: Fabdrol
    #Rename 'application' to your applications folder name.
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} ^application.*
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /index.php?/$1 [L]

    #Checks to see if the user is attempting to access a valid file,
    #such as an image or css document, if this isn't true it sends the
    #request to index.php
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
    RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ index.php?/$1 [L]

    </IfModule>

    <IfModule !mod_rewrite.c>
        # If we don't have mod_rewrite installed, all 404's
        # can be sent to index.php, and everything works as normal.
        # Submitted by: ElliotHaughin

    ErrorDocument 404 /index.php
</IfModule>