I found out that on cakephp 1.2 RC3 you must use the new $Model->find() style or the query will break. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 //in the controller use this… $this->Post->find(’first’, $params);   //instead of the ‘old’ style… $this->Post->find($conditions);   //so that in the model, you can do something [...]