Had the same problem, solved by fixing the action.
$model = new User('search');
$model->unsetAttributes();
if (isset($_GET['User'])){
$arr=array();
parse_str(YII::app()->request->queryString,$arr);
if (!empty($arr['User'])) $_GET['User']=$arr['User'];
$model->attributes=$_GET['User'];
}
It allows to get the filter attributes directly from the URL, not from $_GET array formed by YII with ‘path’ urlManager rules.
perfect, this worked well, in fact other modules were working because they were included in the main.php but not a particular module with whom i had issue