Well, nobody will ever tell you, since nobody (except probably you) can know what's behind the
tbl_record.fnFilter (regex,1,false);
function call.
Just a question: if you put all this on a button click event instead of ready - is it working?
Are you sure your code is executed
after the data you want to filter is actually there?
You might want to use something like
this[
^] to ensure that your code is run last. But be aware, that jquery api may also change, thus you might need to do a little tweaking.
This[
^] should also be helpful.