Query isn't inserting into database

Question

I am attempting to implement a click count system. I am using the following code in this link Click here to see code, but changing it to modern standards. Initially I received errors for the msqli_real_escape_ string, but I believed I resolved it(no errors). Now, I am not receiving any errors at all, but the query is not sending into my database. I am using ini_set('display_errors', 1); error_reporting(E_ALL); for error checking. Also I have my $con and session in and ini file that I call, so the session and connection are not issues.

Does anyone see what I am doing wrong or is there a good way I can check to see what isn't working?

//create current page constant
$curPage = mysqli_real_escape_string($con,htmlspecialchars($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']));

//set number of clicks variable to 0
$clicks = 0;

//do not recount if page currently loaded
if($_SESSION['page'] != $curPage) {
   //set current page as session variable
   $_SESSION['page'] = $curPage;

    $click_sql = "
    SELECT *
    FROM click_count
    WHERE page_url = ?
    ";
    if (!$click_stmt = $con->prepare($click_sql)) {
        $click_stmt->bind_param("s", $curPage);
        $click_stmt->execute();
        $num_rows = $click_stmt->fetchColumn();
        if (!$click_stmt->errno) {
            // Handle error here
        }
        $stmt->bind_result($click_id, $page_url, $page_count);
    } elseif ($num_rows == 0) {
        //try to create new record and set count for new page to 1
         //output error message if problem encountered
            $click_insert_stmt = "
            INSERT INTO click_count 
            (page_url, page_count)
            VALUES(?, ?)";

         if(!$click_stmt = $con->prepare($click_insert_stmt)) {
            $click_insert_stmt->execute(array('$curPage',1));
            echo "Could not create new click counter.";
         }
         else {
            $clicks= 1;
         }
    } else {
    //get number of clicks for page and add 1     fetch(PDO::FETCH_BOTH)
        while($click_row = $click_insert_stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_BOTH)) {
            $clicks = $row['page_count'] + 1;
            //update click count in database;
            //report error if not updated

            $click_update_stmt = "
            UPDATE click_count
            SET page_count = ?
            WHERE page_url = ?
            ";
            if(!$click_stmt = $con->prepare("$click_update_stmt")) {
                $click_update_stmt->execute(array('$clicks', '$curPage')); 
                echo "Could not save new click count for this page.";
         }
        }
    }
}

Edit: New Updated Code

// ********Page count************

//create current page constant
$curPage = mysqli_real_escape_string($con,($_SERVER['PHP_SELF']));

//set number of clicks variable to 0
$clicks = 0;

//do not recount if page currently loaded
if($_SESSION['page'] != $curPage) {
   //set current page as session variable
   $_SESSION['page'] = $curPage;

    $click_sql = "
    SELECT *
    FROM click_count
    WHERE page_url = ?
    ";
    if (!$click_stmt = $con->prepare($click_sql)) {
        $click_stmt->bind_param("s", $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);
        $click_stmt->execute();
        $num_rows = $click_stmt->fetchColumn();
        if (!$click_stmt->errno) {
            // Handle error here
        }
        $stmt->bind_result($click_id, $page_url, $page_count);
    } elseif ($num_rows == 0) {
        //try to create new record and set count for new page to 1
         //output error message if problem encountered
            $click_insert_stmt = "
            INSERT INTO click_count 
            (page_url, page_count)
            VALUES(?, ?)";

         if(!$click_stmt = $con->prepare($click_insert_stmt)) {
            $click_insert_stmt->execute(array($curPage,1));
            echo "Could not create new click counter.";
         }
         else {
            $clicks= 1;
         }
    } else {
    //get number of clicks for page and add 1     fetch(PDO::FETCH_BOTH)
        while($click_row = $click_insert_stmt->fetch(PDO::FETCH_BOTH)) {
            $clicks = $row['page_count'] + 1;
            //update click count in database;
            //report error if not updated

            $click_update_stmt = "
            UPDATE click_count
            SET page_count=page_count+1
            WHERE page_url = ?
            ";
            if(!$click_stmt = $con->prepare("$click_update_stmt")) {
                $click_update_stmt->execute(array($curPage)); 
                echo "Could not save new click count for this page.";
         }
        }
    }
}

Answer 1

It looks like you're doing a lot of stuff like this:

$click_update_stmt->execute(array('$clicks', '$curPage'));

I'm not sure where you picked up this habit of quoting variables as strings, but you need to drop it. '$x' and $x are two hugely different things. In the first case it's literally '$x' and in the second case it's whatever the $x variable happens to represent.

Fix it like this:

$click_update_stmt->execute(array($clicks, $curPage));

Also since you're using prepared statements, which by the way is great, you do not need to and should not manually escape your values. Applying them to placeholders with bind_param is the safe way of doing it. Doing any other escaping mangles the data.

Just bind directly to the source:

$click_stmt->bind_param("s", $_SERVER['PHP_SELF']);

Don't arbitrarily run things like htmlspecialchars on input out of paranoia or because you're doing cargo-cult programming and you saw it done in a YouTube tutorial somewhere. That function is intended to be used to display values only, not store them. Data in your database should be as raw as possible.

There's a lot of problems with this code, and one of them that has me confused is why there's so much code. Remember SELECT * and then binding results to arbitrary variables is trouble, your schema might change and then your code is out of sync. Whenever possible fetch rows as an associative array if doing this, then all you have to worry about is renamed ore removed columns.

The biggest problem is this is subject to race conditions because it doesn't use an atomic increment. When writing counters, always do your updates as operations that are a single statement:

UPDATE click_count SET page_count=page_count+1 WHERE page_url=?

Your approach of reading the count, incrementing it, and then writing it back into the database means that you're inviting problems if another operation runs concurrently, something very likely on click-counter code.