PHP header() not redirecting properly

Question

header() will not redirect to the page I wanted. There are no error msgs and header function works fine in Xampp but not in production web-server.

What I'm trying to accomplish is that in the table of links, when I click on APR button, the STATUS column changes to "Approved" immediately. This work in localhost environment but not in production server.

I've already tried ob_start and ob_end_flush, I've also checked if there are any white spaces or lines.

I also removed "./" preceding index.php.

// this is the reservation.php
if (isset($_GET['apr'])) {
  $rsID = $_GET['apr'];
  $query = $conn->query("UPDATE reservations SET reservStatus = True WHERE 
  reservID = $rsID");
  header("location: ./index.php");
}

// this is the index.php
<?php
   require 'header.php';

   if (isset($_SESSION['user_info'])) {
     include 'reservation.php';
   } else {
     include 'login.form.php';
   }

   include 'footer.php';

I expected it would redirect to the index.php and from there, if session has been started, it would direct the page back to reservation.php

Answer 1

The PHP script will not stop even after redirect header, You have to stop the PHP script from keep loading by calling die(); function

// this is the reservation.php
if (isset($_GET['apr'])) {
  $rsID = $_GET['apr'];
  $query = $conn->query("UPDATE reservations SET reservStatus = True WHERE 
  reservID = $rsID");
  header("location: ./index.php")

  // Add these two lines
  die();
  exit();
}

You too can add these line below every redirect header in your script, Thanks....

update

I think I am getting your problem, what I have get till now is that you are redirecting the page after your welcome message in header section of your website is displayed,

So actually you can't call header function after any type of output(via PHP) send to the browser (In your case the welcome message in header section) because PHP initially send Content-type header to the browser before you first display any thing on browser from PHP

Now, you have two ways to that

1) Include JavaScript for redirection

replace your header line in reservation.php with this

echo ("<script> window.location = 'http://cdnj-nas.synology.me/cdnj/index.php'; </script>");

Or, if this not works

echo ("<script> location.replace('http://cdnj-nas.synology.me/cdnj/index.php');  </script>");

2) you can check this condition of redirection in header.php file at top