PHP and MySQL not working when transferred online - php

Question

I created a phonebook in HTML, PHP and MySQL. All it does is:
Add Contact
Delete Contact
View all contacts
This works perfectly on my local machine within XAMPP. I transferred everything online to my godaddy hosting account. I had to create new connection details to the database and everything worked well except...
now -> Delete Contact is not working. It outputs 'Contact deleted' but nothing is deleted.
Here is the source code below, can someone assist?
<?php
require 'database/connect.php';
if(isset($_POST['firstname'])) {
$name = $_POST['firstname'];
$name = mysql_real_escape_string($name);
$query = "DELETE FROM contacts WHERE first_name='{$name}'";
$result = $db->query($query);
if($result) {
print 'Contact deleted';
} else {
print 'Error: '. $db->errno;
}
} else {
print 'Nothing is set';
}
$db->close();
print '<br>';
print '<form action="index.html" action="GET">';
print '<input type="submit" value="Main Screen">';
print '</form>';
?>

Answer 1

You are mixing MySQL APIs usng mysql_real_escape_string() which should be its mysqli_ equivalent mysqli_real_escape_string().
Those different APIs do not intermix with each other.
While passing the DB connection parameter to it:
Procedural style
$name = mysqli_real_escape_string($db,$name);
or as Object oriented style:
$name = $db->real_escape_string($name);
From the manual: http://php.net/manual/en/mysqli.real-escape-string.php
Object oriented style
string mysqli::escape_string ( string $escapestr )
Procedural style
string mysqli_real_escape_string ( mysqli $link , string $escapestr )

Answer 2

$query = "DELETE FROM contacts WHERE first_name='{$name}'";
maybe if you write it like:
$query = "DELETE FROM contacts WHERE first_name='$name'";
without the "{}" because the query is looking for something like : "{some people}" including the "{}"
you are getting the "Contact deleted" because is deleted the term where found {some people} or it delete 0 items and it's a valid query with 0 rows affected.
Sorry for the bad english... :( i hope the answer can help you...