Pagination with PDO and MySQL - php

Question

Im trying to return all records from my database and paginate them accordingly,
I have the following I've managed to wrangle together from a tutorial only It doesnt seem to output anything to my browser so I presume I've made an error in my syntax?
// No County Selected
try
{
$per_page = '3';
$res = $conn->prepare("SELECT * FROM directory WHERE user_active != ''");
$rows = $res ->fetchAll();
$total_records = count($rows);
$pages = ceil($total_records / $per_page);
$page = (isset ($_GET['page'])) ? (int) $_GET['page'] : 1 ;
$start = ($page - 1) * $per_page;
$query = $db->query("SELECT * FROM directory LIMIT $start , $per_page");
while($row = $query->fetch(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)){
echo '<br>' . $row['id'];
} ?>
<br><br>
<?php
if ($pages >= 1 && $page <= $pages){
//if ($page>1 && $page <= $pages){$previous=($page -1); echo 'Previous';}
for($x=1; $x<=$pages; $x++){ echo ($x == $page) ? ' <strong>'.$x.'</strong> ' : ' '.$x.' ';}
//if ($page>1 && $page <= $pages){ $next=($page+1) ; echo 'Next';}
}

Answer 1

You have a logical flaw in your queries. The condition mismatches between the query you use to obtain the total count:
SELECT * FROM directory WHERE user_active != ''
and the query you use to fetch the limited (paginated) rows:
SELECT * FROM directory LIMIT $start , $per_page
Both queries should share the same conditions. Additionally, the first query should only COUNT the rows, not return them all:
SELECT COUNT(1) FROM directory WHERE user_active != ''
You will then find the number of rows (count) in the first column of the first result-row.