PHP header location not redirecting

Question

I was trying to make a hangman game with php add I got the whole thing to work, execpt that if you run out of guesses it doesn't redirect to fail.php. The weird thing is that is does redirect if you win. I don't know whats wrong this is my quess_letter.php file:

<?php
ob_start();
$letter = $_POST['letter'];
if (preg_match('/^[a-zA-Z]$/', $letter)) {

    $guesses = intval(substr($_COOKIE['hangman'], 0, 1));

    $word = explode(" ", $_COOKIE['hangman_word']);
    if (!strpos($_COOKIE['hangman_word'], $letter) && $letter != substr($_COOKIE['hangman_word'], 0, 1)) {
        $guesses -= 1;
        if ($guesses == 0) {
            header("location: fail.php");
        }
    }

    $i = 0;
    foreach(str_split($word[0]) as $l) {
        if ($l == $letter) {
            $word[1][$i] = $l;
        }
        $i++;
    }

    $new_cookie = strval($guesses) . " " . substr($_COOKIE['hangman'], 1) . $letter . " ";

    setcookie('hangman', $new_cookie, time() + 3600 * 24);
    setcookie('hangman_word', "$word[0] $word[1]", time() + 3600 * 24);
    if ($word[0] != $word[1]) {
        header("location: index.php");
    } else {
        header("location: win.php");
    }
} else {
    header("location: index.php?error=true");
}

?>

This is the whole file. It's supposed to redirect when $guesses is equal to 0. And theres nothing being printed before the redirect. I've researched it and none of the answers worked. Could someone explain what is wrong? Thanks

Answer 1

if your are sure that $guesses will get to '0' exactly then

try

if ($guesses == 0) 
{
header("location: fail.php");
exit(); 
}