php mysql bind param parameters

Question

I'm trying out using prepared statements for the first time and running into the following issue with the below code

Error :

Warning: mysqli_stmt_bind_param() expects parameter 1 to be mysqli_stmt, boolean given

Code :

$stmt = mysqli_prepare($db, "INSERT INTO fragrances(name, description, essentialoils, topnotes, middlenotes, basenotes, reference, year, type, price, fragrancehouse, triangle, extractname, extractreference, extractprice, extractfragrancehouse, disccolour, collarcolour, actuatorcolour)
    VALUES(?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)"); 
mysqli_stmt_bind_param($stmt, 'sssssssssssssssssss', $name, $description, $essentialoils, $topnotes, $middlenotes, $basenotes, $reference, $year, $type, $price, $fragrancehouse, $triangle, $extractname, $extractreference, $extractprice, $extractfragrancehouse, $disccolour, $collarcolour, $actuatorcolour);

mysqli_stmt_execute($stmt); 

I've looked at many different questions on here and none of their solutions seem to apply for my problem, does anyone know what the issue is?

Answer 1

$stmt becomes a boolean only when mysqli_prepare returns false.

When this happens it means it failed to prepare the query therefore you need to check for errors:

$stmt = mysqli_stmt_init($db);
if (mysqli_stmt_prepare($stmt, 'INSERT INTO fragrances VALUES...')) {
    //it's all good bind and execute here
}else{
   //we have a problem
   printf("Errormessage: %s\n", mysqli_error($db));
}