[php] PHP cURL HTTP CODE return 0

I dont understand when I echo $httpCode I always get 0, I was expecting 404 when I change $html_brand into a broken url. Is there anything that I miss or do not know of? Thanks.

 //check if url exist
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $html_brand);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, TRUE);
$response = curl_exec($ch); 
$httpCode = curl_getinfo($ch, CURLINFO_HTTP_CODE);

if ($httpCode == 404) {
    echo "The Web Page Cannot Be Found";
    return;
}
curl_close($ch);

Another reason for PHP to return http code 0 is timeout. In my case, I had the following configuration:

curl_setopt($http, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT_MS,500);

It turned out that the request to the endpoint I was pointing to always took more than 500 ms, always timing out and always returning http code 0.

If you remove this setting (CURLOPT_TIMEOUT_MS) or put a higher value (in my case 5000), you'll get the actual http code, in my case a 200 (as expected).

See https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.curl-setopt.php

What is the exact contents you are passing into $html_brand?

If it is has an invalid URL syntax, you will very likely get the HTTP code 0.

If you're using selinux it might be because of security restrictions. Try setting this as root:

# setsebool -P httpd_can_network_connect on

Like said here and below, a failed request (i.e. the server is not found) returns false, no HTTP status code, since a reply has never been received.

Call curl_error().

check the curl_error after the curl_getinfo to find out the hidden errors.

if(curl_errno($ch)){   
    echo 'Curl error: ' . curl_error($ch);
}

Try this after curl_exec to see what's the problem:

print curl_error($ch);

If it's print something like 'malformed' then check your URL format.

Try this:

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);

I had same problem and in my case this was because curl_exec function is disabled in php.ini. Check for logs:

PHP Warning:  curl_exec() has been disabled for security reasons in /var/www/***/html/test.php on line 18

Solution is remove curl_exec from disabled functions in php.ini on server configuration file.