Looks like because PHP is on the server it sometimes doesn’t update. I literally end up having to copy my answer, refresh page, restart the code from scratch and then paste it in. Most of the time it doesnt read code beyond some point. I dont know what that happens but it makes it very hard to proceed.
When this happens a suggested fix
Codecademy, PLEASE work on the PHP course! 
Every day I set aside an hour of my time to learn how to code.
Finished the HTML/CSS track last week without issues.
Now I’ve decided PHP as my next step, it’s so frustrating.
Every day for the past three 3 days, that one hour codecademy time has been a waste.
Every time I hit the save and submit button after going through the instructions, I get an endless spinning wheel. 
I’ve tried different browsers, cleared cache and even skipped some lessons but I keep bumping into this issue.
Codecademy, please solve this.
I really want this!
Same is true for me.
I tried with Firefox and Chromium on Ubuntu 15.04.
same here. dunno what happened to this.
Same, for “While Loops in PHP”
please fix.
Same for me. I am “Control Flow: Switch”… I have an endless spinning wheel. I have been trying to get past this spot since yesterday
Same. Using latest Chrome in Windows 10.
We are sorry, sometimes we have too many learners on our platform and things can get slow. We’ll look into fixing this.
The other languages that are used in web development that can operate the same way as PHP are Java, Ruby, Python, and Javascript. We would also like to suggest taking one of those other courses potentially as a replacement.
Thank you,
AlexB
-Codecademy Community Manager
1 Like
So it it is still broken, I have already done Python, Javascript, Ruby, I would like to do PHP now
This course is incredibly broken. You can circumvent a lot of the initial errors by preforming a lot of reload/save cryptographic entries if you use Chrome. It appears that a teaching site is unable to code in compliance with (literally) the most popular browser on the web. If you download Firefox the errors appear to be limited. I have no idea about IE because I refuse to update it and the version I have prints it as 1995 internet standards.
You want to know why so many people are having trouble getting through this course?
Because you people DID NOT THOROUGHLY DEBUG IT!
Now, there are two sides to every story. But you should have checked for bugs and alerted people when you found them!
This is the problem with UNIT 5. For Loops In PHP:
The lesson; “Writing Your First ‘For’ Loop” is bugged.
Whenever anybody tries to get past this they get one of the following errors:
Stop having the code automatically run. It is causing problems.
Oh and I believe is an issue somewhere in UNIT 6: While Loops in PHP.
Yup. The people at Codecademy are aware of that.
Codecademy recommends trying again, or taking the Learn Rails course instead:
Our PHP code submission system is getting old, and it still gets a lot of traffic from learners. Those circumstances combined can sometimes make it unresponsive for people.
My advice is to try again, or better yet learn Ruby on Rails. It’s a newer course that teaches more relevant skills to today’s market
- PHP course doesn’t work
A note to anyone else frustrated about this, before we get a big pile of comments here:
Codecademy has no plans whatsoever to fix this course in the foreseeable future
So there’s no need for you to ask or complain about this issue.
I know it’s frustrating and I am sorry about this, but please just try again later if you would like to take the course.
It crashes multiple times every lesson–not even funny anymore. Multiple users have posted on this. Why no fix? This should be first priority.
yeah AND the PHP, ruby AND python courses can’t even load for me for the first lesson of each course i get a stuck buffering icon
From what I learnt, it will check your code, and then if there is a problem in it, it will get itself stuck in an infinite loop, so the only way to fix it is to refresh your browser.
I just copied all the code, refreshed, and pasted it all in.
1 Like
Yeah, I can’t get to the course, the spinner keeps spinning and a lot of alerts that I need to reload page, because something went wrong, etc., that’s pretty annoying.
Please fix it ASAP. Thanks
For some reason the PHP lesson displays an error: that tells me to refresh the page, this happens at random intervals for no reason at all. this occurs on all computer I use so I know it’s not the computer itself.
the error say
Something went wrong 
Click Close to try again or refresh the page.
To whom it may concern…
#Please display the FULL HTML&PHP code you were using…
and
#mention the Browser Version and Operating system which you were using
and use the solution as mentioned by @mtf
placing a <php echo ?>
to break the =background-worker= from executing
##OR
Use the construct
<php
function learn() {
//here you place your exercise code
}
learn
?>
and if you are confident that your code might be correct place a pair of parenthesis-( )
behind the learn
like
<php
function learn() {
//here you place your exercise code
}
learn();
?>
Before you press the SUBMIT button do a _refresh Browser_.....The Save & Submit button causes the page to hang with regularity - almost every exercise. I have to refresh the page, sometimes multiple times, and then re-input the working code. (If I don’t re-input it, even if it is still saved and visible on the page, sometimes pushing submit, it will not recognize the code as working correctly). This is happening on almost every PHP exercise. It seems to only occur if I put in the correct answer (it immediately presents an error if the answer isn’t correct).