PHP database search works on XAMPP but not web hosting server?

Hello,

I'm working on a personal webpage with very limited knowledge of html so please bear with me.

I'm trying to search and display results from a sql database using php. While building and testing my code on XAMPP, the following code worked just fine:

$con = new PDO('sqlite:database.db');

$search=(!empty($_POST['search']) ? $_POST['search'] : null);

$query = $con->query("select * from Directory where Name LIKE '$search'");

$results = $query->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);

I have an input box named "search", and I used a .db file named database.

However, my search function fails to work when I uploaded it to my web hosting server. I've added echo functions to see where the code stops running (not really sure if this is the correct way to find codes that don't work) and anything beyond $results don't seem to be running at all on my php page.

I've tried changing around the coding to the best of my ability, but I'm at a loss.

Is it possible that my web hosting server doesn't allow me to use a .db file? I did set the server to php 7, is my code not compatible with php7? I cannot seem to figure out why the same code works on XAMPP, but not on my hosting server. My XAMPP does runs in 5.6, but my hosting server only offers 5.2, 5.3, 5.5, and 7.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.