php - Mysqli prepare giving error, even though SQL statement is valid?

I'm having some trouble with a SQL transaction using PHP and mySQL. Here is my statement:

START TRANSACTION;
INSERT INTO listings (title, price, seller, description, time, featured)
              VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, 0);
SELECT @listingid:=LAST_INSERT_ID();

INSERT INTO pictures (listid, primarypic)
                VALUES (@listingid, 1);
COMMIT;

While this statement works fine when I put it in directly using phpMyAdmin (substituting the ? marks), it seems to fail when I call

$stmt = $mysqli->prepare("statement");

Replace "statement" with the above statement. The fact that it fails before getting to the bind_param of the $stmt leaves me to believe that it is not a problem with the parameters, but rather the query.

Here is the exact error, if it helps:

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'INSERT INTO listings (title, price, seller, description, time, featured) ' at line 2

Thanks in advance for your help!

Answer

I don't think mysqli can handle compound statements like that (especially since there is a separate commit() function). Instead of START TRANSACTION; at the beginning and COMMIT; at the end, you'd do $mysqli->autocommit(false); before the query and $mysqli->commit(); when you're done.