Update user_email via php - WP 4.7

I am brand new to php and web development. I've made a front-end edit profile page for users, and every field updates except email (but, everything else is user meta). I have spent way too long on this to no avail.

There are lots of posts about this, such as this one How do you update user_email on the front end in WP 3.3?, but I cannot get any of the methods suggested to work for me. I am using WP 4.7.3.

This is from the above post. It DOES update the email, but my page hangs indefinitely after I submit my form:

wp_update_user( array( 'ID' = $current_user-ID, 'user_email' = $_POST['email'] ) );

I also tried this way. It does not update the user's email, and it doesn't hang:

$wpdb-update($wpdb-users, array('user_email' = $_POST['email']), array('ID' = $current_user-ID));

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I am pretty sure the issue lies just in this piece of code, but I can include more code if that helps.

Edited: update user profile code. Turns out password hangs indefinitely too.

if ( 'POST' == $_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD']  !empty( $_POST['action'] )  $_POST['action'] == 'update-user' ) {

/* Update user information. */

    // Email
    if (isset( $_POST['email'])) {
            // check if user is really updating the value
            if ($user_email != $_POST['email']) {           
                    // check if email is free to use
                    if (email_exists( $_POST['email'] )){
                        // Email exists, do not update value.
                        $error[] = __('This email is already in use.', 'profile');
                    } 
                    else if (!is_email( $_POST['email'] )){
                        // Not correct email format.
                        $error[] = __('Email is in incorrect format.', 'profile');
                    } 
                    else {
                        wp_update_user( array( 'ID' = $current_user-ID, 'user_email' = $_POST['email'] ) );
                        //$wpdb-update($wpdb-users, array('user_email' = $_POST['email']), array('ID' = $current_user-ID));
                 }   
         }
    }  

    // Password
if ( !empty($_POST['pass1'] )  !empty( $_POST['pass2'] ) ) {
    if ( $_POST['pass1'] == $_POST['pass2'] )
        wp_update_user( array( 'ID' = $current_user-ID, 'user_pass' = esc_attr( $_POST['pass1'] ) ) );
    else {
      $error[] = __('Passwords do not match.', 'profile');
            }
}

    // First name
if ( !empty( $_POST['first-name'] ) ){
    update_user_meta( $current_user-ID, 'first_name', esc_attr( $_POST['first-name'] ) );
    }

    // Last name
if ( !empty( $_POST['last-name'] ) )
    update_user_meta($current_user-ID, 'last_name', esc_attr( $_POST['last-name'] ) );

    // Birth year
if ( !empty( $_POST['birth_year'] ) ) {
        // Make sure it's all numbers
        if (!ctype_digit($_POST['birth_year'])){
    $error[] = __('Please enter a year.', 'profile');
        }
        else
    update_user_meta($current_user-ID, 'birth_year', esc_attr( $_POST['birth_year'] ) );
    }

    // Phone
if ( !empty( $_POST['phone'] ) ) {
    update_user_meta($current_user-ID, 'phone', esc_attr( $_POST['phone'] ) );
    }

    // Street address
if ( !empty( $_POST['address'] ) )
    update_user_meta($current_user-ID, 'street_address', esc_attr( $_POST['address'] ) );

    // City
if ( !empty( $_POST['city'] ) )
    update_user_meta($current_user-ID, 'city', esc_attr( $_POST['city'] ) );

    // State
if ( !empty( $_POST['state'] ) )
    update_user_meta($current_user-ID, 'state', esc_attr( $_POST['state'] ) );

    // Parent's first name
if ( !empty( $_POST['p_first_name'] ) )
    update_user_meta($current_user-ID, 'player_parent_first_name', esc_attr( $_POST['p_first_name'] ) );

    // Parent's last name
if ( !empty( $_POST['p_last_name'] ) )
    update_user_meta($current_user-ID, 'player_parent_last_name', esc_attr( $_POST['p_last_name'] ) );

    // Parent's email
    if (isset( $_POST['p_email'])) {
        // check if user is really updating the value
        if ($user_email != $_POST['p_email']) {       
                if (!is_email( $_POST['p_email'] )){
                    // Not correct email format.
                    $error[] = __('Parent email is in incorrect format.', 'profile');
                } 
                else {
                    $args = array(
                        'ID' = $current_user-id,
                        'player_parent_email' = esc_attr( $_POST['p_email'] )
                );            
                wp_update_user( $args );
                }   
        }
    }

    // Parent's phone
    if ( !empty( $_POST['p_phone'] ) ) {
    update_user_meta($current_user-ID, 'player_parent_phone', esc_attr( $_POST['p_phone'] ) );
    }

/* Redirect so the page will show updated info.*/
    // Make sure there are no errors
if ( count($error) == 0 ) {
            echo "redirecting";
    //action hook for plugins and extra fields saving
    do_action('edit_user_profile_update', $current_user-ID);
            wp_redirect( get_permalink().'?updated=true' );
    exit;
}   
    else {
        // print errors here
    }

}