CakePHP - can't email via SMTP - cakephp

Question

pulling my hair out with this one.
When I developed this cakephp (2.2) app on my local machine, I could email via gmail using smtp without a problem. Since then I've deployed it onto a 1and1 server and I can no longer send. What even more frustrating is that I cant seem to get any decent debugging info from cake.
Heres the code:
if($fu['name']) {
$url = Router::url('/admin/', true );
$ms = $url;
$ms = wordwrap($ms,1000);
//============Email================//
// SMTP Options
$this->Email->smtpOptions = array(
'port'=>'465',
'timeout'=>'30',
'host' => 'ssl://smtp.gmail.com',
'username'=>'myemail#gmail.com',
'password'=>'password'
);
$this->Email->template = 'newExpenseClaim';
$this->Email->from = 'Expense Tracker <myemail#email.co.uk>';
$this->Email->to = 'myemail#fakeemail.com';
$this->Email->subject = 'New Expense Claim Submitted - Please Review';
$this->Email->sendAs = 'both';
$this->Email->delivery = 'smtp';
// Set username & url in email
$this->set('user', $fu['name']);
$this->set('ms', $ms);
//$this->Email->send();
if(!$this->Email->send()) {
CakeLog::write('debug', $this->Email->smtpError);
}
$this->set('smtp_errors', $this->Email->smtpError);
//============EndEmail=============//
}
I get the following debug info each times it fails (printed on screen, nothing goes into the debug log which is massively anoying).
Connection refused
Error: An Internal Error Has Occurred.
Stack Trace
CORE/Cake/Network/Email/SmtpTransport.php line 95 → CakeSocket->connect()
CORE/Cake/Network/Email/SmtpTransport.php line 60 → SmtpTransport->_connect()
CORE/Cake/Network/Email/CakeEmail.php line 1059 → SmtpTransport->send(CakeEmail)
CORE/Cake/Controller/Component/EmailComponent.php line 345 → CakeEmail->send(null)
APP/Controller/ExpenseClaimsController.php line 236 → EmailComponent->send()
APP/Controller/ExpenseClaimsController.php line 278 → ExpenseClaimsController->notifyAdminsOfNewClaims()
[internal function] → ExpenseClaimsController->add()
CORE/Cake/Controller/Controller.php line 485 → ReflectionMethod->invokeArgs(ExpenseClaimsController, array)
CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php line 186 → Controller->invokeAction(CakeRequest)
CORE/Cake/Routing/Dispatcher.php line 161 → Dispatcher->_invoke(ExpenseClaimsController, CakeRequest, CakeResponse)
APP/webroot/index.php line 92 → Dispatcher->dispatch(CakeRequest, CakeResponse)
Can anyone help? Thanks in advance
** Updated with wrapper and soctet info **
These are the wrappers and sockets I get returned from those functions:
Wrappers:
array(
(int) 0 => 'https',
(int) 1 => 'ftps',
(int) 2 => 'compress.zlib',
(int) 3 => 'compress.bzip2',
(int) 4 => 'php',
(int) 5 => 'file',
(int) 6 => 'data',
(int) 7 => 'http',
(int) 8 => 'ftp',
(int) 9 => 'zip'
)
Sockets
array(
(int) 0 => 'tcp',
(int) 1 => 'udp',
(int) 2 => 'unix',
(int) 3 => 'udg',
(int) 4 => 'ssl',
(int) 5 => 'sslv3',
(int) 6 => 'sslv2',
(int) 7 => 'tls'
)

Answer 1

In first you should check what your hosting support outgoing connection. Simple check is similar
echo implode("", file("http://google.com"));
In second you should check what PHP support SSL connection and it have stream wrapper for SSL.
I now not remember how you can check it. But search in google by keywords: PHP stream wrapper SSL