Issue with registration function using email template layout - cakephp - cakephp

Question

A strange one to be honest. I have got this working completely fine on my local machine but on the production server (CENTOS), the redirect after registering is hitting the email template..
Is there something I am missing here?
function register() {
$this->layout = 'login';
$this->set('title_for_layout', 'Register');
if(!empty($this->data)) {
$this->User->create();
if($this->User->save($this->data)) {
$this->data['User']['group_id'] = 4;
$this->_sendNewUserMail( $this->User->id );
$this->redirect(array('action' => 'approval'));
} else {
$this->Session->setFlash(__('There were errors found in your registration. Please check the highlighted fields', true));
}
}
}
function _sendNewUserMail($id) {
$this->Email->smtpOptions = array(
'port'=>'25',
'timeout'=>'30',
'host' => 'localhost',
'username'=>'username',
'password'=>'password',
);
$this->Email->delivery = 'smtp';
$User = $this->User->read(null,$id);
$this->Email->to = array('someone#blah.com');
$this->Email->subject = 'A new registration has been submitted';
$this->Email->from = 'Me#blah.com';
$this->Email->template = 'default';
$this->Email->sendAs = 'html';
$this->set('User', $User);
$this->Email->send();
}
I am completely stumped with this..
Many thanks for your help in advance!

Answer 1

I would guess php_openssl is not enabled. Also, you should move the smtpOptions and delivery setting into _sendNewUserMail

Answer 2

[From the comments]
It seems that there was an error in the production server (maybe due to a different configuration in the SMTP server) I assume that in your production server you have the debug set to 0. So the errors are not displayed, That's why instead of redirecting, it renders the email template.
You'll need to debug the smtp errors in production. To do that, you could add:
Configure::write('debug', 1);
in the action/controller that sends the email, so you'd be able to see the error. Also, you could check the smtp errors in the $this->Email->smtpError variable.
That way you'll be able to see what's wrong. I don't know much about smtp server's configurations so that might be another S.O. question.
Hope this helps