I've had no need to send mails on my 2 sites hosted at the UK Fasthosts provider.
But since I've added some email features to one of my sites I've tried to send mail via the Email Component of CakePHP and it doesn't leave the server, even if the send returns success.
I've tried with plain mail() function and with the smtp option and got nowhere.
Any ideas?
I am not familiar with that hosting service but I've had similar experiences with other providers. The one thing that's worked across them all is the SwiftMailer library. Check it out and see if it works for you.
Check out SwitfMail (http://swiftmailer.org/). You can connect to most mail systems and send email, no local configuration or dependencies. I regular send alerts through my gmail account. It's very robust, but has a "simple" execution option if you are not trying to manage email lists.
your code isnt the problem. your email server has alot of queued email. the same issue happend to me with godaddys email server. just give it a day and try again.