Sending email from gmail now causing fatal timeout error... it used to work :-s

[eluser]boltsabre[/eluser]
Hi everyone, not sure what I've done here, hoping it's just a brain fade and someone can pick the error up in 2 seconds flat!

Okay, I cannot send (anymore, used to work...) emails from my application via gmail anymore.

- Log files don't show anything helpful, no errors, just the DEBUG logs.
- Through my own testing using echo statements, I've determined that $CI->email->send() never finishes, in fact after 300 seconds I get a fatal timeout on my screen.

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 300 seconds exceeded in C:\MySites\www.localdownundr.com\system\libraries\Email.php on line 1869

Here is my config/email file, I have some stuff set up in there for local vs testing/staging server.

Code:

if (ENVIRONMENT != 'development') {  
$smtp_host = '****';
$smtp_user = '****@downundr.com';
$smtp_pass = '****';
$smtp_proto = 'mail';
$nl = '\n';
define ('email_from', '[email protected]');
define ('test_email', '');
} else {
$smtp_host = 'ssl://smtp.googlemail.com';
$smtp_user = '****@gmail.com';
$smtp_pass = '****';
$smtp_proto = 'smtp';
$nl = '\r\n';
define ('email_from', '[email protected]');
define ('test_email', '****@gmail.com');
}
$config = array(  
'useragent'        => 'myUserAg',        
'protocol'         => $smtp_proto,
'mailpath'         => '',
'smtp_host'        => $smtp_host,
'smtp_user'        => $smtp_user,
'smtp_pass'        => $smtp_pass,
'smtp_port'        => 465,
'smtp_timeout'     => 30,
'wordwrap'         => TRUE,
'wrapchars'        => 76,
'mailtype'         => 'text',
'charset'          => 'utf-8',
'validate'         => FALSE,
'priority'         => 3,
'crlf'             => "\r\n",
'newline'          => $nl,
'bcc_batch_mode'   => FALSE,
'bcc_batch_size'   => 200
);

And this is the email helper file:

Code:

function send_account_activation_code($email, $activationCode){
$CI =& get_instance();
$CI->load->library('email');
$CI->load->helper('emails/z_email_footer_text');

$CI->email->from(email_from, 'www.downundr.com');
$CI->email->to((test_email != '')?test_email:$email);
$CI->email->subject('Account Activation Code - www.downundr.com');

$emailMessage =
"Thank you for signing up to www.downundr.com!
blah blah blah blah
".email_footer_text();

$CI->email->message($emailMessage);
$CI->email->send();
}

I'm working on localhost, with it mapped to a domain name, www.localdownundr.com
When running from my test/stage server, which is using a real live email server, it works fine, the email sends, it's just locally that I've started to have this problem.


This is driving me NUTS... been trying to debug this for almost 5 hours now, any help at this stage would be greatly appreciated!!!