Send tank auth activation email stuck on "waiting"

[eluser]ilSignorCarlo[/eluser]
[quote author="toopay" date="1311547062"]Can you actually send the email via smtp from your local computer?[/quote]

yes, I've just tried and I can. I tried putting the settings for the email both in the email.php config file or directly in the controller and it works in both cases.

Is there anything I can check?