Cakephp & Smarty problem

Hi!

I have major problems with cakephp & smarty, (cake ver is 1.2 and smarty =
2.6.18 [iirc])

there is a code (from cake/libs/view/view.php

class SmartyView {
..
..
..
function _render{[params]) {

[some code]

$this->Smarty->assign_by_ref('view', $this);

return $this->Smarty->fetch($__viewFn);

}

}

and problem when calling this method (_render) it always returns white =
chars but template file is'nt empty


if i use code like that:
1.
{
$this->Smarty->assign_by_ref('view', $this);
echo $this->Smarty->fetch($__viewFn);
return $this->Smarty->fetch($__viewFn);

} - everything is ok, echo shows that fetch() returns processed template =
content - return doesnt return this content (!)

2.
{
$this->Smarty->assign_by_ref('view', $this);

// return $this->Smarty->fetch($__viewFn);
return 'xyz';

} - function return string 'xyz' - everything is "ok"

3.=20
{
$this->Smarty->assign_by_ref('view', $this);
define('xyz', $this->Smarty->fetch($__viewFn));
return xyz;

} - everything is ok, function returns what was returned by fetch

so... why return $this->Smarty->fetch($__viewFn);
doesnt work as it should ?

do i have to set something in cakephp configuration or in php.ini ?

im using AppServ 2.5.9 with php 5.2.3

thanks in advance

sry for my english ;)