PDOException error

Hi all,
I am using the latest newsletter module + smtp module.

My newsletters appear with html tags, not in the html format.

I have all narrowed it down to the text in the header: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" and not Content-Type: text/html; charset="utf-8".

Now, applying the fix for the "mail_system" variable works. The newsletters appear in html format, but I get and error:
PDOException: in field_sql_storage_field_storage_write() (line 448 of /var/www/html/test/modules/field/modules/field_sql_storage/field_sql_storage.module).
and also the newsletter in report appear as sending (not sent) - so every time i run cron they get resent.

I also removed the smtp and newsletter modules and re-installed them, but i still get the same error.

More digging into the problem, and i can see the error is caused by this function : addNewsletterUrlQuery in newsletter.mail.inc.
Specific line: @$dom->loadHTML($message['body']);

(i have ckeditor installed)

Any help much appreciated.