Cannot get default or `deneb` configurations to execute transactions

[Padraic-O-Mhuiris]

Please correct me if I'm wrong on any front here but I've been able to spin up both the default configuration and the deneb.yaml configuration as shown in the documentation.
What is confusing me, whilst using a prefunded account from the output logs, I'm able to check the balance via rpc but in both cases, sending a simple transaction refuses to work and cast just hangs.

I could well be missing something and one of the observations from the dora explorer is that all slots appear to have been missed

[barnabasbusa]

Can you give an example of the cast transaction that you are submitting?