Rails is not rendering my application layout
I just ran into this same problem myself and the problem is just a simple mistake.
Your controller PublicController is subclassing "ActionController::Base". Controllers other than your ApplicationController need to subclass from ApplicationController in order for their views to be rendered within the application.html.erb layout
If you change
PublicController < ActionController::Baseto
PublicController < ApplicationControllerit should work.
Ran into the same problem with one final wrinkle: I was overriding initialize in the subclassed controller. Make sure to call 'super' first thing:
def initialize super @some_client = SomeClient.newend