sidebar has fallen to bottom of page

deb,
Try removing the pics and see if the theme displays correctly. I had a simular issue and after remove an image that was a little to big I had no problems.

don (el paso)

1. Check for “images or Text” which are larger than your content area.
2. Look for some mismatched Tags or Div.

Thanks Don – I tried taking 1) taking out the two images, 2) widening the text column to 600 and the page to 900, 3) just widening the page to 900, 4) removing the background image (which is not showing) altogether and nothing is working. And the thing is, the posts were fine for the weeks I’ve been tweaking this – it was only when I was tweaking the background graphic that it all went to hell.

Any other suggestions? Oh, how I would love to sort this out…

[I seem to have posted simulatenously with others. I’m trying this again, will let you know how it goes. Thanks!]

Rok – the site validates, this means that all her tags are in place properly.

deb – it’s your images I think. try making them smaller…

Edit:
Where is this background image – where did you try to put it EXACTLY?

Did you happen to back up your stylesheet before making any of these changes?

Just to cover all my bases, I just made both images much smaller and took out the 460-wide ads, and still, the sidebar is stuck to the bottom of the page. Grr.

Background image: #page {background:#ffffff url(images/pagebg.jpg) repeat-y top;}

This is technically the background image that came with the Orchid template. I tried to replace it with an edited version – https://smittenkitchen.com/uploads/2006/07/pagebg2.jpg – which caused the sidebar to fall to the bottom. I tried to “undo” it by putting the original pagebg back in and it didn’t fix it.

As for saving the stylesheet – no, not really, though I know this is inadvisable. I make only ONE change at time, so if anything goes wrong, I can backtrack and fix it. This time, going back didn’t fix it. Lesson learned.

I hope this helps! Thanks again.

okay, looking at your css, i found this:

#header { background: url('https://smittenkitchen.com/wp-content/themes/orchids/images/header-img.php?upper=7F7F7F&lower=3F3F7F') no-repeat bottom center; }
#headerimg h1 a, #headerimg h1 a:visited, #headerimg .description { color: white; }

the URL for the header background image should end in .jpg or .gif, not .php – can you find that in your CSS and change it?

header-img.php?upper=7F7F7F&lower=3F3F7F – i’ve never seen this format used with the upper/lower thing… it doesn’t seem right

Note – this might be in your header.php file… doesn’t seem like it’s in the true stylesheet…

“Rok – the site validates, this means that all her tags are in place properly.”
Nope, not true.

Has the actual index been changed around?
Was it content > sidebar and it’s now sidebar > content?

Okay, fine – but I was referring to the comment about “mismatched tags or div” when I said that – nothing’s “mismatched” and she’s not missing any closing div tags or anything like that – as shown by running the site through the validator.

And since she hadn’t mentioned anything but changing the background image, which involves the stylesheet – not the index.php file – I hadn’t considered the idea that they might be switched as you suggested could be the problem.

ladydelaluna – You are right; that’s crazy that it should be there. I’m actually not using the header as anything but a 20px tall spacemaker at the top, so I went ahead and removed the background image from the CSS but it didn’t fix anything. (Still, it shouldn’t have been there so needed cleanup.) My header file is pretty much empty, with just an open and close <div> for the header.

podz – I also tried to juggle the sidebar and content in the index (though it is the way the template came) but it didn’t change anything (except reversing the problem, sidebar on top, content on the bottom, still with the break) so I put it back.

This is probably not relevant, but this is my first time using WP on a blog, having used MT to design dozens of others. I’ve seen this problem before on MT, but it was usually, as was mentioned, a too-big big image breaking the box, or a div tag missing or left open – something really obvious. I hope it’s that simple this time. ??

That said, I appreciate all of your suggestions and keep them coming. I’m willing to try anything to get this back in shape. Thanks.

Put this at the very BOTTOM of the css

#sidebar {
width:170px;float:left;
}
#content {
width:500px;float:right;
}

That brings it back but leaves something to be done at the top I think.

That theme has elements of Kubrick in which should have been removed for clarity.

And somewhere something was setting the sidebar to full width.

Thanks so much for all of your help. A friend went in and tweaked some stuff (fixed it w/out the footer getting wonky). It’s still off but not so much that I shouldn’t close this thread.

Thanks again.

I have this same problem in any theme I use, but it would seem only on the opening page of the blog, previous entries is OK, the about page is OK…I have shut off all plugins and it still does it.

I imported my blog from an MT export from a previous wordpress incarnation of my blog that dies in an attack on my host server, could this be part of the problem