Title: Website Theme Problem
Last modified: August 19, 2016

---

# Website Theme Problem

 *  [gmha](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gmha/)
 * (@gmha)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/)
 * Hi, Our WordPress theme is doing some strange things when the user is not logged
   in and goes to comment on a post.
 * Here is a sample: [http://hoosieraccess.com/blog/2008/04/14/we-blog-you-decide/](http://hoosieraccess.com/blog/2008/04/14/we-blog-you-decide/)
 * The main page is fine, but whenever a post is clicked on- the columns go underneath
   the comment area.
 * Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
 * Thanks!

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)

 *  [Justin Tadlock](https://wordpress.org/support/users/greenshady/)
 * (@greenshady)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740508)
 * Start cleaning up those 58 XHTML errors.
    [http://validator.w3.org/](http://validator.w3.org/)
 *  [mechx1](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mechx1/)
 * (@mechx1)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740510)
 * Greenshady’s suggestion should help a lot. I’m not sure that I’m seeing what 
   you are seeing, and I don’t undertsnd what you mean by “the columns go underneath
   the comment area”. Where do you want your posts, and where do you want your comments?
 *  Thread Starter [gmha](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gmha/)
 * (@gmha)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740521)
 * Wow, I had no idea I had all of those errors.
 * I’ll look into seeing what I can do to resolve those, but I am not that strong
   of a coder, and if you have any quick ways to fix them. Please let me know!
 * When I view the link, in IE7 It has the Header, the menu bar, the post, the comment
   area, then the 2 columns on the right are underneath the comment area.
 * I would like the columns to be on the right side of the page, not at the bottom.
 * Hopefully that clarifies things.
 * Thanks!
 *  [TrishaM](https://wordpress.org/support/users/trisham/)
 * (@trisham)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740530)
 * Sounds like a CSS problem…….something about a width is different when you click
   on the the post (not tightly controlled by your CSS I mean) so it’s forcing your
   columns below instead of floating them where they should be.
 * Look at your theme’s php file for that page (single.php maybe?) to see what the
   DIV is that holds that particular section, then check your CSS to see how wide
   that section is, then see if you have enough total width to hold it with your
   columns next to it.
 * Keep in mind that different browsers interpret widths differently – IE adds up
   the numbers between width, padding, margins, and borders differently that the
   others do, so I generally allow a few pixels of ‘slop’ between DIVs to keep IE
   from doing just what you describe…..
 *  [mechx1](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mechx1/)
 * (@mechx1)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740531)
 * I think you have a bug in your theme in index.php. Right after the comment “You
   can start editing here” you have an additional
    `<div class="content">` which
   is not closed by a `</div>` anyplace that I can see. Because .content is float
   left, and encloses your sidebar, it appears next in the document flow under entry.
 * I think you might be able to just eliminate the extra opening DIV I have indicated
   above, or close the DIV as I have indicated if those two columns need to inherit
   the formatting of your content class.
 *  [TrishaM](https://wordpress.org/support/users/trisham/)
 * (@trisham)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740541)
 * Since this happens when a single post is clicked on, the problem MIGHT be in 
   a file called “single.php” if your theme has one – if you don’t then it uses 
   index.php, but since the problem doesn’t happen on your home page I suspect the
   missing closing DIV (</div>) is absent from single.php
 *  Thread Starter [gmha](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gmha/)
 * (@gmha)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740646)
 * Here is my single.php. I can’t seem to figure it out:
 *     ```
       <?php get_header(); ?>
   
       	<div id="post">
   
       	<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
       <div class="content">
   
       		<div class="date"><?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?> by <?php the_author() ?></div>
       	<div class="entry">
       	<div class="post" id="post-<?php the_ID(); ?>">
       			<h2><a href="<?php echo get_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h2>
   
       				<?php the_content('<p class="serif">Read the rest of this entry &raquo;</p>'); ?>
   
       				<?php wp_link_pages(array('before' => '<p><strong>Pages:</strong> ', 'after' => '</p>', 'next_or_number' => 'number')); ?>
       				<div class="postmeta">Posted in <?php the_category(', ') ?> | <?php edit_post_link('Edit', '', ' | '); ?> </div>
       </div></div>
   
       				<p class="postmetadata">
       					<small>
       						This entry was posted
       						<?php /* This is commented, because it requires a little adjusting sometimes.
       							You'll need to download this plugin, and follow the instructions:
       							http://binarybonsai.com/archives/2004/08/17/time-since-plugin/ */
       							/* $entry_datetime = abs(strtotime($post->post_date) - (60*120)); echo time_since($entry_datetime); echo ' ago'; */ ?>
       						on <?php the_time('l, F jS, Y') ?> at <?php the_time() ?>
       						and is filed under <?php the_category(', ') ?>.
       						You can follow any responses to this entry through the <?php comments_rss_link('RSS 2.0'); ?> feed.
   
       						<?php if (('open' == $post-> comment_status) && ('open' == $post->ping_status)) {
       							// Both Comments and Pings are open ?>
       							You can <a href="#respond">leave a response</a>, or <a href="<?php trackback_url(true); ?>" rel="trackback">trackback</a> from your own site.
   
       						<?php } elseif (!('open' == $post-> comment_status) && ('open' == $post->ping_status)) {
       							// Only Pings are Open ?>
       							Responses are currently closed, but you can <a href="<?php trackback_url(true); ?> " rel="trackback">trackback</a> from your own site.
   
       						<?php } elseif (('open' == $post-> comment_status) && !('open' == $post->ping_status)) {
       							// Comments are open, Pings are not ?>
       							You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
   
       						<?php } elseif (!('open' == $post-> comment_status) && !('open' == $post->ping_status)) {
       							// Neither Comments, nor Pings are open ?>
       							Both comments and pings are currently closed.
   
       						<?php } edit_post_link('Edit this entry.','',''); ?>
   
       					</small>
       				</p>
   
       		</div>
   
       	<?php comments_template(); ?>
   
       	<?php endwhile; else: ?>
   
       		<p>Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.</p>
   
       <?php endif; ?>
       	</div>
       <?php get_sidebar(); ?>
       <?php get_footer(); ?>
       ```
   
 *  [mechx1](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mechx1/)
 * (@mechx1)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740655)
 * Look in comments_template, and see if you have these two lines:
 *     ```
       <div class="content">
       <div class="entry">
       ```
   
 * right under this comment:
    `<!-- You can start editing here. -->`
 * Otherwise I’m not sure what is going on here.
 *  Thread Starter [gmha](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gmha/)
 * (@gmha)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740660)
 * Yes, I do…
 * Any other suggestions?
 *  [mechx1](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mechx1/)
 * (@mechx1)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740679)
 * Please understand that I can only look at the code your blog generated and make
   some assumptions. I don’t think those two lines belong in that script if they
   are not closed by closing DIV’s. Someone put them there who presumably had a 
   reason I may not understand. That said, I would run a quick test to delete those
   two lines annd see what happens. You can replace them if I’m wrong.
 *  Thread Starter [gmha](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gmha/)
 * (@gmha)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740683)
 * Fixed, Thank you SO much!!
 *  Thread Starter [gmha](https://wordpress.org/support/users/gmha/)
 * (@gmha)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740691)
 * Whoops, Not quite fixed…
 * It looks fine in IE, but now it looks like the sidebars have moved to align to
   the right, and the background content area (which is supposed to be ‘white’ has
   disappeared in Firefox.
 * Any more ideas?
 * I have played around enabling/disabling some of the various div’s I removed, 
   but no success.
 *  [TrishaM](https://wordpress.org/support/users/trisham/)
 * (@trisham)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740700)
 * I looked at your source code – you have a few unclosed DIV tags……that will throw
   off your layout and styles.
 * Also, equally as important, you have several instances of class names and ID 
   names being the same – this is invalid CSS and can cause problems.
 * First print out the source code for your index page as displayed in HTML, then
   go through it carefully and mark where your DIVs open and where they close so
   you can identify which ones are left unclosed, and be sure you close them where
   you want them closed, don’t just stick in some </div> tags at the end.
 * Second, look more closely at how you are calling your styles (for example right
   at the top of your code you have <div id=”navtop”> and a few lines down you have
   <ul class=”navtop”> )…..You should rename one or the other and modify your stylesheet
   to create the correct style for the new class/id name you’re creating.
 * I imagine that finding and closing the open DIVs in the right place and cleaning
   up your CSS will go a long way to fixing your problem….
 *  [mechx1](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mechx1/)
 * (@mechx1)
 * [18 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740703)
 * Yes, run it through the validator again, and start working on those errors. That
   should get you a lot closer.
 *  [rgarzamarcos](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rgarzamarcos/)
 * (@rgarzamarcos)
 * [17 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740963)
 * thanks mechx1!, but i ran into one problem, now i just have 98 errors, my fist
   one apears everytime i put a link in any post that opens in a new window, i know
   if i leave it to open in the same window it will fix it but i don´t want to loos
   visitors this way, how could i solve it??

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)

The topic ‘Website Theme Problem’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [columns](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/columns/)
 * [theme problem.](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/theme-problem/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 15 replies
 * 5 participants
 * Last reply from: [rgarzamarcos](https://wordpress.org/support/users/rgarzamarcos/)
 * Last activity: [17 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/website-theme-problem/#post-740963)
 * Status: not resolved

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