Widget Boxes – Not fetching content

Hi there,

I have created a custom home page using a page template called “custom_home.php” – I have divided this page into columns and in each column I have added the following code to allow Widgets to be placed in them:

<?php if (function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar('column8')) : else : ?>
        <p><strong>Widget Ready</strong></p>
        <p>This left column is widget ready! Add one in the admin panel.</p>
    <?php endif; ?>

I have also added the following code in the theme’s functions.php file to enable the widgets for each ‘column’

if (function_exists('register_sidebar')) {  

    register_sidebar(array(
        'name' => 'Column 1',
        'id'   => 'column1',
        'description'   => 'Widget area for home page left column',
        'before_widget' => '<div id="%1$s" class="widget %2$s">',
        'after_widget'  => '</div>',
        'before_title'  => '<h4>',
        'after_title'   => '</h4>'
    ));

Now the important thing to point out at this stage is that all of this works on my local installation – 100% without issue. Yet for some reason, no matter what widget I use on the live site, the columns stay blank…

Can somebody please help me?