mantralux

Also, I can get it to work if I only have 2 levels of nested comments, but as soon as I go over that amount, it starts adding the .banner div to nested replies.

After researching, I’ve solved the issue now, by replacing the following code:

<?php query_posts('showposts=5'); ?>
<?php $posts = get_posts('numberposts=5&offset=10'); foreach ($posts as $post) : start_wp(); ?>
<?php static $count3 = 0; if ($count3 == "5") { break; } else { ?>

<p class="archive-date"><?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?></p>
<p class="archive-title"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></p>

<?php $count3++; } ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>

With this:

<?php
global $post;
$myposts = get_posts('numberposts=5&offset=0');
foreach($myposts as $post) :
setup_postdata($post);
?>
<p class="archive-date"><?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?></p>
<p class="archive-title"><a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link to <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a></p>
<?php endforeach; ?>
<?php $post = $tmp_post; ?>

With a <?php wp_reset_query(); ?> at the end. Hopefully this isn’t a technique that will slow down the site more than the other technique, but at least it works. Thanks for your help alchymyth. =)

Having a reset at the end of header-archive makes no difference, I still get the same result.

I tried changing ‘start_wp()’ to ‘setup_postdata($post)’, here are my observations:

1. If I change all 4 ‘start_wp()’ to ‘setup_postdata($post)’, I have the same issue as before – the main loop won’t initiate.

2. If I use only the first column in header-archive (deleting the other three columns) and change ‘start_wp()’ to ‘setup_postdata($post)’ in that one column, I can now see the main loop – BUT individual posts will not show correctly, just like the issue I had in the OP.

Lets re-phrase the question, to see how this can get solved:

If you wanted to call in a loop in the header of your blog, showing the 20 latest posts, how would you code it?

Unfortunately the site isn’t live yet, but here are the pastebins. First up is the archive/navigation part:

http://wordpress.pastebin.com/mhq8vAk4

It’s then followed by ‘normal’ HTML until the loop is included:

<?php
/* Run the loop to output the posts.
* If you want to overload this in a child theme then include a file
* called loop-index.php and that will be used instead.
*/
get_template_part( 'loop', 'index' );
?>
</div><!-- #content -->

And then finally the loop itself, which is just a slightly modified Twenty Ten loop:

http://wordpress.pastebin.com/mj9hjcgV

Thanks again for helping me out. =)

Solved.