sticky CSS footer broken

Question

My footer is designed to stay at the bottom of the page even if the div above it only has a small amount of content. It worked until recently, and I seem to have broken it somehow. Can you take a look?

Thanks in advance.

CSS:

body {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    height: 100%;
    font: 100% Helvetica, sans-serif, Arial, sans-serif;
    color: #000;
    background-color: #FFF;
    background-image: url(images/BGmain.png);
    background-repeat: repeat-x;
}
/*----------
Div styles
----------*/
#container {
    min-height: 100%;
    position: relative;
}
.header {
    padding: 0 0 230px 0;
    text-align: center;
    background-image: url(images/BGlogo_55top.png);
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-position: top;
}
.column1 {
    padding-bottom: 50px;
    width: 960px;
    margin: 0 auto;
    position: relative;
}
.footer {
    position: absolute;
    bottom: 0;
    width: 100%;
    height: 50px;           
    text-align: center;
}
/*----------
Other
----------*/
.plainimg {
    border-style: none
}
/*----------
Text styles
----------*/
p {
    font-size: 80%;
    color: #333;
    line-height: 150%;
    text-align: left;
    padding: 1px 15px 1px 15px;
}
h1 {
    font-size: 100%;
    color: #000;
    padding: 0;
}
h2 {
    font-size: 100%;
    font-weight: 500;
    color: #000;
    padding: 0;
    text-align: center;
}
/*----------
Links
----------*/
a.navlink:link, a.navlink:visited {
    text-decoration: none;
    display: inline-block;
    color: #F1F1F1;
    width: 120px;
    text-align: center;
    padding: 0 0 3px 0;
    font-size: 80%;
}
a.navlink:hover, a.navlink:active {
    text-decoration: none;
    display: inline-block;
    color: #FFF;
    background-color: #000;
    width: 120px;
    text-align: centre;
    padding: 0 0 3px 0;
    font-size: 80%;
}
a:link, a:visited {
    text-decoration: none;
    color: #AEAEAE;
}
a:hover, a:active {
    text-decoration: underline;
    color: #999
}

The div arrangement is as follows:

<div id=container>
<div class=header></div>
<div class=column1></div>
<div class=footer></div>
</div>

Answer 1

Take a look at this: http://matthewjamestaylor.com/blog/keeping-footers-at-the-bottom-of-the-page

When it has broken for me in the past I typically have something in the content that is the culprit - padding, invalid markup, etc. If you post a link to your page, you may find a more specific answer.

Answer 2

As Jason McCreary said, you need to add height to the html CSS.

Use:

html 
{
    height:     100%;
    margin:     0;
    padding:    0;
}

On your pages this triggers an extraneous scrollbar for some reason.

UPDATE:
The scrollbar appears to be triggered by the overflow of the .footer h6.
Adding: bottom: 2.5ex; and line-height: 1; to the footer style appears to clears that.

But a better way is to use a CSS reset.

With no reset, at the minimum, add:

.footer h6 {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}

.

A CSS reset will also minimize cross-browser variation that busts the layout from platform to platform.

Answer 3

Here is your problem:

#container {
min-height:100%;
position:relative;
}

Here is the fix:

#container {
min-height:100%;
}

Good stuff:

http://www.w3schools.com/Css/pr_class_position.asp

Answer 4

Solved. Easy Solution Just put your Footer Division outside of your Container Division.

<div id=container>
    <div class=header></div>
    <div class=column1></div>
</div>
<div class=footer></div>