jGrowl sticky not working in IE8

Question

I'm using the jGrowl jQuery status-message plugin to display a sticky message on page load, and it works perfectly on all browsers except Internet Explorer 8. In this browser, there remains a small block, about 2 lines high but with no text, even after closing the sticky message. It does not have a close button, or anything, for that matter. Here is my code, which is placed in the document.onload function for IE:

$.jGrowl("Hi! Welcome to the site!", { sticky: true });

All other jGrowl settings are set to default, which is a floating message at the top right of the page.

Has anyone encountered this problem before, and perhaps know how to fix it?