Contribute Locking out editable areas

Question

I am having a very strange problem that I am hoping someone
can help me with. I have a site set up with a Dreamweaver template
in which the main content area is an editable area. When I open the
pages in Contribute it is still an editable area unless there is a
bullet list, then it is still in a green editable area box, but
gives me the "you can't edit this" mouse pointer and cannot be
edited. If I got in and remove the <ul> ... </ul> from
the html the area is editable again.
Any help would be wonderful, I am going crazy here.

Answer 1

OK, it has happened again, on a completely different site with a different user and (obviously) different template.  Here's the piece of the page which the CS5 Contribute "publisher" broke:
           <!-- InstanceEndEditable -->
      </div><img src="images/contentRight.jpg" width="53" height="734" alt="content right" style="float:left;" /></div>
    </div>
        <div class="clearfloat"></div>
        <p style="margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0;"> </p>
<div id="footer">
            <p class="links"><a href="classinformation.htm">Class Info</a> |
            <a href="classes.html">Classes</a> |
            <a href="about.html">About Us</a> |
            <a href="register_choose.html">Register</a> |
            <a href="mailto:[email protected]">Contact Us</a> |
            <a href="reporting.html">Reporting Instructions</a> |
            <a href="index.html">Home</a></p>
            <p class="copyright">Site copyright &copy; 2011, Do It Right Protocol.</p>
            <p class="webguy" style="margin-bottom: 0;">Website hosted and maintained by <a href="http://www.maplegate-tech.com">Maplegate Technologies, LLC</a></p>
        </div>
    </div>
</body>
<!-- InstanceEnd --></html>
I've bolded 3 items: the first is the template's end point for the editable region; the footer should not be editable.  The 2 changes show in the empty <p> above the footer div, and the addition of style attribute in the "webguy" paragraph.  Contribute should not have allowed those changes (I think they were made without the user even knowing about it).  The blank <p> tag broke the layout, forcing the graphics abart and adding a blank line.