"gradient_panelsurround.gif" not repeating

[Noctavia]

I'm currently trying to make a new theme to match the rest of my site, and I have gotten everything almost perfect except the "gradient_panelsurround.gif" image, it won't repeat down. In the Main CSS section of the theme I found where the panelsurround and panel images are and the only thing I changed was the location to pull them from, nothing else. They repeat to the left ok, but don't repeat down... so after 450 pixels, it shows the old lighter colour.

I've tried everything I can think of and can't get this to work. I thought I had done a bandaid fix when I just made the image longer, but then I noticed under the User CP there's an extremely long field and the problem came back up. Apart from making my gradient_panelsurround.gif image 1000 pixels long, how do I fix it?

I know the answer is staring me right in the face, but for three days I have been blind. :(

[Colin F]

Gradients generally don't look so nice when they repeat themselves, thus I think they're not repeated on purpose.
This is the default code:

#D1D4E0 url(images/gradients/gradient_panelsurround.gif) repeat-x top left

Change repeat-x to repeat

[Noctavia]

oooh, ok. I thought they were repeated. Hrm, ok then, I don't want mine to look ugly. Is there a way to solve my problem without repeating?

[Colin F]

You could add a background color that fits the color the gradient ends with.
Set that as the color code at the beginning (#D1D3E0 in the example above).

[Noctavia]

Oh you are a godsend! That was going to drive me up the wall all night! Voila, fixed! *smooch smooch smooch*! :o