[tex4ht] Why new multicolumn mode is lost when tex4ht generates pages with split option htlatex foo.tex "htm, 2"

[Nasser M. Abbasi]

Hello;

When I run this:

htlatex foo.tex "htm"

Then the HTML pages are in 2 columns fine. But when I wanted to split
the web pages to physically different pagesrunning this

htlatex foo.tex "htm,2"

Then I found the section content are now no longer set in 2 columns
mode. Am I doing something wrong? or do I need additional
configuration to make it work when pages are split?

It is the same Latex file. Only change is just the above command,
changing "htm" to "htm,2"

MWE below.

I am running this on Linux, using the patch downloaded
from bug #188 entry http://puszcza.gnu.org.ua/bugs/?188

I have not done tlmgr update since I installed TL 2013. I assumed
the same patch I have would be the same on CTAN.

------foo.tex-----------------
\documentclass{article}%
\usepackage{multicol}
\usepackage{ifpdf}
\usepackage{lipsum}

\begin{document}
\title{test multicol1}
\author{me}
\date{\today}
\maketitle

\begin{multicols}{2}
\tableofcontents

\section{section 1}
   \lipsum{1}
   \subsection{subsection 1}
   text
\section{section 2}
   \lipsum{1}
\section{section 3}
   \lipsum{1}
\section{section 4}
   \lipsum{1}
\section{section 5}
   \lipsum{1}
\end{multicols}
\end{document}
-----------------------

I see some warnings like this:

6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
l.27 --- TeX4ht warning --- \SaveEverypar's: 1 at \begin{multicols} and 2 \end{
multicols} ---
[13] [14] (./foo_split.aux) )


thanks,
--Nasser