parsing html using xpath hpple is always returning an empty string

Question

I am doing the following:

NSData *htmlData = [[NSString stringWithString:sHTML] dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
TFHpple * xpathParser = [[TFHpple alloc] initWithHTMLData:htmlData];
NSArray * elements  = [xpathParser searchWithXPathQuery:@"//div[@id='column2']"];
if ([elements count] > 0)
{
    TFHppleElement * element = [elements objectAtIndex:0];
    NSString * sHTMLResult = [element content];
    ...
}

But, sHTMLResult (or, [element content]) is always empty. I have tried [element raw] but that gives me a string with <!CDATA tags and carriage returns like &13. In any case, the CDATA tags is what causes my html to be invalid when I use raw.

I have done a lot of google searches but they all seem to use [element content] so I am baffled as to what is wrong and why it does not work for me?