can't resize firefox window

[haddock]

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

As of lately (no idea what I changed... I think I didn't change anything) when I start firefox it opens up a window that fills the entire screen. The top-end of the window with the bar- (minimize), the square- (maximize) and the cross-symbol (close) on the right hand side has disappeared, as well as the desktop-bar at the bottom, where all running programs are shown and can be switched to with a mouse-click. (see attached screenshot of the ENTIRE screen)

The window is maximized, so no chance of trying to resize it by moving the bottom right corner of the window with the mouse.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.10
NonfreeKernelModules: ath_hal
Package: firefox-3.0 3.0.4+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.10.1
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/home/User Name/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=de_CH.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox-3.0
Uname: Linux 2.6.27-10-generic i686

[haddock (kaeptn-haddock)]

Maybe the problem resulted from using an external monitor, maximizing firefox there, and now firefox somehow thinks the screen is a little bigger than it actually is??? Some of the files lying around on my desktop on the right hand side seem to be off-monitor too: I can only see the leftmost part of them. (see screenshot nr. 2 attached here; you can see that on the right hand side of the desktop some files are just barely visible.)

So maybe gnome is giving firefox wrong informations about the actual size of my screen?

[LumpyCustard (orangelumpycustard)]

I too have had this problem.

From memory, I think it was the fault of Compiz. If you are running Compiz, try running Metacity and see if the problem goes away.

A very handy method of switching quickly is to use the package fusion-icon (which I run on startup). I use this mainly when I use googleearth as it doesn't seem to like Compiz.

Let me know how you get on.

[Moe (affenkaraffe)]

This is perhaps related to Question #53055 (https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/53055)

[LumpyCustard (orangelumpycustard)]

Could be related to 294055?

[Tom (tom6)]

hmmm, does look similar. Both seem to be a problem with the desktop manager rather than with mozilla but i wouldn't know really.

Switching off Compiz used to help me solve a number of problems i had in another distro, i think it was the Mandriva distro but quite an old one now already.

Have you considered resetting your screen size, resolution and/or frame rate. Probably changing the resolution will fix the issue? I'm not sure. Fluxubuntu or VectorLinux used to let me move around my desktop with the arrow keys when i had the desktop set as being larger than the screen.

Good luck and happy hunting :)

[Tom (tom6)]

Errr, right clicking in the desktop somewhere and choosing 'Clean up by name' tidied all my desktop clutter to the left and neatly spaced all the icons but if you did that some of them might 'vanish' above the top task-bar/panel

[haddock (kaeptn-haddock)]

Thank you all for your most helpful comments.
It most likely is a duplicate of #294055, and yes, turning off compiz helped. As described in #294055 too the problem really is firefox-specific. The other apps work fine, so maybe it is a (duplicate) firefox-specific bug?