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Firefox stuck as maximised, "restore down" minimizes window

  • 7 replies
  • 154 have this problem
  • 291 views
  • Last reply by Chris Ilias

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Firefox window is stuck as maximized, the restore down function does not work correctly.

"restore down" minimizes the window & it won't then return to the screen unless I right click on it on the task bar & then click maximize.

The minimize button works as it should & the window can be restored (maximised) by clicking on Firefox in teh task bar.

When this first happened I closed Firefox & restarted Windows (Vista). This has not solved the problem

Firefox window is stuck as maximized, the restore down function does not work correctly. "restore down" minimizes the window & it won't then return to the screen unless I right click on it on the task bar & then click maximize. The minimize button works as it should & the window can be restored (maximised) by clicking on Firefox in teh task bar. When this first happened I closed Firefox & restarted Windows (Vista). This has not solved the problem

Chosen solution

This is caused by Firefox "restoring" as a tiny window "off screen" for some reason. This bug has existed for quite a while, but for some reason has never been properly fixed. Regardless restarts don't fix it because it simply keeps restoring the window off screen ever time.

The work around is to select the window in the task bar, click "move" and then tap an arrow key. This will bring the window onto the screen where it can be re sized, most of the time it doesn't do it again, it seems to occur most often to me during a restore, but it's a sporadic so I'm not quite sure what causes it.

Read this answer in context 👍 53

All Replies (7)

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Figured out a workaround. It appears that the previously cached size of the window get set to zero somehow (no idea how). So you need to restore the window & resize it (without being able to view the window).

I'm not very good with windows 7 yet ( I only understand ubuntu ;) ), so there's probably an easier way to do this (in XP, you could just right-click and say "resize", but I couldn't find that option in 7). But I did figure out a way:

- restore the window (one way is via Task Manager -> Applications -> Right click -> Maximize -> hit square restore button in the upper right of the firefox window)

- Firefox now disappears (windows must think the previous size was zero)

- Right-click on the taskbar and say "Show windows side by side"

- Now Firefox re-appears side-by-side with your other windows

- Drag & Resize corners as appropriate.

Now it works like normal.

Like I said, there's probably some windows 7 guru ou there that knows a better way, but this gives a general idea...

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Chosen Solution

This is caused by Firefox "restoring" as a tiny window "off screen" for some reason. This bug has existed for quite a while, but for some reason has never been properly fixed. Regardless restarts don't fix it because it simply keeps restoring the window off screen ever time.

The work around is to select the window in the task bar, click "move" and then tap an arrow key. This will bring the window onto the screen where it can be re sized, most of the time it doesn't do it again, it seems to occur most often to me during a restore, but it's a sporadic so I'm not quite sure what causes it.

Modified by Tke3997

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Do we have a bugzilla entry for this?

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As the original asker, I've found that answers from both stu32AtFirefox and Tke3997 have worked at different times.

Initially the FF window appears to have been resized to zero, so stu's solution of restoring window, show side by side & then resizing worked.

More recently that has ceased to work as it appears the FF window is sulking off screen. That's when Tke3997's solution has worked though, in my case, the FF window is still normal size when moved back by using the arrow key. My FF seems to consistently head off to the left, so using the right arrow key works.

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This is a Windows' stupid drawback. Found the steps in the following link and it helped. How rookie Microsoft is ...

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows/bring-misplaced-off-screen-windows-back-to-your-desktop-keyboard-trick/

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The answer you've marked isn't a solution, just a workaround. We should probably un-mark this answer so that the Mozilla devs can see that they still need to fix this issue.

Modified by palswim

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Hi palswim,
Bug are tracked separately on a system called bugzilla. For more info, visit https://developer.mozilla.org/en/bug_writing_guidelines

You're replying to a thread that is over a year old. If you need help with a current Firefox issues, you should use https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new where volunteers can get more details about your setup.

Because this thread is so old and more people might start using it for their own questions, I'm going to lock it.