no minimize, full screen or close buttons on right top corner, page flashes black when right clicked

Need more information, what version of Ubuntu are you using, and are you using compiz? Do you still have access to the panels?

also, could you specifiy the following:

did this just start recently (eg. after a recent update) on a previously working installation, or is this on a fresh install of ubuntu?

is this problem specific only to firefox, or is it a system-wide issue?

thanks!
Andrew

i think somewho i managed to uninstall then reinstall firefox and it fixed it. even though it said i couldnt uninstall it. either way its fixed now. but im waiting to see if it still crashes. the crashing/freezing is system wide as far as i can tell. i will be on for a few hours then go to shut down and it will freeze every now and then. same with other random programs. does anyone know of a good, free linux defrag tool? i think im going to transfer all my important data and try to reinstall ubuntu if nothing else helps. everything on here is up to date, the little updater keeps me current.

Is this computer a laptop, or a desktop? a thought just occurred to me that you may be experiencing an overheating problem, if its a laptop.
also, did this just start recently (eg. after a recent update) on a previously working installation, or is this on a fresh install of ubuntu?

as for the defrag tool, i found this entry in the forums: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=169551&highlight=does+linux+need+a+defrag+tool%3F
but typically, no defragmenter is required for the ext3 filesystem because of the way it handles reads/writes. i cant explain it very well, but i found a excellent post from an rsambuca in the ubuntu forums that had this to say about it:

" Re: Disk defragmentation
The ubuntu default ext3 filesystem does not require you to defragment your drive. Unlike NTFS, the ext3 filesystem locates your files in different parts of the drive so files do not tend to get defragmented as much. Also, the system will run a disk check every 25-30 boots or so (called fsck) and it helps address any problems. If you run the following in a terminal, you can see how many times the drive has been mounted, and when the next fsck will be.
Code:

sudo tune2fs -l /dev/sda1

You will have to replace the "sda1" for the drive you want to view."

its a desktop. it started a few days after i installed ubuntu and a few updates. i had win xp and didnt defrag. so all those files were randomly everywhere when i installed ubuntu. would that affect anything?

the only thing that file fragmentation in windows would affect would be windows...assuming that you installed ubuntu on a fresh, dedicated partition. even so, i believe that the fsck that runs automatically every so often on ubuntu boot fixes fragmentation to a degree. i dont believe you have anything to worry about.

Mine does the same thing. Can't close firefox or minimize. The blue bar at top disappeared as did the top and bottom of the desktop. The screen also flickers every time I click on something. I have an Amd64 version on a hard drive that only has Ubuntu. All the other programs are behaving properly. The problem started on June 28.

I think I found the answer somewhere else here. I toggled the F11 button and the missing buttons came back.

I am late answering this, because I had the same problem just now, and I was looking for help. There was not enough instruction here to fully fix this problem, but I found the full answer myself. I am only posting to give the full fix for others who have the same problem. Here it is:

For some reason the whole top bar and bar at the bottom of the Firefox window disappears. The top bar usually has the Firefox logo in the upper left corner, then the page title right of that, then the minimize, maximize close buttons on the far right. This whole bar sometimes disappears. Sometimes an advertising site will use javascript to deliberately make this top bar and the navigation bar disappear so that you cannot easily leave the page. Other times it just happens, rarely.

The fix: First click on F11, or select fullscreen from the "view" list. Once it is fullscreen click the minimize button, if necessary, (the square) to unmaximize (make the square small). The top bar will again disappear. Then move your cursor to the far left of the window and an arrow and bar will apear. Click and drag the left edge to the right. The whole window will turn blue and the left edge will move right. Move your cursor up the left edge until the cursor turns into a corner. Click and drag downward until the top bar appears and a little more to give room for the bottom bar to fit in the space. Then click on the maximize button to maximize the window. All will be fixed.

Before the problem was fixed, my Firefox window flickered every time I clicked on any button in any of the visible toolbars. That flickering stops when the page size is corrected. I do not know why the flickering occurs, and I don't care. All the above only occurs in Firefox. I have a desktop with Ubuntu Hardy Heron. This problem sometimes appears to occur by itself when sitting idle. Sounds like a bug to me. Anyways I don't like it. Reinstalling is not the cure. This will happen again many times.

Excellent asdfg, there seems to be a bug somewhere here since the fullscreen was not checked but the window was actually fullscreen.
Using Lubuntu and LXDE window manager.