Hello Ben.

If you could provide me with a screenshot, that would be perfect. In any case, if it's just a matter of the Menu Bar being gone, press ALT or F10 in your keyboard to make it temporarily visible. If you want it to be permanently visible, go into View > Toolbars > Menu Bar, or right-click the Navigation Toolbar (the Reload button, for example) and select Menu Bar.

If this doesn't help, right-click the navigation toolbar, select Customize... and click Restore Default Set. If it doesn't appear right away, try pressing ALT or F10. You can go into View > Toolbars > Menu Bar to make it permanently visible, or right-click the Navigation Toolbar and select Menu Bar.

If it's something else, it's possible that you are having a problem with some Firefox add-on that is hindering your Firefox's normal behavior. Have you tried disabling all add-ons (just to check), to see if Firefox goes back to normal?

Whenever you have a problem with Firefox, whatever it is, you should make sure it's not caused by one (or more than one) of your installed add-ons, be it an extension, a theme or a plugin. To do that easily and cleanly, run Firefox in safe mode (don't forget to select Disable all add-ons when you start safe mode). If the problem disappears, you know it's from an add-on. Disable them all in normal mode, and enable them one at a time until you find the source of the problem. See this article for information about troubleshooting extensions and themes and this one for plugins.

If you need support for one of your add-ons, you'll have to contact its author.

If the problem is not disappears when all add-ons are disabled, please tell me, so we can work from there. Please have no fear of following my instructions to the line, as all can be easily undone.

here's a screen shot. the ubuntu panel completely disappears, and I'm unable to resize the browser or close it, that red dot and up and down arrow that are usually in the top panel on the left corner are gone, as is the usual panel for tabbing between applications on the bottom

I didnt change any settings to my knowledge, I was working late last night and clicked something I guess.

I can make the bottom panel reappear by right clicking my mouse and selecting view page info/source but the top still only shows the navigation bar but without the red button and max/min buttons that are normally in the upper left

Yes, I'm seeing what's happening. I never saw something like that, but please do try my suggestions and report back the results.

I fixed it. Went into safemode, then selected reset to default for everything, then I resized the window so it wouldnt continue to block the top panel, closed. restarted..voila, back to normal.

many thanks for your help morbus, today I learned how to take a screenshot and how to use safemode to restore the browser if something goes wrong, thanks to you.