I have what I think is a typical four pane layout in RStudio. If I go to Tools > Global Options... > Pane Layout, the setup is shown correctly (Source in the upper left, Environment etc. upper right, Console lower left, Files etc. lower right). Posit Assistant is in the left sidebar, which is hidden by default. Prior versions of RStudio had no problem with this.
With version 2026.07.1 Build 147 of RStudio, I have run into some odd behavior. If I do anything (for instance, update R packages), some panes will spontaneously close or minimize and one may maximize. For example, I opened a Quattro file and had the four panes displaying correctly. When I clicked the render button, the lower left pane (with the console selected) took over the entire window. Toggling that pane's maximize/minimize button split the screen into top left pane (showing the document) and bottom left pane (showing the console) but did not bring back the two right-hand panes.
Toggling the left sidebar open and then closed sometimes restores the four pane layout but sometimes does not. Revisiting Tools > Global Options... > Pane Layout does not restore the layout (which remains correctly specified there). What fixed things just now was to run a help command in the console (which filled the window with the lower right panel), then toggling the sidebar open and closed (which left me with the four pane setup, but with the lower right pane maximized and the upper right pane invisible), and then toggling the maximize button on the lower right pane (which got me to four visible panes).
Is there a setting somewhere that would account for this behavior, or is it a bug? I definitely do not consider it a "feature".
Will do, I'll be taking a closer look in a day or two (we're just wrapping up the 2026.08 release). I'll follow up here with any significant findings/fixes.
When RStudio is in this bad state, try using View > Panes > Show All Panes.
That should restore sanity, at least for the cases I'm aware of. It might not restore the panes to the sizes you expected, but they should all be visible.
The trigger for the problem is how you leave a zoom. Ending it any of these ways is safe:
the same Ctrl+Shift+N you used to zoom
View > Panes > Show All Panes
These leave it stale:
the pane header's maximize/restore button
double-clicking a pane's tab
Ending a zoom the same way you started it should avoid the issue in most cases.
Just to be clear, I am not initiating any zooms (at least not deliberately). For instance, I just now started RStudio (with no projects open). I think it had the four panes showing for about one nanosecond but immediately zoomed itself so that only an empty code script ("Untitled1") was visible. Ctrl+Shift+N created a new code script ("Untitled2"), which was expected since that key combo is a shortcut for opening a new script.
View > Panes > Show All Panes did fix the layout, and the pane sizes looked correct to me.
Earlier today I started from the four pane layout and updated a few packages. As soon as I triggered the update, the console took over the entire window and displayed compiler messages.
So some (but not all) routine activities that previously had no effect on layout are now causing one pane (the one most involved in the activity?) to zoom automatically.
If it helps, I'm using Linux Mint with the MATE desktop environment.
Hopefully the fixes for the issues I've indentified will cover your situation as well, but we won't know for sure until I have a build for you to try (will probably take a day or two due to us being in the middle of a release).
