I've only experienced this behavior perhaps twice and simply used the same solution, not giving
any extra concern to it (referring to the colums, in the right pane).

Ctrl + + simply resets the columns to their minimal settings and, apparently, this behavior
only occurs in the 'details' view. So, you might try using another view.

When you say 'left pane', to me, this references the Folders pane, so perhaps I've misunderstood
something here about your having columns in the 'left pane' (there is a MS article that addresses
a missing left pane as well).