I encounter the same when opening a project. What I do is zoom far out and drag one of the larger objects far to the right, left, up, and down. This enlarges the zoom/view area of the 2DView. Ctrl-Z to move the object back to its original place.

If the problem is with the 3Dview instead of the 2Dview: Download the Pan3Dview plugin from SourceForge or use the Plugin Manager .
You can also check your preferences and try to check/uncheck "Aerial view centered on selection".