Sometimes LimeWire connects all by itself, sometimes you need to click on the 'Connect' button in the lower-left hand corner of the LimeWire window. If you click the 'Connections' tab at the top, you can see if the program is making connections or not.

If you are on a slower connection, I would give the program a few minutes to build up a list of connections before you start your search. The more hosts you are connected to, the better your search results will be.

--Nut
(P.S. This is the Gnotella forum.)