Operating system: XP home.

Starting limewire:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\java.exe -Xmx255m -jar "C:\Program Files\LimeWire\LimeWire.jar"

(It really does seem to work better given that much mem)

Disconnect and then tell it to reconnect: as the other people who reported similar occurrences said, that doesn't seem to work. The connections tab just shows it open a batch of connections that just sit there "connecting" and counting up; then most of them disappear and are replaced; and so on.

I can see a "dud connection checker" killing connections that aren't actually doing anything useful, but why would it then refuse to or be unable to establish replacement connections? Or are the dud connections and the failure to establish new ones both symptoms of an underlying problem? Yet where would that problem be -- the network stack? Any problem outside Limewire would have affected other applications. Web surfing and other activities worked normally. Only the enabling of a firewall that blocked non-surfing traffic, such as the sort often found in workplaces, could be a) external to limewire and b) so thoroughly cripple it while leaving other network apps alone, and nobody could have done that since I'm the one running the home network here.