I had that exact same problem. I had an older version of limewire and from time it would say "connecting" and not do anything. But it would still allow me to download, just not search for anything. So i'd restart limewire and it'd be ok. I was behind a firewall then and I was still able to use limewire. But recently it stopped connecting at all. I disabled my norton anti virus and still could not connect. i tried making exceptions, re-downloading limewire and everything. Am I doing something wrong?