This is all fascinating, but none of it solves the problem above. I *am* quite familiar with p2p, LimeWire, my system, and so on. Does anyone have a constructive suggestion for fixing the problem? I already included a screen shot from the relevant preferences screen, and it is set correctly - would more information help?

Remoc, michwayne: are you running with the same OS and Java that I am?

avon - check the [Edit] again for the torrent health. If there aren't many seeders around, it can take a very long time to get started. The best thing you can do is let it run for about a day (maybe even 36 hours), and if it hasn't started try to find another torrent for the same file that *does* have some seeders around.