Ignore the message on the main window of LPE. What's important is the connection bars bottom left corner of screen. And if you open Tools > Advanced Tools to open the connection window, this will show connections the program is trying to make. It might also say whether you are firewalled or not.

It's my guess your setup is firewalled in one way or another. WireShare or LPE need to be added to the OSX firewall exception list if your firewall is turned on. I'm curious if you have any other firewall or security software which might be causing the problem.
Try port forwarding your router. You will need to set up a static ip first. This is your computer's internal network ip address not your external ip address. Choose a port to port forward. Perhaps the same port that's listed in your LPE or WS settings. After finishing the process, save settings. Some routers need to be rebooted before the change takes effect. Next time you open LPE/WS go to Advanced > Listening ports & change from using UPnP to Manual Port Forward & add in the port number you used for your router. Sample image here.

You might already know how to port forward your router or have an instruction booklet. You can find instructions here (for Windows but the OSX version should be similar.) Find the brand, then model (ignore the advertisement page just pass through it / close it.) Setting up a Static address would be the first thing you'd do. I made the error of not doing this and my network address would change & the port forward wouldn't work on those occasions. Network address will either start with 10. or 192. and the last number .1 is usually the router's address with your computer's network address anywhere between .2 to .255.

For WireShare it has a backup bootstrap system. So if the program finds there's no connection file it will re-download a fresh one. I'm wondering if this process is being blocked by your system somehow.


On that other side-topic about LimeStart & the reference it uses, I had mentioned to Bigjx before the first OSX release of WS that perhaps we should change this so it's different to LW. But my vague understanding from his reply was it's heavily embedded within the code (thus very difficult to change.)