Until you have actually connected, you don't know whether it is an ultrapeer or not. It shows up as a regular client while it tries to contact the client.

I don't /think/ that LimeWire is tied to any of the advertising - but I don't know for certain - I registered from the beginning.

Quite often LimeWire will go through a whole series of clients looking for an ultrapeer to connect to. Each ultrapeer allows only a limited number of Leaves, so if all the ultrapeers in your area are full of Leaves you will have trouble finding an Ultrapeer to connect to.

Also, if you have a poor connection (sometimes my bandwidth for LimeWire drops way down due to my ISP messing around or me doing other stuff at the same time) then you'll be dropped by your current ultrapeers (presumably due to timeouts or too much bounced/dropped traffic) and have to find a new set.

I assume that you have turned yourself off as an ultrapeer?

Options|Speed|Disable Ultrapeer

What version of LimeWire are you using?

I suspect the problem might be down to an unstable internet connection. Look for some network monitoring tools to monitor your traffic - see if you can sustain throughput (up and down) to other locations.

Mark