what sort of connection do you have? Do you have a firewall installed? What version of Java are you using?

if you are behind a firewall, you need to open port 6346 on both sides, to facilitate limewire (and most gnutella) traffic. or just place your pc's ip in the router's DMZ for full net exposure if you are using things besides a gnutella client.

If you are on dialup, see if your isp blocks that sort of bandwidth traffic from his dialup users.

be sure you have updated to the most recent java 2 from sun microsystems 1.4 is the version now ....

If you could provide more 411 more could be given for your 911.