I have exactly the same problem. My connection is on, Lime Wire is on, other users are abble to download from my machine, but when I press the search button, nothing happen except that my text for research is cleared off.
I'm running Lime Wire 3.5.8 on OS-X Panther.
I should maybe add that the same problem started a few weeks ago but only occasionaly. Now it impedes me to lauch any search at all!
Please Help!
Quentin