deleting the pref file worked! but i'm not sure how long this is gonna last. i followed the "connection problem" link on LW and changed the firewalls settings for gnutella network and that worked for that one time too. and after that, it just wont connect again till i tried this method. i'm just worried that this problem might recur. i don't want to be deleting my pref file everytime i want to connect. another prob would be files that were incomplete wont be able to continue downloading if i were to turn on LW the next time.