I get mails from people asking me how to use Telnet ...
Now for the last time :

Go to the Start Menu > Press "Run" > Type telnet router4.limewire.com 6346 > Press "OK"

Example (Dutch Windows XP) :


After you pressed "OK" you should get a window saying "GNUTELLA OK" .

Example (Dutch Windows XP) :


If you get this and you can't connect with LimeWire something else is wrong .
If you get something else or the Telnet window closes instantly port 6346 is blocked and you're scrued .

In most cases this will mean that the public gnutella pong caches are blocked by your ISP. You can still try connecting by copying another person's gnutella.net file into your LimeWire directory (usually c:\program files\limewire).

My gnutella.net file can be downloaded most of the time here:
ftp://whitedragon.dyndns.org/gnutella.net

Once you got a gnutella.net file, LimeWire will connect without connecting to router.limewire.com while there are still any working ip address in your gnutella.net file.

Everytime you run LimeWire, new verified addresses will be added to your gnutella.net file automatically.

But then every time you shut down that list expires ...
So if a guy quits for a week the list is expired .

Not necessarily (LimeWire devs are working on making the gnutella.net file more reliable, - even if you were disconnected for a longer time) but even as it is now, you have a good chance that one of the 500 addresses in the gnutella.net file has a static IP and is online when you try to connect.

But anyway, you can always get a new gnutella.net.

Internal Host Caches (gnutella.net files) do not expire after a week, they still work even months after the last use. they even work better now, 'cause most of the stored ips are ultrapeers which have a longer uptime than regular gnutella nodes. i don't remember the exact numbers, but some guy on the GDF once proved mathematically that with 1,000 stored IPs you have about a 90% chance to connect even after a year, and a 97% chance with 10,000 stored IPs...well, i'm not sure how accurate these numbers are, it's been a long time ago, but yet you have a very good chance to connect without central pong caches...