My Limewire loads fine, and sometimes has a great connection but for the most part the connection is terrible. On the bottom left side of my screen, where it says the downloading speed, it is usually at 0....it does pop up to 15 for the odd minute. I had this problem when I purchased the 'Pro' version as well. Limewires responce was basically thats just the way it is. Glad I'm not paying for it anymore but there must be a way to download songs off a downloading site??????!
My firewall is not on, and it does connect for very brief periods sometimes.

The download speed depends on many things. Your own connection speed (dial-up, cable adsl,etc,), the connection speed of the file hosts, the number of hosts in general, sometimes your ISP (if they throttle the download speed at certain times).
You could try to test download a file from magnet to see how fats you can download from there:
http://www.magnetmix.com/video.shtml

When you've done so, get back here and post the results.
And try to have already prepared answers to following questions:

1. OS version? (eg: Windows 98)
2. What firewalls you have?
3. How much ram?
4. Hard Disk space available?
5. Connection type? (eg: dialup, broadband, cable, etc.)
6. Modem & router brand name & model numbers?
7. Where are you trying to connect from (home, school, work, etc.)?
8. What version of Limewire (LW) & Java do you have? (Go to LW's menu Help>About LW...) Will show both LW & Java version.
9. Who is your isp provider (Internet Service Provider)?
10. Are you sharing the connection with other computers or p2p sharing programs? If yes, please give details of set up.
11. Is this a your 1st try at LW or is this a new problem with an experienced user.
12. Do this simple test for us. Using your browser go here: http://www3.limewire.com:6346/ The page should say 'Your test worked!'. What happens when you go there?

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"Never Argue With An Idiot. They Will Drag You Down To Their Level, Then Beat You With Experience"

OS version? (eg: Windows 98)WINDOWS XP
2. What firewalls you have?NORTON (it is turned off)
3. How much ram?512
4. Hard Disk space available?82%
5. Connection type? (eg: dialup, broadband, cable, etc.)CABLE
6. Modem & router brand name & model numbers?NETGEAR WIRELESS
7. Where are you trying to connect from (home, school, work, etc.)?HOME
8. What version of Limewire (LW) & Java do you have? (Go to LW's menu Help>About LW...) Will show both LW & Java version.ALL UPDATED4.10.9 & 1.5.0_06
9. Who is your isp provider (Internet Service Provider)?SHAW
10. Are you sharing the connection with other computers or p2p sharing programs? If yes, please give details of set up.NO
11. Is this a your 1st try at LW or is this a new problem with an experienced user.I HAVE HAD THIS BEFORE<SAME PROBLEM
12. Do this simple test for us. Using your browser go here: http://www3.limewire.com:6346/ The page should say 'Your test worked!'. What happens when you go there?SAYS'YOUR TEST WORKED' IN 2 SECONDS
Any other ideas? I'm stumped

Well, yes......look at the post No.6 from LOTR,.....there is your ISP mentioned:
http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=33712

And here a nice description from another site:

"Canadian ISP blocking iTunes store/podcasts?
A reader writes, "A very short thread on Apple's website notes that Rogers/Shaw ISPs in Canada are blocking podcast downloads because of a policy against multiple downloads."

Over the past month Rogers (ISP) in Canada has put some software on their networks that prevents activity for BitTorrents, P2P, IRC, and also along with that is a rule that if you are trying to download a large media file from more then 1 server it will be dropped. When you download a Podcast from iTunes it downloads that file from multiple servers in the background (I confirmed this by watching my cable modem logs). As soon as it tries to use more than 2 different servers for the download, it just stops. That's the reason why Podcast downloads stop at random places - it's the point where a 2nd server is involved in the download. The same issue causes timeouts and cut-offs in the iTunes music store. "

So, you might want to try switching to a higher port (normally LW listens to port 6346), such as 64049, or 47058 go to LW's menu bar, Tools>Options>Advanced>Firewalls & change the Listening port to one between 49152 - 65535.

__________________

"Never Argue With An Idiot. They Will Drag You Down To Their Level, Then Beat You With Experience"

Just curious but you said Who were you paying for it. LimeWire Pro cost $18.88 for pro and 6 months of free upgrades. If you paid any more than that you were scammed. As for your problem your ISP may be blocking or filtering P2P traffic. But your NETGEAR WIRELESS may also have a firewall in it most wireless do. What is the model # of your netgear.

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A little common sense goes a long way

Later Grandpa

Thanks for the info on Shaw......it makes the most sense....when I watch the part that says how many I'm downloading from I can see that it stops or completely slows when it's more than 1.
Grandpa-It was $18.00 I payed but never renewed because I couldn't get anything downloaded and LW didn't have any advice when I emailed them. In fact I haven't touched my LW for several months since.
Thank you! for your time Foolofthehill, it's so nice to have a direction to fixing this problem.

You know what helps... Getting a better internet like High Speed Cable/DSL... That usually helps