Limewire won't start up for me

[chrisa380]

Hi guys, I'm a bit of a novice so please excuse my lack of computer knowledge. I've been running Limewire Pro 4.12.11 with no problems, but recently I get an error message saying that I either have lost internet connection or my firewall is blocking it, and I know niether of these to be so.
So can I reconfigure Limewire, do I have to start again?? I have checked my firewall settings and Limewire is allowed, and nothing is showing up in my Anti-virus.
Can anyone help????????????

[birdy]

Delete LW's preferences folder when LW's properly closed. See point 3 here & also point 2 if you've used older versions of LW in the past (there could be a folder in either location).
Fixes for LimeWire
This will change all of your settings within options, you'll have to go back through afterwards & reset things. If you're not sure of your settings, go through LW's tools > options & write them all down, so that you can reset things later.

Have you recently updated Java? Some people have had connection problems with the latest Java updates. You can either try updating to the newest version here (I have this one & LW's working fine): Java SE Downloads
or try this older version, which has worked well for lots of people: Archive: Download Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (J2SE) 5.0 Update 11
Whichever Java version you use, download the JRE offline installer & remove any other Java versions before installing another one.

If you update to the latest Java & still have a connection problem, try the older version

If none of that helps, please give us your details.
System details - help us to help you -> Provide these details when you post!!!

[chrisa380]

Thanks for your help, I tried a few things, not really sure exactly what I did ( like I said I'm not exactly an I.T. expert ) but what ever I did it's back working again, I actually think it was the Java updates that messed it up, without wanting to sound like a complete idiot can you tell me ( in baby talk ) what does "Java" actually do??

Once again thanks for your help

[birdy]

Java's a programming language, LW's written in Java.

Java (programming language) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
WWW FAQs: What is Java?

The JRE (Java Runtime Environment) that we tell people to download is software that allows a computer to run a Java application (like LW)