ok, heres a strange one. I've downloaded several things and they don't show up in the "shared" folder on my mac. I can use sherlock and find them, drag them to the desktop and the appear! but if I go to the folder (shared) it says it is empty!
any ideas on what is causing this?

On why it happens, sometimes the Finder forgets to check for changes or it isn't told to check for changes when it should be.

In the LimeWire library you need to click Refresh. In the Finder it should update automatically but if it doesn't closing and reopening the window, adding something else to the empty window, or changing the view of window should get the files to show without having to use Sherlock.

nope. refresh doesn't make a difference, nor does trying to trick the system OS into rereading the window.
Limewire is hiding any type of download. whether it is in the shared folder, the temporary folder or the designated downloads folder. As an avid mac user, I can tell you this is unique to Limewire, so everything points to limewire in some way. is there anyone/way to change this?