Ive been using limewire for a few weeks now and this problem just popped up yesterday. I have looked at other posts and tried some solutions, but none of them seem to work. Well here's my problem, whenever I startup limewire the whole screen turns black, and then it comes back and the limewire window is up and its just grey, it says its connected, but I can not do anything. I live in a college dorm, but it connects and is just not running so I dont think that has anything to do with it. Im running limewire 4.0.8, and the latest version of java. If someone could help me out that would be great, thanks.

try it on other computers does it do the same thing? most importatly, can the other computers connect.
try going to view, apply skin, and click default theme.

as of right now i cant check to see if any other of the computers are working, but i would try to change the skin, but none of the menus or anything is visable, the whole program is just grey, its almost as if its not responding, but I think it is.

did you restart the program?

yea, and every time I do the whole screen turns black then the program comes up with no word in the tip of the day and the program window completely gray.

why didn't I think of it before.. do you have the latest java?
if not go to http://www.java.com/en/download/windows_xpi.jsp
you need java to properly run limewire
tell me if it worked

didnt work, I already had the latest version of java, but I installed it again, and nothing. It seems like it wants to work, I can click on the shop botton, if I can find it, and it opens the shop window, but nothing else.

wait, it works, but it takes forever to load. I guess that was the problem, now my problem is getting it to load faster.

did you download it from limewire.com?
run an anti virus and maybe adware removers. ad-aware, spybot and spysweeper are pretty good
I think you might have a virus or spyware which slows down your system