Hello all, I tried to find this issue for the last 24 hours, however...at this point I just needed to post...please bear with me.
I saw that there was a LW v5, so I thought I would give it a go, after not finding what I needed and/or liked, i reverted back to v4.18. It seems though when I boot LW, I see that the firewall shows on the globe in the tray, but after 1 or 2 minutes, it disappears, I still see searches, and was able to download myself, and at this point I have two firewalls running, and running test to see if the rest of my settings are good....I have gone to options to ensure the firewall option was 'ticked' rebooted a few times, but it still disappears...just another sense of "safety" I assume...is there a fix?
Thanks in advanced for any assistance in the matter.
Peace
G

Not seeing the firewall icon/ showing as behind a firewall is a good thing

If you don't show as being behind a firewall, it doesn't mean that you don't have a firewall in place & it doesn't mean that your computer isn't protected - it just means that LW isn't detecting a firewall that's not configured properly.

I have a software firewall & also a firewall within my router but I've allowed LW through my software firewall & set up port forwarding for my router... my computer's protected but my firewalls aren't interfering with LW. So LW doesn't show me as being behind a firewall.

But it's not a good idea to run 2 software firewalls at once - chances are that they'll conflict with each other & neither one will work properly.
So my advice would be to disable one

Can we have 2 Firewall - SWI Forums
Multiple Firewalls - dslreports.com

Thank you Birdy for the quick response...couldn't get on the site for a minute there.
I have turned off the second firewall, like you I do have the one on the router, plus I keep one on the laptop...those I leave on as normal.

Is the problem still persisting? If turning the 2nd firewall didn't fix it, then my guess is it is slow for your router's UPnP kicking into action. Perhaps due to too many incomplete files? When you first open LW, all your incomplete files will attempt to connect. This can affect the communication between LW & your router with sending a request to open a port for it.

I've experienced the firewall icon showing initially sometimes when I open LW. Also sometimes after a very long session (several days) of heavy uploading & downloading the firewall icon appears despite multiple people uploading from me.

Hi Lord of the Rings, the firewall pops up when LW turns on, I see all of the files load, when they finish loading, firewall disappears from globe.
I guess I kinda got use to it being there, from prior to me reinstalling LW 4.18. I am having no problems up/downloading.....so at this point I assume things are just fine.....I ran a stealth scan, and it's showing all in order...

Yeah .. probably just slow .. many shares & incompletes can slow it down. If it disappears within a few mins then nothing to worry about.