If the view is disabled you can enable it in the "View / Enable views" menu.

It says connecting and then it timesout and then tries to connect to another and then says timeout again

Try unzipping this into "Program Files\BearShare\db" folder: connect.zip

It will preload your Bear with a lot of known-good IP addresses.
If it still doesn't work use BearDiag again and let it take you to Technutopia, where the BearShare crew went after Free Peers had shut down.

i cant find the DB file for anything can you show me where.... I have Vista

its not a db file...its a folder in the directory that Aaron gives...

I've found that patiently waiting to get connected works...usually I get attached to LW or Phex hosts first, then some BS users....and when I restart it goes to mainly BS connections....I also have UP mode forced

I have tried that and it gives me an error message

Tried what, and what was the error message?

just trying to connect and it opens the error message of connection issues and gives me the avalibilty of going to the bearshare website

So, after downloading connect.zip and putting those files in the db folder it still can't find hosts?

You don't appear to be firewalled and the connect.txt file you started with is so old
that none of the hosts in it are valid anymore. That's why you need the new one.

i dont know where to download that zip file