Yes, it is frustrating when LW can't find Ultrapeers to accept your connection, and worse figuring out why they won't (I know--I spent six months before discovering my ISP had been using equipment and software to control filesharing. All is good now thanks to the help I got here.)

Anyway, once you get the green light, you can type in searches, hit the search button, which will send requests to the connected Ultapeers and passed on from there. If your Connections Pane just endlessly shows attempts to connect to a list of IP numbers and little else, then your connection attempts are being blocked somehow. Might be your setup, or a block futher upstream. Post your details and someone might have a similar setup and know an easy fix.

If the IP's connect and start displaying info, but don't last long, yor connection attempts are going through, but not being accepted. The easiest way to hope for better connections is to share about 100 or more popular files.

Sorry if that sound wishy-wash. Specifics always help get more specific answers.