i just downloaded limewire for the first time and i installed it and whatnot, when i try to open it, a box comes up and says that limewire cannot open because it cant connect to the internet, most commonly because there is a firewall blocking its ability to connect to the internet or "loop back connections" whatever those are. i disabled ALL of my firewalls and it still gave me this. what gives? i cant even open limewire to change the settings in there. i have also set all of my firewalls to allow limewire as a program.

any help appreciated!

Do you see the firewall icon (brick wall in front of the blue earth)? You'll find that you have trouble if you use more than 1 firewall, pick one & configure that one to allow LW.
Do this test & see what result you get
http://www3.limewire.com:6346

Modems & routers often have their own firewall... this might be what LW's detecting. Read through this, it has heaps of info about internal firewalls & fixes like enabling UPnP & port forwarding. Does your modem/router have a firewall?
Connection problems? Check here first!

If you're still stuck, post back with your details

OS(Win XP etc)
LW & Java version (help > about LW & you'll see)
Firewall you're using
Modem/router brand & model
ISP
Connection type (DSL etc)
Where you connect from (home, school etc)
Are you sharing a connection with other computers
Is this your first try with LW

I beg to differ birdy, I cant tell you why my limewire 4.12.3 works perfectly but i can tell you i use xp pro SP2, windows firewall (on), zone alarm firewall (on), trend micro pccillin 2006, windows defender,and numerous other security measures running, could it be the type of modem someone has or their ISP? I'm with Telstra and use a speedtouch 500 series modem. Until joining the forum yesterday i thought everybody was doing the same as me.
From what i've read i was dissapointed to find so many people having difficulties. I wish i could offer some help.

It's great that your set up works well Makes a nice change from hearing that people are having problems. If you're happy with running 2 firewalls, nobody's going to try to change your mind!

But there's a bit of info to suggest that using multiple firewalls can cause problems. Microsoft, ZoneAlarm, Symantec (Norton & Sygate), Kerio all strongly recommend that only one software firewall be used.
So I still think it's a good idea to suggest that a user with a firewall problem limit themselves to one only & configure it for LW. There have been several cases here where Norton's firewall has conflicted with XP's & simply disabling the XP firewall has solved the problem!

Sure, lots of probs do arise from an internal firewall within a modem/router... then we would look at enabling UPnP or port forwarding