An easy fix for those with connection issues

[oceans11]

For those of you who have tried everything including the uninstalling, deleting, reinstalling, deleting preference folder, port forwarding, etc. and nothing seems to work, the problem might point right back at your computer's firewalls.

Make sure you are aware of all the firewalls you computer may have which includes ones from:
1. antivirus programs
2. operating systems such as Vista
3. ISP (the one most often overlooked which can be accessed through your gateway IP address if you use a dsl gateway or router which is the small flat box with the blinking LEDs connected to your phonejack.)

For those of you who have dsl connection or use wireless dsl connection from a router, pay close attention. Your dsl service provider's installation software might have another firewall built in that you didn't know about, in addition to the antivirus firewall that came with your computer or programs you later installed yourself. This is what other threads mean when they refer to firewalls of ISPs or ISPs not allowing limewire p2p or peer to peer connections.

What solved my connection issue with Limewire was configuring a third firewall from came with my ISP's(internet service provider) internet setup software. I discovered the firewall while trying to portforward. Even port forward didn't solve me connection problem until I lowered the firewall. I use a dsl wireless connection for my laptop. In addition to my window vista and mcafee antivirus firewall which I granted Limewire full access but still no connection, I didn't/later realized that my wireless dsl gateway/router has a THIRD firewall that was causing the problem. This firewall can only be accessed or changed through your gateway/router ip address. After lowering the "firewall settings" from medium to low protection, I was finally able to connect. Since I already had 2 firewalls from vista and mcafee running, lowering the third firewall's protection didn't bother me.

To access your dsl or wireless gateway/router, you need to know what your gateway's address is.

Open internet explorer or your browser and on the address bar, type in http://175.259.6.7 for example, or whatever your router's address is. If you don't know what your gateway's address is:

1. click on start on the toolbar,
2. click run, then after the "open" command, type in "cmd" and press enter. A black window will appear.
3. After the blinking curser type in "ipconfig", look for your "default gateway" address among the lines of jargon, it should be 7 digits in this format "xxx.xxx.x.x"

Type this 7 digit in your browser's address bar and press enter, your router's menu or "Gateway" will show up. Look to see if you can find a tab or option that says "firewall". If you can find one, click on it. You might be prompted to type in username and password. The default username is "admin" and default password is "password" unless someone changed it. This may be the other firewall in hiding thats been eluding you and keeping Limewire from connecting. Try playing with different protection levels to see which ones will allow Limewire to connect. If lowering it allows Limewire to connect and raising it back to its previous or higher levels doesn't, then it is a firewall issue that you missed in the first place.

Please let me know if this does the trick for anyone out there. thanks.

Ocean


Update (something not related to limewire)
in the past, i always had trouble logging on to yahoo games or it would only work intermittently, i couldnt log on to the game servers and the java applet would never load. Now after lowering the gateway's firewall, to my surprise, yahoo games also work now. just another pointer for people to try if they also had trouble logging on to other game servers.