I would also like to say thanks to you ,Psy, for at least initiating a dialogue with me. You seem to be reasonably conversant with the software etc. I'll toast you tomorrow!

Hey mate, it's my fiftieth birthday tomorrow, so i'm assuming I have seniority in age at least! The hand holding I can agree with! There does seem to be a lack of straightforward troubleshooting faqs for this, and the ones that do, require a certain level of knowledge that appears to me to be out of the reach of non techheads. It is not  question of panicking, but a frustration at the lack of clear guidance. My wallet seems to have resolved itself after removing the dat files recommended, but I did have to manually download the blockchain, which, incidentally I found out for myself-no hand holding needed! I would still like to know why the wallet froze, and what the optimum settings in the preferences are?

How do I do that? I have a green tick on the bottom right of the wallet, three bars coloured, the small one red, next two yellow, and the fourth colourless. Is there anywhere with an explanation of the icons used? Where do I find if I have eight connections?
It seems to me that if you want to attract more people to use this system you need to create something simple enough for non tech heads to use. I understand that each case has many variables, but there has to be more troubleshooting guides than there appear to be. In fact on the bitcoin org download site you are just referred to a forum for any queries, no faq sheets etc. Bitcoin, from the outside, appears to have a very elitist culture. Just sayin' !

I downloaded the block chain successfully using http, and the payments showed up in my wallet, so the problem must be that my wallet will not connect unless using http. Is this correct? I have a very fast connection for my laptop 1.1gb took approximately 3 minutes. But if I have to download 1gb every time i want to check do a transaction my hard drive will be filling up pretty quickly!

I don't have a firewall running at all. I have removed the dat files recommended by the wiki and am re-synchronizing. This however is taking much longer than the first time. This is proving to be more than troublesome and is making me wary of bitcoin. I understand it is in its infancy, but with given my limited experience, it is proving to be untested, unstable, and a sure way to lose money. It is difficult to get correct information, and the forums are proving unhelpful. Whilst my questions have had a lot of views, they have also had very few replies, which tells me that there is not a lot of knowledge out there!

My wallet is not connecting and downloading the bitcoins I purchased. I trashed the two files recommended in the wiki, to restart synchronization, but no change in status. What else can I do? I have backed up the wallet as it now stands onto a USB. What else can I go to connect?

I have tried that already, closing down the computer, and restarting-no joy at all. I think i am going to have to remove the old wallet and reinstall. Do you know if I can manually input the original address into the new wallet?

Bitcoins I purchased are not being accepted by my wallet. If I take copy the address that the coins were sent to, then trash the faulty wallet, and reinstall a new download, can I manually input the old address to lodge the coins?

I have tried to remove the blk10000dat file and the blkindexfile, and noticed that these icons had the vlc cone on them. What is going on? I'm using a mac by the way.

I purchased some bitcoins and have tracked them using block explorer, where they appear to at the address I gave for my wallet. However it is nearly 7 hours and nothing has been lodged yet.
In the bottom right hand corner of the wallet window there is an icon of two computer screens with a red circle with a white cross through it.
I was able to send o.oo5 bitcoins to instawallet with no problem. How do i resolve this?

I would appreciate any help at all!

Thanks!! Did everything you said, and it worked a treat! 

Nada, nothing. I waited maybe 15 minutes, it seemed to freeze the processor. I really don't know what to do- I stripped out all relevant docs, the re-downloaded and installed- same thing.

New to this, so it is definitely something I am doing wrong- I downloaded the latest version of bitcoin for mac and the wallet will not open, All i get is the dreaded pizza wheel of death after the wallet icon appears mid-screen, and then nothing. The laptop freezes and I have to manually shut down the machine. I'm on an oldish macbook 2008 and using Mac OSX 10.6.8 . The bitcoin programme/ dmg is the latest Bitcoin 0.5.3. I really do not know what to do now. Can you help me? What other information do you need?