BTC "Not Connected"

[MCNARS]

Hey everyone. I click Generate Bitcoins and it shows "Not Connected" in the status bar. I just installed it about 30 minutes ago, is this something normal or something to fix?

Yes I have forwarded port 8333 as recommended on the site to connect to more nodes.

[Mahkul]

Did you get to download any blocks?

[MCNARS]

I don't believe so. how do I download blocks?

[BitLex]

your bitcoin-client downloads the blocks as soon as you are connected.
on your screenshot, you are not connected to any other nodes (statusbar: (not connected) 0 connections) and dont have any blocks (0 blocks) downloaded.

your client will not start generating until it has downloaded all blocks (currently 97239).

i'm not sure why you are not connected, seems something is still blocking bitcoin-connections (firewall/router).
you might wanna try to connect through TOR to walkaround some fences.

[Mahkul]

Exactly. Does your firewall block any outgoing traffic on certain ports?

[theymos]

Are you running Microsoft Security Essentials? You need to add an exception for Bitcoin in that case.

[bober182]

Or any firewall for that matter.