The reason it talks to content paradise is simply to ask CP what the search criteria are. For example, you can search by vendor, among other things. The exact set of search parameters is retrieved from CP itself, and used to populate the search tab controls. Of course, if you have no connection to the net, then you can't search CP, and so you couldn't care less that the GUI doesn't know how to perform such a search, since it isn't possible anyway.

It was designed this way for a very good reason. Suppose the people who maintain CP want to introduce a new way to search. They can do so without asking me to change the library GUI. The library GUI search criteria are completely under the control of the CP administrators and programmers, so they don't have to ask me to change the library GUI if they decide to change how you can search CP.

Also, the same library GUI is now used in Anime Studio. It, too, can search CP for Anime Studio content, and applies the same kind of logic to deciding how to perform a search. The ability to use the same library GUI in all of Smith Micro's graphics products (not just Poser) was one of the design goals. In particular, it was a very prominent driver of the requirements that led to the whole thing being built in Flex. In the past, there were quite a few armchair quarterbacks who demanded to know "what bonehead decided to implement the library GUI in Flash". I was unable to answer at that time, because the plan to use it in other products was proprietary information, and I did not have the right to explain that requirement. Therefore, the whole thing seemed unjustified. I repeatedly tried to imply that there was more to it than Poser, but I could not come right out and say so. But now it's out in the open, so now you know. Anime Studio had a completely inferior content browser. Now it has a good one, and SM only has one code base to maintain for that functionality, which is a good thing with regard to software maintenance and quality.

The error message is talking about the same symptom, i.e. "I can't talk to who I'm trying to talk to", but the reason is very different from the OP error, and also different from pjz99's error. And also, who it is unable to communicate with is different. When the "who" is 127.0.0.1:11531, that's the Poser program local application server, not CP. It is reached via the internal loopback address. It does not involve a network connection, and being connected to any other computers is completely unnecessary.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)