thanks berkley for your quick advice.
i'm not in 'offline mode', the box is not ticked.
also, i can't find a /dbdata folder on my phone. the closest is /data/data/menion.android.locus/databases which contains webview.db and webviewCache.db
(i also have /data/data/menion.android.locus.pro/databases folder for my pro copy - i don't want to uninstall this one yet)
anyway, i uninstalled locus free, deleted the above folder, rebooted, reinstalled - and now i get 'connection failed' for all the maps on locus free 1.5.1, at any zoom setting - even though i do have a good wifi connection.
*edit* sorry, i am stupid! i recently installed the droidwall firewall, and forgot to allow access to both versions of locus. :oops: