Once the Comm Server crashes, DmD is hung. Open up Task Manager and kill DmDesigner.exe and CSMainDm.exe if present.
Apparently there is something ugly happening in the Comm Server when the socket isn't really there, but acts like it is. We have heard about it, and would like to fix it, but aren't entirely sure what is happening or how to duplicate. I'd wager that it is a pretty simple fix once we can dupe it. If you can give us specifics, we can try to get the appropriate VPN hardware in here to dupe.