I have been having connection and staking issues for about a week, think I have it sorted out now, here's what I did.

First, I have these nodes in my zimstake.conf
addnode=74.255.67.180
addnode=74.255.67.181
addnode=74.255.67.182

Second, add this line to the zimstake.conf, it will disable staking until you get sync'd and get a few more nodes to show up.

staking=0

After you get sync'd, and more connections - maybe 15 minutes, turn staking back on by editing that line to

staking=1

save the conf file, close the wallet and re-open.  You should still be sync'd, still have the connections, and staking will begin within a few minutes.

Leave that line in the conf file and change back and forth as needed, this is working for me, hope it helps.