Lein REPL always shows Connection Refused - clojure

Question

I've been trying to get Leiningen to work on my Mac. However whenever I run "lein repl" I get the following response:
localhost:~ KJ$ lein repl
Exception in thread "Thread-4" java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused
at java.net.PlainSocketImpl.socketConnect(Native Method)
at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.doConnect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:345)
at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connectToAddress(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:206)
at java.net.AbstractPlainSocketImpl.connect(AbstractPlainSocketImpl.java:188)
at java.net.SocksSocketImpl.connect(SocksSocketImpl.java:392)
at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:589)
at java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:538)
at java.net.Socket.<init>(Socket.java:434)
at java.net.Socket.<init>(Socket.java:211)
at clojure.tools.nrepl$connect.doInvoke(nrepl.clj:184)
at clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:421)
at clojure.tools.nrepl.ack$send_ack.invoke(ack.clj:47)
at clojure.tools.nrepl.server$start_server.doInvoke(server.clj:146)
at clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:619)
at user$eval553.invoke(NO_SOURCE_FILE:0)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.eval(Compiler.java:6619)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.eval(Compiler.java:6609)
at clojure.lang.Compiler.eval(Compiler.java:6582)
at clojure.core$eval.invoke(core.clj:2852)
at leiningen.core.eval$fn__3577.invoke(eval.clj:304)
at clojure.lang.MultiFn.invoke(MultiFn.java:231)
at leiningen.core.eval$eval_in_project.invoke(eval.clj:326)
at clojure.lang.AFn.applyToHelper(AFn.java:167)
at clojure.lang.AFn.applyTo(AFn.java:151)
at clojure.core$apply.invoke(core.clj:619)
at leiningen.repl$server$fn__7443.invoke(repl.clj:201)
at clojure.lang.AFn.applyToHelper(AFn.java:159)
at clojure.lang.AFn.applyTo(AFn.java:151)
at clojure.core$apply.invoke(core.clj:617)
at clojure.core$with_bindings_STAR_.doInvoke(core.clj:1788)
at clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:425)
at clojure.lang.AFn.applyToHelper(AFn.java:163)
at clojure.lang.RestFn.applyTo(RestFn.java:132)
at clojure.core$apply.invoke(core.clj:621)
at clojure.core$bound_fn_STAR_$fn__4102.doInvoke(core.clj:1810)
at clojure.lang.RestFn.invoke(RestFn.java:397)
at clojure.lang.AFn.run(AFn.java:24)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Right now I'm running Leiningen 2.3.4 with Java 1.8. I have also tried with Leiningen 2.4.3 and gotten the same result. I found this issue here and that seems to be the issue, but it says it's solved in 2.3.4. I installed 2.4.3 from the leiningen site and 2.3.4 using homebrew. One suggestion in the issue thread is to try it with wifi turned off. When I do this, the repl connects successfully but this is obviously not ideal.
Are there any workarounds for this?
Edit: I've looked around my hosts file but I'm not exactly sure what to change. Here's what it is right now:
##
# Host Database
#
# localhost is used to configure the loopback interface
# when the system is booting. Do not change this entry.
##
127.0.0.1 localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost

Answer 1

The issue I linked to above still exists for Java 1.8. I was able to solve the problem by downgrading to Java 1.7 instead.