Originally posted by Bjoern PB Staff:
As someone brought the cd-key issue up again, I need to adress it.

The 'invalid cdkey', 'mistyped cdkey?' and 'client_unknown_to_auth' messages are not PB-related issues. id Software updated and turned on the master cdkey auth server after the 1.32 patch. As PB was added with 1.32, everyone seems to believe it's due to PB.

I'll give you some help here none the less, as we've been doing a lot of testing with players to get their Q3 to run.

Some players report that deleting the q3key file from the various folders where the game is installed will fix the problem after they re-enter their cdkey one more time. Others say that connecting to servers inside the game instead of using an external game browser such as gamespy or all-seeing-eye will fix the problem.

Sometimes the file holding the cdkey can get corrupted and can cause this problem. In working with other players, we have found that the following fixes this problem:

1) Exit the game
2) Use your windows explorer to browse to the directory where Quake3 is installed
3) Then browse into the 'baseq3' subdirectory
4) Delete the file called 'q3key'
5) Then launch Quake3 from the original Quake3 icon or start | programs menu (i.e. don't launch into a mod or by using GameSpy, etc.)
6) It should at this point ask you for your cdkey, you should re-enter your original 16 character cdkey at this point and exit the game. Be sure to enter the 16 character cdkey on your quake3 cd-case in all lower case letters (e.g. enter 'a' and NOT 'A' from your cd-key). NOTE: If your cdkey has 18 characters, then you are not finding the right key. Team Arena keys have 18 characters, Quake3 keys have 16.

If this does not fix the problem, then perhaps there is some type of firewall or security software blocking your game's communication to id's cdkey auth server. Be sure that UDP port 27952 is open for clear communication if you have a firewall or some type of security software.

Also, we have heard from some players that entering '/timescale 100' into the console when this happens solves the problem immediately for them.

This should fix your problem.