A while ago, acdb stopped downloading CD informations for me.  I have only just
got round
to investigating why this might have happened.

It appears that when IDs are requested from CDDB, the client has to send a
string
identifying which client it is.  acdb was sending the string "acdb 1.0".  The
server was
responding with "unauthorised client".  It appears that if you want to access
the server,
you are basically forced to register your product with Gracenote.

With a bit of low-level hex editing, I changed acdb so it masquerades as a
different client.
It now works again.

PATCHING ACDB 1.1
Simply run the supplied installer script, and point it towards the directory
which contains
the acdb executable.  It will rename your existing acdb program as acdb_old
before doing
anything, so if acdb refuses to run afterwards, the patch probably hasn't run. 
The patched
version has the version number bumped to 1.2, in order to tell the difference.
If it doesn't patch, you may need to copy gpatch from this archive into c:. 
Ensure you are
patching acdb 1.1, it won't work on any other version.

You may also need to change the server in the tooltypes to us.cddb.com, as
www.cddb.com
no longer works.  Note that addb_hosts is not patched and no longer works.

BONUS TRACK
I have included a small ARexx script called "Download CDID", which is intended
to be used
with ACDPlay.  It is ridiculously simple, but you wil need to edit it to point
to the
correct path for acdb.  Running it simply downloads the ID for the CD you have
in your
CD-ROM drive.

DISCLAIMER
I accept no responsibility for any damage or loss of data caused by the patched
version of
acdb or the isntaller script.  gpatch and the original version of acdb are not
the
responsibility of the author of this patch.  This patch is not by or official
endorsed by
the author of acdb - All use is at your own risk.

 PERMSSN    UID  GID    PACKED    SIZE  RATIO     CRC       STAMP          NAME
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
[generic]                 1837    2802  65.6% -lh5- cfe7 Apr 28  2001 Programming/Projects/acdb_patch.info
[generic]                  131     139  94.2% -lh5- ec85 Apr 28  2001 Programming/Projects/acdb_patch/acdb_patch
[generic]                 1114    2126  52.4% -lh5- 6ba8 Apr 28  2001 Programming/Projects/acdb_patch/acdb_pch.readme
[generic]                 1464    2579  56.8% -lh5- f95f Apr 28  2001 Programming/Projects/acdb_patch/acdb_pch.readme.info
[generic]                  135     171  78.9% -lh5- 3895 Nov  4  1999 Programming/Projects/acdb_patch/Download CDID
[generic]                11393   18480  61.7% -lh5- c9f1 Nov 18  1998 Programming/Projects/acdb_patch/GPatch
[generic]                  406    1081  37.6% -lh5- 569f Apr 28  2001 Programming/Projects/acdb_patch/install
[generic]                 1606    2236  71.8% -lh5- 6070 Apr 28  2001 Programming/Projects/acdb_patch/install.info
---------- ----------- ------- ------- ------ ---------- ------------ -------------
 Total         8 files   18086   29614  61.1%            Apr 29  2001